WILLIAM SIMPSON says he’s one of the fortunate ones.
His medical pot grow operation is a lot of work for little remuneration. By virtue of Oregon’s tangled rules around medicinal marijuana, he’s not allowed to turn a profit.
But Simpson has diversified. Beyond growing medical marijuana and owning the Powell House Cannabis Club pot dispensary in Foster-Powell, he sells grow lights and plant nutrients, and finances commercial loans.
“Those luckily pay well,” he says. “I get to grow for patients out of passion.”
Not all of Oregon’s medical marijuana producers have such a sweet setup. And after operating for years under state regulations that vastly limit how much pot they can grow—along with their ability to make money—an organized contingent of growers eyeballing the state’s looming market for recreational pot say the 16-year-old Oregon Medical Marijuana Program (OMMP) is finally due for change.
The only problem? The people who sold voters on last year’s pot-legalizing Measure 91 are fighting back.
“The medical marijuana program should not be an economic engine. It should be, first and foremost, about patients who use medical cannabis,” Anthony Johnson, the chief petitioner behind Measure 91, told Oregon Liquor Control Commission (OLCC) bigwigs at a January 30 hearing.
Welcome to the first civil skirmish of Oregon’s pot experiment. As lawmakers chew over a passel of bills that will shape pot policy, and as the OLCC—tasked with regulating the recreational market—makes “listening” stops around the state, one question is drawing more heat than most: Now that we’re about to enshrine pot as fun, what does it mean for people who need pot as medicine?
Right now, advocates on both sides of the debate are delivering a somewhat dour prognosis.
Growers like Simpson have banded together, hiring lobbyists and forming a political action committee that’s gifted thousands to the election funds of prominent state lawmakers since last year. The work has paid off. The group’s fondest wish is presently up for legislative consideration.
Inserted, for now, in a sweeping pot bill filed by State Representative Peter Buckley, D-Ashland, is a provision that would do away with some of the limitations foisted on growers by the current, Oregon Health Authority-led OMMP. With that tweak, medical pot growers would be licensed by the OLCC—just like recreational producers will be next year.
It’s a big jump from where things stand today.
Currently, a person interested in growing medical pot may do so only if they’re specifically designated as a grower for one of Oregon’s almost 70,000 pot patients. But not all growers know patients, just as not all patients know someone qualified to provide premium medicinal pot. This has led to a “card-matching” industry—like Tinder for quality kush—where growers pay to be paired with a cardholder. Every grower can supply up to four patients, with a limit on how much they can grow for each. And they may only charge for the cost of supplies and utilities spent growing their product. Excess pot is often sold to dispensaries.
Growers have had it with this arrangement. Since Oregon rolled out medical dispensary licenses in 2014, they say they’ve been stuck laboring under an outdated system, and yet are still somehow expected to supply a commercial medical marijuana market. With a license from the state, growers argue they’d be better able to meet patients’ needs.
And, they warn, not being able to smoothly enter the emerging, potentially lucrative recreational pot market with a state-issued license could lead producers to ditch the medical game altogether.
“It probably saves the medical program,” says Amy Margolis, a Portland attorney who’s represented pot growers for nearly two decades. “If you say we’re not going to create a commercial license for medical marijuana growers, and you say you have to pick one, I think many growers who are able to do so will say, ‘Fuck it.'”
Advocates like Johnson concede that’s possible. But that hasn’t stopped legal weed’s biggest champions from pushing back.
On February 5, Johnson’s group, New Approach Oregon, held a press conference at the headquarters of the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) of Oregon to rail against the proposed change and a handful of other bills that would, they said, pervert voters’ intent in passing Measure 91.
Putting growers under the purview of the OLCC is risky, speakers said, because it would too-closely associate medical pot with a recreational market that could always be shut down by the federal government. They worry it also might further tilt the medical system toward dispensaries and away from personal relationships with growers. David Fidanque, executive director of the ACLU of Oregon, said shifting that focus might leave behind destitute pot patients.
“We’re opposed to any changes that could hurt patients in any way,” Fidanque said. “If [fixed-income patients] are pushed into the recreational marijuana market, they’re not going to be able to get adequate access.”
The arguments and counterarguments go on and on. Growers point out nothing in their proposal eliminates or alters the medical cardholder system, and they say allowing them to make money off recreational pot might actually lead to cheaper medical product. New Approach and the ACLU acknowledge the medical and recreational systems will need to be reconciled at some point, but say it’s too soon, that the rules of Oregon’s recreational system need to be established first.
“I think these issues can be addressed in 2016 or 2017,” Johnson says.
Time won’t necessarily resolve much, though. Washington State—which has had its legal pot rules set for a while—is still in the midst of melding its two marijuana markets. The debate looks almost exactly the same as Oregon’s.
The fight here is already shifting. Buckley, the Ashland Democrat who’d proposed changes for medical growers, announced to the Mercury he’s planning “to pull the bill back entirely and start over.”
“We talked to everybody and we put together what we thought was the best combination of ideas,” said Buckley, who hadn’t yet pulled the bill as of press time. “We didn’t anticipate such a strong reaction.”
But the representative, whose campaign fund received $1,000 from the growers’ PAC last April, hasn’t given up. He plans to cleave his enormous House Bill 2676 into two separate bills—one to address Measure 91 rules, the other addressing concerns over the OMMP.
“We’re trying to figure out how to push the pieces back together,” he said. “They might be two fairly large bills.”
Look, anyone can now legally grow four plants per crop. There are some excellent strains which produce four ounces of dried flowers grown indoors in seven weeks, amounting to seven pounds per year.
Hell, you can get ten grows with from this strain:
http://en.seedfinder.eu/strain-info/Freedom_35/Dr_Greenthumb/
While the risk of getting busted would be extremely low, under no circumstances should anyone attempt to grow the legal limit of four plants at once, and ship one ounce at a time to friends out of state, who have made anonymous donations to an offshore charity that deposits the funds in a foreign trust account, accessible by debit card.
The legislators should be looking at how to merge medical marijuana with the health care system as well as with recreational marijuana. Oregon developed a complicated system where marijuana farmers subsidize the health care of some of Oregon’s poorest and sickest citizens. That expense should shift to the Oregon Health Plan which should subsidize the cost of marijuana products for some patients. Oregon also needs to do research to flesh out the best practices for using medical marijuana so Oregon doctors can advise patients on dosage and delivery methods based on sound research.
Cannabis is a non toxic herb. There is absolutely no reason for it to be either illegal, tax, or regulated. Physicians don’t know shit about drugs, anyway. It’s the pharmacists who are the experts. The physician needs to be consulted to determine the severity of a medical condition, of course, and there is plenty of sound, scientific studies to support the use of Cannabis as treatment for a wide range of maladies, and if doctors are interested, then they really ought to brush up on all that. At any rate, Cannabis is not a drug, and it is an entirely legitimate home remedy, where each individual can safely determine on their own, which strains, dosages, and delivery systems work best for themselves. All that’s needed it for legislators to end the prohibition or be voted the fuck out.
It’s interesting to note that in Humboldt County, California, the majority of voters rejected legalization, ostensibly, because that would lower the price and wreck the local economy. As a result, poor Californians have to over pay for what ought to be a dirt cheap weed.
Medical Marijuana is just a scam to institutionalize way high over priced product at the expense of those who can afford it least, and shifting it to Medicaid coverage is just more exorbitant butfucking of the middle class tax payer, otherwise known as Corporate Welfare.
Subsidizing the medical marijuana needs of some patients is both compassionate and good money management. OHP already spends the bulk of health care dollars on care for chronic pain, elderly and terminally ill patients. These are the patients who can benefit most from medical marijuana. Medical marijuana can be cheaper than the pharmaceutical alternatives.
I HAVE AN IDEA……….GET RID OF MEDICAL CANNABIS STORES, THAT IS MAKE THEM PUBLIC RETAIL STORES, AND ANY ONE WITH A MEDICAL CARD IS TAX EXEMPT ! PLUS THEY WILL GET A DISCOUNT BECAUSE OF THEIR NEED………..SIMPLE LETS BE HUMAN, NOT PROFIT MONGERS
As an aside, physicians’ prescriptions are tax deductible. Of course since the Federal Government still has so-called, “Marijuana” classified as a drug not to be prescribed, Cannabis might not qualify for a tax deduction, but you aren’t required to submit an itemized statement of prescriptions on a tax return, anyway. The real rub is that physicians won’t prescribe Cannabis, in any event. In fact, most doctors who provide recommendations for medical permits, don’t prescribe pain medication at all, in order to distance themselves from accusations of being doctor feelgoods, and BATF harassment. The solution would be to simply add the expense incurred by purchasing medical Cannabis, as a deduction as if it were prescribed. If you get audited, you simply show your medical Cannabis permit and recipes from the dispensary; close enough. Depending upon the agent who audits you, it may or may not be allowed.
If you can’t get the IRS agent loaded from the recipe, then show him the receipts.
Denis is remiss in hist duties as editor for not catching the type-Os. Good thing he got a less responsible job elsewhere, before they canned his ass, here.
Most medical growers are weasels extracting product from their patients. Right now if a grower steals all of their patient’s medicine, the patient loses everything and has the joy of paying for a new address and grower. There is no penalty for grower theft. If the growers want a free ride, and every one of them skims, there should be protection for the patient.