It’s 2016, and things are about to start getting REALLY good for cannabis enthusiasts. Sure, as of last October, those 21 and older could walk into an Oregon Medical Marijuana Program dispensary and purchase up to a quarter ounce of flower, seeds, or clones. And last year we held events where we could stand outside (or under a tent) and enjoy some twisted-up goodness. And right on to that.
Dispensaries that sell the full range of recreational adult-use cannabis products (concentrates, topicals, edibles, etc.) will be opening any day now, and parties are about to start going off where you can smoke indoors to your heart’s content. What a great time to be alive!
Sorry to be Darryl Downer, but it’s worth a closer look at when and how some of these things may come to pass—or possibly not.
When I have questions about what is up in the canna-universe, I call lawyer Amy Margolis. She heads up the Emerge Law Group (which arguably just helped complete more license applications for recreational cannabis than any other firm), and the Oregon Cannabis Association. She kindly answered my questions as she traveled down to Salem to live the dream: attending meetings in our state’s capital.
MERCURY: Earlier this month, I went to a dispensary to pick up my quarter ounce of flower, and the price jumped from $70 to $87.50! WTF is going on?
AMY MARGOLIS: As part of the agreement last session around early sales of flower to the adult-use market, the Oregon Legislature instituted a 25 percent point-of-sale tax. That tax just applies to non-medical patients, however, and dispensaries are dealing with this in a variety of different ways. Some are offering discounts or absorbing part of the tax. Remember the tax will go down between five and eight percent once the OLCC [Oregon Liquor Control Commission] begins licensing dispensaries. Think of this as a kind of temporarily inflated tax until the end of 2016.
