Oregon State approves Temporary Marijuana Rules
On October 22, 2015 the Oregon State legislature passed temporary rules that will be put on the books and enforced starting January 1, 2016 and stay in effect until June 28, 2016.
I of course encourage everyone to read and review the law we will all be subscribing to as put forth by the State.
One of the first things I wanted to review were the fees associated with licensing. It appears the State felt the original $1,000 per license just wasn't enough. And yes, $1,000 is exactly the amount we approved as voters! So they increased the price to $3,750 for a Tier 1 license or $5750 for a Tier 2 license. Slight increase huh?
- (A) Producers:
(a) Tier I $3750
(b) Tier II $5750 - (B) Processors: $4750
- (C) Wholesalers: $4750
- (D) Retailers: $4750
- (E) Laboratories: $4750
And this takes me to my first concern about how the current States have gone about charging taxation and licensing fees. It's all well and good to charge a licensing fee to help fund this State program, but this increase in price is really going to make it challenging for smaller growers to get started in the industry. Why would you charge large upfront licensing fees that will hinder starting up a business? Seems to me that you could more easily apply this fee structure to the taxation side of the market! Two reasons I think this is a better approach. What I mentioned above in regards to startup fees being prohibitive, but also the mentality of the State is showing in that they would rather charge large up front licensing fees instead of incentivizing the production of Marijuana by allowing lower start up costs and just taxing the end product. I believe that it is always in the consumers best interest to have choices and this is going to limit who coming right out of the gate can afford to get started on the legal path to Marijuana production.
More to come!