Patients and cannabis cultivators across Oregon are dropping out of the state\u2019s medical marijuana program.<\/p>\n
The number of patients registered with the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program (OMMP<\/a>) is half what it was just a year ago. It has dropped 41 percent in the past 12 months \u2014 from 59,137 enrolled to 34,892. The number of registered growers also declined steeply, from 23,175 to 13,959 people.<\/p>\n It seems that patients are being driven out of the program by both a carrot and a stick. The positive incentive to leave the medical marijuana program is the convenience of retail sales in Oregon\u2019s legalized \u201crecreational\u201d market. The negative push out of the program is the high annual fee and general bureaucracy of the medical program.<\/p>\n Eugene-based news station\u00a0KVAL<\/a>, in a report on the trend last week, actually predicted this decline in patients could foreshadow an end to the OMMP. Kit Doyle, an Oregon entrepreneur who long-ago sold medical marijuana but recently switched to selling hemp products, told the station, \u201cMedical could officially have a gravestone.\u201d<\/p>\n Oregon was among the first states to legalize medical marijuana, with Beaver State residents voting in favor of the plant way back in 1998. The OMMP was established by the state legislature nine years later, to bring greater government regulation\u00a0to the market and license dispensaries. But in 2014, voters approved a general cannabis legalization, allowing retail sales to anyone over 21 and establishing commercial cultivation. The 2014 initiative also allows Oregonians to grow up to four plants, with no registration requirements, except where prohibited by local law.<\/p>\n Those enrolled in the OMMP can avoid sale taxes of up to 20 percent \u2014 but they must pay an\u00a0annual $200 application fee<\/a>. KVAL reports that this appears to be a key factor in the program\u2019s decline.<\/p>\n \u201cI repeatedly hear from customers,\u201d said Diana Calvert of River City Retail dispensary in Merlin, which now serves both the medical and recreational market. \u201cThey say, \u2018I let my medical card expire. It\u2019s too expensive to renew. I\u2019ll just pay the taxes.’\u201d<\/p>\n Despite the notorious glut of oversupply in Oregon since legalization, authorities earlier this year slashed the amount of cannabis that can be legally purchased under the medical program \u2014 supposedly, to stem the diversion of product to the black market.\u00a0Marijuana Business Daily<\/a>\u00a0reported in August that the Oregon Liquor Control Commission (OLCC<\/a>) reduced daily purchasing limits for OMMP cardholders to one ounce \u2014 down from the previous limit of 24 ounces.<\/p>\n The previously generous daily maximum provides some context for the\u00a0egregious case<\/a>\u00a0of Patrick Beadle, the Oregon-based musician now facing eight years in prison in Mississippi after 2.89 pounds of cannabis was found in his car,\u00a0bought legally<\/a>\u00a0through the OMMP. At 24 ounces a day, that is a very plausible quantity. But no more.<\/p>\n And \u2014 as in California \u2014 illegal cultivation and sale have paradoxically survived in the legalized system. In the latest big bust, police confiscated 800 pounds of cannabis and 50 pounds of \u201cmarijuana concentrate\u201d stashed in a rental truck headed south on U.S. Highway 97 in Deschutes County last month. It was part of a crackdown by the Central Oregon Drug Enforcement (CODE<\/a>)\u00a0team on unlicensed cultivation, as\u00a0Bend Bulletin<\/a>\u00a0reports. The seized product was supposedly headed for California.<\/p>\n Among three arrested in the operation was local resident Shaun Gutta, who was indicted on charges of \u201cunlawful possession, delivery and manufacture of marijuana.\u201d Hundreds more pounds were found at Gutta\u2019s property in La Pine. He had apparently told neighbors that he was cultivating medical marijuana. But neither the OMMP or OLCC had record of any active licenses for the address, according to court documents.<\/p>\n \u201cLaw enforcement is doing a great job of detecting and uprooting illegal activity,\u201d OLCC\u2019s Mark Pettinger told the Bend Bulletin. \u201cWe work in concert with law enforcement.\u201d<\/p>\n But this is hardly what Oregonians expected when they voted up legal cannabis in 2014. And lifting the bureaucratic hurdles might be a better way to de-incentivize the black market than phasing out the medical marijuana program.<\/p>\n TELL US,<\/b>\u00a0do you think states should have medical marijuana programs?<\/p>\n The post Oregon\u2019s Medical Marijuana Program May Be On Its Last Legs<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Patients and cannabis cultivators across Oregon are dropping out of the state\u2019s medical marijuana program. The number of patients registered with the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program (OMMP) is half what it was just a year ago. It has dropped 41 percent in the past 12 months \u2014 from 59,137 enrolledContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":190,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,6426,53,139,4318,185,2401,5306,6351],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30485"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/190"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=30485"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":30486,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/30485\/revisions\/30486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=30485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=30485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=30485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Is Oregon\u2019s Medical Program Still Relevant in the Age of Legalization?<\/h4>\n
The Persistence of the Black Market<\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: Oregon\u2019s Medical Marijuana Program May Be On Its Last Legs<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"