Oregon voters will decide this November whether to establish a state-regulated non-profit dispensary program for the state’s over 36,000 medical marijuana patients.
Measure 74 would create a system of dispensaries and licensed producers who would supply medicine to these dispensaries. The dispensaries would be non-profit, but would be reimbursed by cardholders for the costs of producing and dispensing the medicine, including labor. These dispensaries can serve any cardholder, without limits; no “caregiver” relationship is implied or required. The annual fee for a dispensary license shall be $2,000.
The producers of medical marijuana would pay an annual fee of $1,000 for the right to provide medical marijuana to the dispensaries and to be reimbursed by dispensaries for the costs of production. Producers can also, for no consideration, donate medicine to cardholders and the non-profit organizations that assist patients in need. Dispensaries can also become their own producers, and producers need not be qualified as medical marijuana patients themselves or be designated a producer by any dispensary or patient.
Both producers and dispensaries would be responsible for paying 10% of their gross revenue to the state in the form of quarterly fees. Producers and dispensaries must be owned and operated by Oregon residents and their employees age 21 or older. Employees of producers and dispensaries, as well as producers and dispensary prinicpals themselves, will be subject to criminal records checks by the state. Producers and dispensaries must also submit quarterly reports regarding their sales and donations of medicine.
Both producers and dispensaries will be subject to the same limits the Oregon Medical Marijuana Act sets for the current “person responsible for a marijuana grow site” cardholders (or “grower”) who tend to gardens for four registered patients. This means a limit of 96 cannabis plants, 24 of which may be greater than 12 inches in height or diameter (“mature”), and six pounds of dried, usable medicine.
Measure 74 explicitly protects the rights of patients, their caregivers or designated growers, to continue producing their own medicine if they choose not to use the dispensary system. Nothing prevents an individual from attaining many OMMP cards: a patient could also be a caregiver, a grower, a producer, and a dispensary owner.
Measure 74 also mandates the creation of a program to facilitate a supply of medicine for indigent patients and that the entire supply system is self-funded through program fees. Scientific research is also to be funded by the dispensary sales of marijuana to evaluate the efficacy of marijuana for medical purposes.
The last effort in Oregon to establish a dispensary system, Measure 33 in 2004, was defeated 57%-43%. That initiative, however, mandated counties to establish dispensaries if no other entity did so. Supporters of Measure 74 conclude that this requirement of government to create dispensaries and other differences, as well as the passage of time and success of the Oregon Medical Marijuana Program, will provide the added support to ensure passage in 2010.
For more information and the text of Measure 74, please visit coalitionforpatientsrights2010.com
