Medical marijuana patients worried they won’t be able to afford retail prices
Feb 20, 2014, 7:16 AM | Updated: 9:00 am
Medical marijuana patients are worried they won’t be able to afford their medicine if they have to pay the high prices at the retail stores.
The state expects to make about $190 million off marijuana over the first five years.
More than half of the money is expected to be made from sales and business taxes that will be paid at the retail shops. The rest will come from the 25 percent excise tax that is charged at every step of the way in production.
It’s those high retail taxes that has medical marijuana patients upset and concerned they won’t be able to afford their medicine.
“If this bill passes, people like me, which a buddy of mine died this morning of stage-4 cancer, we will die because we can’t afford all the taxes,” Raymond Fox told a legislative committee on Wednesday. “There’s no way.”
The state house and senate are considering bills that would eliminate collective gardens, reduce the number of plants patients can grow and create a patient registry. Lawmakers say they are trying to merge the medical and new recreational system together.
But patients say all these bills would do is force them to buy their pot from the retail stores so the state can maximize its profit.
Jerry Derker is a medical marijuana advocate. “The problem here is you’re trying to balance the budget on the backs of the poorest, dying and disabled people in the state,” he told the Senate Ways and Means Committee.
Sarah Sutton represents a large collective garden in Bellingham, a garden that would be shut down under legislation being considered.
“Cannabis is medicine,” she said. “No other medicine is taxed. We have no registry now. We do not want you wasting money on funding a registry that we don’t want to exist. Medical marijuana in Washington is fine how it is. We’ve been saying this all along. You have heard us pleading yet you don’t listen.”
Medical marijuana patients and advocates say this legislation will force them to choose between their health and becoming felons.
