Pubdate: Wed, 24 Sep 2014
Source: Baltimore Sun (MD)
Copyright: 2014 The Baltimore Sun Company
Contact:  http://www.baltimoresun.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/37
Author: Erin Cox
Page: 3

MARIJUANA PANEL SUGGESTS $125,000 GROWER FEE

License for Growing Medical Marijuana Could Shut Out Small Local Businesses

Running a medical marijuana operation could cost each grower more 
than $125,000 a year in fees, a sum so steep some officials believe 
it may shut out small businesses.

Maryland's medical marijuana commission is tentatively proposing that 
fee for each of the 15 potential growers envisioned for the state's 
new program. The panel also is recommending a $40,000-a-year charge 
for dispensaries, according to a draft plan expected to be released 
for public comment today.

Those license fees - atop as much as $6,000 in application fees - 
would finance the state's nascent medical marijuana program.

"The volume of these fees, for probably many of us, takes our breath 
away," commissioner Eric E. Sterling said at meeting in Annapolis Tuesday.

"It is simply a reflection that the General Assembly has put the 
operation of this on the growers and the dispensaries, and ultimately 
upon the patients," he said. "There is no taxpayer money, according 
to the General Assembly, that is going to finance this."

The commission plans to meet again Oct. 16, when it may take its 
final vote on the proposed regulations. That plan will be forwarded 
to state Health Secretary Dr. Joshua M. Sharfstein for review and 
then go to a panel of state lawmakers for final approval.

Staff for the state's medical marijuana commission said they estimate 
about 45,000 patients a year will apply to use medical marijuana. 
With a complicated computerized system to verify patient eligibility, 
intensive public education campaigns and a team of inspectors, 
officials expect the program to cost about $3.5 million a year.

"We are going to need bodies in the street. We're going to need 
people in the back offices," said Sharon Bloom, acting executive 
director of the commission.

But even as commissioners voted Tuesday to float the fees among other 
draft proposals, several expressed concern.

"They're high," commissioner Deborah R. Miran said. "Maybe in some 
cases, for smaller growers, smaller operations, they could be 
prohibitively high."

Attorney John A. Pica represents a coalition that wants to open a 
growing and dispensing operation in Baltimore. He said the fees 
unveiled Tuesday appeared unnecessarily high, particularly given that 
the commission anticipates issuing 15 growing licenses but expects 
less than1percent of the population to seek medical marijuana.

"The number of licenses they're issuing seems to be incongruent with 
their perceived demand," Pica said. And with high overhead costs and 
low demand, Pica said, growers might be forced to increase medical 
marijuana prices to make ends meet, which would drive patients to the 
black market.

"You have to be careful that the price isn't too high, or you invite 
the same scenario you had in Prohibition," he said.

The cost to operate a growing or dispensing business in Maryland is 
one of the last major outstanding issues the medical marijuana 
commission must decide. Each of the commission's fall meetings has 
been attended primarily by dozens of potential growers or 
dispensaries seeking information about the process.

Advocates for medical marijuana plan to host a "Maryland 
Canna-Business Seminar" in Bethesda next month for entrepreneurs to 
learn about how to launch a cannabis business.

"You've waited long enough. Maryland's medical marijuana program is 
finally here!" read fliers distributed by the Marijuana Policy 
Project at Tuesday's meeting.

State lawmakers spent years debating how to legalize medical 
marijuana in Maryland, and in 2013 passed a law that relied on 
academic centers and never got off the ground. This year, the 
legislature rewrote the law to make the program easier to administer 
and put the medical marijuana commission in charge of writing the 
rules to implement it.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom