Nigel O'Mally

8 Reasons Why Medical Marijuana Is Still Prohibition

8/30/2019

Even as our nation experimented with the notion of a constitutional ban on liquor, there was always a medical liquor program. A physician could write a prescription for a patient to buy a pint of hard liquor for a $3 federal fee. The drugstores sold the only legal liquor for about $3-4 per pint.
But the citizen had to claim a medical disorder and a physician had to agree that the proper medicine is liquor. Even biblical texts support this as a form of medical care. One new testament apostle relayed to another prominent bishop that a traveling physician & associate has directed that the bishop regularly consume a small amount of wine, to treat a digestive disorder he'd been diagnosed with.
When Federal bans were thrown off by another vote of more than 75% of the states, Oklahoma remained constitutionally opposed to liquor and our state's first 52 years were as a completely 'dry' state.

For more than 52 years Oklahoma has also been keeping a cannabis prohibition. The fact that we carved out a medical exception recently, is just a slight nuance to that prohibition.

Why is a restoration of constitutional and natural rights being called a "recreation"?

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Nearly 200,000 Marijuana Licenses Applied For In 1st Year

8/26/2019

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At this time last year, State Health Dept Director, Tom Bates; testified to the legislature that his new Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority was expecting about 80,000 licenses to be sought by patients and businesses.
In the 12 months since, his OMMA saw that number become wildly inaccurate. 240% of that number is what really transpired.
The Board of Health (now disbanded) suggested that the population could probably be served by 50 dispensaries which should be strategically licensed around the state. There are now 3600% more than that number of granted licenses. Over 4000 commercial growers are licensed. Well over 1000 medicine processors are licensed.
As of last month, over $50 Million in fees & taxes have been collected, nearly all of it in just the past 6 months.

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Medical Marijuana Brings $50 Million In Taxes & Fees (so far)

8/23/2019

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$20,666,145 in collected state & local Excise & Sales Taxes.(so far) That's the real impact for Oklahoma govt., because the people said, "Let those suffering people have access to their medicine!"
But that's not even close to the full picture of what this has done for giving the state an infusion of new cash. The new business licenses to the OMMA brought in $17,960,000 already. The patient licenses also brought in roughly $12,000,000 (if we assume that one of every 3 applicants was on an approved govt. program which qualified for an 80% discount license fee).

Cost of running the OMMA

The Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority (OMMA) is the branch of the state Health Dept. which is statutorily tasked with managing this new program. They received a generous budget of about $8.5 million for this current fiscal year.
Sales of medicine through the end of July are now $133,329,963. Almost all of that came in the past 7 months. the State's portion of taxation on the product is 11.5%, or $15,332,745.

So the local govts. somehow got over $5 million that the statutes did not approve. It was done through a ruling from the Oklahoma Tax Commission, that the 7% tax that we voters approved, was really intended to be an unusual category of taxation known as excise tax.

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Beware of County Assessor's Marijuana Questions

8/3/2019

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The publisher of SoonerPolitics.org passed this note to several of us..

There was a mixup at a central Oklahoma county Assessor's office, according to one lawyer. The staffer was accepting a homestead exemption application from a resident. The County agent wanted to know if medical marijuana was going to be grown on the property. The applicant was told that the Oklahoma Tax Commission (OTC) required the info. After further research we found out it was likely more bad training.
I asked an old friend, Sandy Hodges who is the Wagoner County Assessor. The response was quick & clear;
"On every application since the beginning of the Homestead Exemption there is a question asking if any portion of the property is used for commercial. They should not be concerned about what commercial activity. "
So if you're wanting a residential homestead exemption, the question is not required.
If you remember, Wagoner is actively courting medical marijuana businesses in their county seat.
... But there's more...

Then my assessor friend elaborated on the new medical marijuana industry..

"The OTC Ag card application for sales tax exemption does require the applicant to name their business and/or crop and always has. Thank you for asking. What we are seeing from some of the Marijuana businesses is that they have no idea of required business reporting practices especially for Ad Valorem purposes.
Also the law was poorly written with no direction for implementing before the law came into effect."

So: If you're seeking an agricultural tax exemption for the production on your farm, you do need to state your crop production details, just like factories & wholesalers do.

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Nigel O'Mally

Nigel manages the medical research and drug policy topics at SoonerPolitics. He comes to Oklahoma with an international perspective and a background in homeopathic herbs and agrarian culture.

8 Reasons Why Medical Marijuana Is Still Prohibition

Nearly 200,000 Marijuana Licenses Applied For In 1st Year

Medical Marijuana Brings $50 Million In Taxes & Fees (so far)

Cost of running the OMMA

Beware of County Assessor's Marijuana Questions

Nigel O'Mally

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