Elvy Musikka moved to Oregon in 2005 to take part in the state's

and get access to what the 73-year-old Eugene woman calls "good Oregon cannabis."

But Musikka, who lives on a fixed income and uses the drug to treat glaucoma, has dropped out of the program, citing the state's decision to raise the cost of maintaining her patient card.

"I told them it would price many people out of the program," Musikka said, "and leave us with no option but to go to the black market."

Oregon lawmakers raised fees last year on medical marijuana patients in an effort to plug holes in the state budget. A year later, medical marijuana advocates say the increase was an unfair attempt to capitalize on patients who rely on the state marijuana program to treat serious ailments.

New fees went into effect

, doubling the annual cost of obtaining an Oregon medical marijuana card to $200. If patients want someone else to grow their pot, they are charged an extra $50 -- a fee that was added last year.

And if they switch growers or caregivers, or change the address where their marijuana is grown, the state charges on an additional $100, another new fee. The state, until last year, charged $10 to replace a lost or stolen card. Now that fee is $100.

Oregon lawmakers authorized the fees to raise money for a wide range of public health-related programs. The state said it collected $8.8 million in patient fees from July 2011 through July 2012.

Major allocations of that money include $1.75 million for emergency medical services, $3 million for clean drinking water programs, $1.1 million for family planning and $500,000 for school-based health centers, Oregon Health Authority data show. Other areas funded with medical marijuana dollars include statewide monitoring of trauma hospitals and a farmers market program for senior citizens.





Some medical marijuana users say they are leaving the state's medical marijuana program in the wake of a recent fee increase.



"All these things are good, but they all need to come out of the general fund, not out of a slush fund created by doubling fees on technically sick people," said Greg Byers, a medical marijuana patient in Eugene.

, the House Democratic co-chair of the

, said he supports medical marijuana but the fees were increased to address Oregon's stark "budget realities."

Higher fees also were intended to curb what some lawmakers viewed as the "rapid expansion of medical marijuana cardholders," Buckley said. According to the state's latest statistics, 56,939 patients are enrolled in the program.

"There was an argument made that if the fees were a little higher, that would perhaps dissuade people who didn't need the cards from going down that road," Buckley said.

Oregon has some of the highest fees of any state that allow medical marijuana. Some states charge nothing to be a medical marijuana cardholder. Others impose annual fees ranging from $25 to $150. New Jersey charges $200 for a card good for two years. Some states offer discounts for people receiving government aid or whose incomes fall below the poverty level.

Until last year, Oregon allowed applicants on food stamps or those on the Oregon Health Plan to pay $20 to get a medical marijuana card. Now medical marijuana applicants enrolled in those programs must pay $100 for a medical marijuana card.

The program still offers a discount to people receiving Social Security's Supplemental Security Income. Those applicants pay $20 to take part in the medical marijuana program. State officials said six percent of patients received this discount.

In all, about 40 percent of current cardholders qualified for reduced fees, according to the Oregon Health Authority.

John Sajo, an Oregon marijuana activist, said some patients spend up to $500 a year to obtain or renew their medical marijuana card.

The state, like a lot of others, is making money off of pot, he said.

"From my perspective everyone likes to make money from marijuana," Sajo said. "Growers like to make money from marijuana and legislators like to make money from marijuana. There's lots of money being made."

Byers, the patient from Eugene, uses marijuana to treat back spasms, nausea and severe pain. The 60-year-old retired auto mechanic and his wife spent $800 this year to maintain their patient status with the Oregon medical marijuana program, compared with $200 last year.

They paid $400 for both of them to register and an extra $50 for Byers to be designated as his wife's marijuana grower. Then they spent $200 to notify the state when they changed grow sites. When Byers' plants didn't produce, they had to find another grower and a new grow site, which meant paying the state another $50 to switch growers and an extra $100 to change the grow site address.

Medical Marijuana

"It's a major concern," Byers said. "I know of many people who are not registering. They are just going to risk it."

In Oregon, possession of less than an ounce of marijuana was decriminalized four decades ago. Possessing that amount is considered a noncriminal violation punishable with a $650 fine.

Musikka, the Eugene woman who quit the medical marijuana program, is in an unusual position.

She may be out of luck when it comes to legally obtaining Oregon marijuana, but she is one of a handful of Americans who continue to get an annual supply of weed from the federal government as participants in a now-defunct medical research program that was created in 1978 by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.

Musikka was blunt in her assessment of the government's marijuana, calling it "garbage." It's of such poor quality, said Musikka, that she used to mix it with marijuana cultivated by a grower in Eugene.

Musikka, who said she gets by on a $700-a-month Social Security check and is on the Oregon Health Plan, is eligible for the reduced marijuana registration fee of $100. But she said she can't afford it, so earlier this year she let her status as an Oregon medical marijuana patient lapse.

"I really did try," she said. "I sent $70 -- $20 for me and $50 for my grower, but they wanted more and I don't have it."

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