potcochairs.JPG

Rep. Ann Lininger, D-Lake Oswego, left, and Sen. Ginny Burdick, D-Portland, talk Monday before a meeting of the House-Senate Committee on Implementing Measure 91, which they co-chair.

(Jeff Mapes|The Oregonian)

SALEM--Oregon legislators on Monday unveiled a proposed retail sales tax for marijuana that would replace the harvest tax approved by voters.

The proposed sales tax was one of the major provisions included in a new 104-page amendment aimed at implementing the marijuana legalization initiative approved last November by voters.

There were also two other key developments Monday as legislators continued to work on marijuana legislation:

--Sen. Floyd Prozanski, D-Eugene, said he's working on a proposal to temporarily start recreational marijuana sales by medical marijuana facilities starting Oct. 1.

Sen. Ted Ferrioli, R-John Day, has pushed to start temporary sales on July 1 after expressing frustration that the Oregon Liquor Control Commission -- which is charged under the Measure 91 marijuana initiative with regulating recreational sales of the drug - says it probably won't be able to have licensed retailers up and running until the fall of 2016.

--A separate Senate panel approved a major rewrite of the state laws governing medical marijuana, but it doesn't appear there's any quick resolution of the dispute with the House over how much power to give localities to ban medical marijuana dispensaries.

The sales-tax proposal didn't include any specified percentage. Legislators said staffers are still trying to figure out how much to charge so it raises about as much as a harvest tax.

Legislators on the House-Senate marijuana committee said a sales tax has several advantages over the $35-an-ounce tax on marijuana flowers and $10-an-ounce tax on leaves contained in the Measure 91 initiative.

Prozanski said a sales tax would better accommodate fluctuations in the price of marijuana. He said that marijuana flowers - the most potent part of the plant - have dropped in price recently and that a set-in-stone tax of $35 an ounce could make legal marijuana uncompetitive with the black market.

In addition, Prozanski and other legislators said a sales tax would more readily allow the sale of medical and recreational marijuana by the same retailer, who could simply exclude medical marijuana patients from having to pay the tax.

Legislators have talked for several weeks about moving to a sales tax, but at the Monday evening meeting of the House-Senate committee, they were careful to refer to it as a "point of sale tax." Oregon is one of only a handful of states without a sales tax, which has always been staunchly resisted by voters at the polls.

Prozanski said he thought the Oregon Health Authority, which regulates medical marijuana, could oversee temporary sales to recreational consumers while the OLCC put together a permanent retail system.

Prozanski said he liked Ferrioli's idea of a temporary program to give recreational consumers some way to buy the drug legally after possession becomes legal on July 1.

But, Prozanski added, "Nobody is going to be able to do it on July 1" because of the difficulties of putting together a temporary system.

There didn't seem to be any quick resolution of the dispute between House and Senate members of the joint marijuana committee over local bans on medical marijuana facilities.

The medical marijuana legislation is chiefly aimed at limiting the size of growing operations serving medical marijuana patients. Backers say too much of this pot is being diverted to illegal sales.

The Senate is moving ahead with its own measure, Senate Bill 964, that would allow city councils and county commission to ban these facilities while allowing voters to gather signatures to force the issue onto the ballot.

The House members instead said any ban should be approved only by voters.

Rep. Ann Lininger, D-Lake Oswego, co-chair of the House-Senate committee, noted that Measure 91 requires just that kind of public vote to ban recreational sales of the drug.

Under the Senate proposal, "it's harder for the chemotherapy patient to get pain relief than for the recreational user to get high," she said. "I mean, c'mon."

The 104-page amendment to House Bill 3400 that implements Measure 91 also says that only voters can approve a ban on recreational marijuana sales in any locality. City and county associations say any attempt to take away this authority from them would likely be reversed by the courts.

The amendment also would ban local taxes on marijuana and it calls for a "seed to sale" tracking system for recreational sales to prevent black-market diversions. it also would allow the OLCC to regulate the size of commercial growing operations to ensure that supply roughly matched legal demand.

-- Jeff Mapes

503-221-8209

@Jeffmapes