Croptober has come again to Oregon, and Halloween plants are coming into flower. The October 1 compliance deadlines for packaging and labeling have passed, and some new, temporary rules on marijuana testing, labeling and marketing to minors were added to the pile. The next big Oregon program deadline will be January 1, when the early start program expires, and medical marijuana dispensaries will no longer be able to sell pot to recreational customers. Instead, those sales will be made exclusively via licensedretailers, and the sales tax will drop to a mere17% to 20%. Good times indeed.
The Oregon legislature meets again in February, and cannabis will again be on the agenda. The early word has two items up for consideration: (1) cannabis cafs; and (2) special event (temporary) licenses. We have written about the cannabis cafs issue before: in short, the Oregon Indoor Clean Air Act currently precludes smoking in public work places. That is true even when the express purpose of the venue is for smoking pot, the venue is private, and all staff are volunteers. As to special event licenses, many people will remember last fall when pot events seemed common. Since then, cities like Portland haveput the kibosh on marijuana-related events, and there is no state licensing available for temporary events, as with alcohol.
Cannabis cafs and special event licenses are popular issues, but industry players should expect more than these few program tweaks. For example, legislators are openly asking for feedback on structural program questions, like whether and how the state might merge its recreational and medical marijuana programs. It remains to be seen if that actually happens in 2017, but an important takeaway here is that it is still open season for cannabis ideas in Oregon. Accordingly, we expect to see a few interesting proposals between now and the end of the year.
That Oregon continues to examine its cannabis programs is a good sign: states with senior programs, like Washington and Colorado, continue to adopt rule changes ...
