Pot tax questions: How high is too high?

When it comes to cannabis legislation, both Measure 91 and the rules lawmakers passed to implement it, nothing is simple.

“There is six different options,” said Deschutes County Commissioner Tony DeBone said Wednesday. “It’s like a matrix of choices that we may be getting to.”

Oregon’s new sales tax for recreational marijuana of 25 percent will go into effect in January. Between now and then, it will be tax-free. In October 2016, the sales tax will go down to 17 percent, and counties and cities will have the opportunity to increase that by 3 percent to 20 percent.

“Marijuana was always going to be taxed,” said Tom Towslee, public information officer for the Oregon Liquor Control Commission. “Measure 91 envisioned it being taxed at the grower level. Llegislators decided to tax it at the retail level.”

It’s a lucrative business. Washington state brought in $70 million in the first year of legalization, Colorado $76 million.

Where does all the money go? Measure 91 makes it clear: 40 percent is designated to go toward a common school fund, 20 percent to mental health, alcoholism and drug abuse services, 15 percent to Oregon State Police — and the rest goes directly to cities and communities.

Unless they decide to place local limits on whether or where marijuana can be grown or processed commercially, an option that comes before Deschutes County commissioners at hearings Wednesday morning and evening.

“If we opt out, my understanding is that we’re going to forgo those taxes,” DeBone said.

Currently in Deschutes County, commissioners are debating a moratorium on land use, which would make commercial growth operations in rural areas illegal.

If it’s adopted, the county would not get any of the tax revenue. Under House Bill 2041, if a city or county is opting out of any part of Measure 91, they will not receive any of the tax revenue.

Since Bend is under its own jurisdiction, the county’s decision would not impact their sales tax revenue. How much of the revenue a community receives also depends on their population and the number of dispensaries.

It could potentially be a big financial loss for Deschutes County. Meanwhile, other counties are still debating whether or not they want recreational marijuana in the first place.

“With over 55 percent of the people voted no, the County Court might take it up,” said Crook County Judge Mike McCabe, who like DeBone was at the Association of Oregon Counties meeting in Bend, discussing this and other issues with their counterparts across the state.

“Ten percent more voted to not legalize it” in Jefferson County, said county Commissioner Mike Ahern. “It’s about 55 to 45 (percent) to not pass it at all. So that frees us up to be more restrictive, as a government agency,” under terms of the new law approved by legislators.

In many counties, leaders have not even started the debate on how high the sales tax should be yet.

“If we were going to do it, it would be 20 percent,” McCabe said.

Ahern said, “The state of Oregon made recreational marijuana legal — with many, many regulations. I personally would just like to impose the tax and the law as the state has presented it.”