Oregon imposes a 25% sales tax on cannabis retail products today after three months of no taxes at all. retailers had kept the prices high so as not have a price-shock today. Washington taxes are 37%.
This matters a lot in the Vancouver-Portland area.
Oregon began accepting applications for licenses for growing, processing, and selling pot today. And, what I’m most interested in, wholesale licenses which I don’t know what is meant by them and neither do the regulators.
And Washington has collected the applications from the previously unregulated and untracked medical marijuana shops and will be issuing licenses to those deemed the good guys. This must be done quickly as the big cities are anxious to close down the unlicensed facilities this month.
That covers the retail outlets, but what I’m watching is how the state will handle the medical growing operations: not a word has been said how they will be handled by the licensing process. I suspect the intent is to kill them off by regulatory inaction.
Whatever, the medical marijuana industry will be captured by the state, licensed, or shut down by July 1 in Washington.