Lit_Match

Medical Marijuana Policy Revised
04.13.07|The California Aggie|By Geoff Johnson

The California State Board of Equalization, responsible for the state's sales and business tax, is changing its policy regarding medical marijuana in the state of California. Under the new system, dispensers will no longer be required to disclose the nature of their products.

Previously, dispensers were required to sell items other than marijuana and were allowed to attribute income from the sales of marijuana to other legal goods such as T-shirts or rolling papers.

Though medical marijuana has been legal within the state of California since Proposition 215 was passed in 1996, Board Chairwoman Betty Yee said the matter of taxing medical marijuana had not been addressed because cannabis clubs needed time to proliferate, in part because of negotiations with local authorities.

"I think part of what's happened is that the establishment of cannabis clubs has taken time," Yee said. "They've been dealing with local regulatory issues."

Nathan Sands, communications director for the nonprofit organization Compassionate Coalition, said the policy would have only marginal impact on the medical-marijuana community.

"To some extent, I think the media has wanted to make it appear that people in the medical-marijuana movement disagree on the subject," Sands said. "Nowadays there's been a lot of agreement on the subject."

Sands dismissed fears that tax information could help the federal government track down patients and dispensers, noting that information-sharing agreements with the state already allowed such records to be made available, and outlined a scenario in which tax information could actually be used to persuade potential juries that marijuana is for medical use.

"[Tax] information might actually help dispensers in court," Sands said. "You're not allowed to mention the words 'medical marijuana' in your defense or at all, because [the authorities] don't acknowledge medical marijuana."

Co-founder and director of the San Francisco Patients Cooperative Randi Webster, however, said she feels the tax is just one more obstacle for what was already a difficult practice. She added that she is frustrated that something could be illegal on a federal level while being taxed by the state.

"Many of these places are nonprofit and don't make any money," Webster said. "They barely break even."

Webster said she went before the Board of Equalization in 2005, when the current legislation was being considered to make the case for alternatives to taxation and was unsuccessful.

"The majority of us went into this with the idea of helping patients, not earning money. The few profiteers … are the ones they should be going after," Webster said.

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