BOISE, Idaho — The state of Oregon has legalized marijuana for the past seven years. Malheur County, with 32,000 people in it, is Oregon’s per capita sales leader for cannabis.
Currently there is a three percent sales tax tacked on to cannabis purchases. Senate bill 1506, introduced by Senator Lynn P. Findley and Representative Mark Owens proposes an increase of taxes on purchasing marijuana from three to ten percent.
The city of Ontario claims that 90 percent of marijuana buyers are coming in from Idaho. According to written testimony by the city of Ontario sent to lawmakers, the number of Idahoans traveling into the city is creating intense daily traffic, impacting their roads, infrastructure, public safety and health services.
“Oregon is by far the least taxed state on marijuana on the west coast,” said Representative Mark Owens. “We are not going to promote more illegal sales, we are not going to promote more black market, we need to look at how communities can support themselves.”
According to the city. Malheur county has nine cannabis shops and more coming. The shops gross around 2,500 sales per day.
“If this bill were approved it would help Ontario cover its costs from the influx of traffic stemming from the high volumes of sales to Idahoans,” said Senator Lynn Findley.
But one business owner shared strong opposition against the bill.
“I have been in business since 2014 and it’s been a constant barrage of trying to take more and more of our market share and having a 333 percent sale tax increase for the city is complete un Oregonian.”
According to Ontario City Manger, Adam Brown, the city does not believe this will hurt cannabis sales.
“These taxes will be passed on to the purchasers and they won't purchase less because of it and that's just what the elasticity studies show across multiple states throughout the U.S. with taxation changes to the marijuana industry, it doesn't have an impact on the demand for the product,” Brown said.
According to the city’s written testimony, “an average retail transaction of $112 will not be impacted by an increase of $7 for customers coming in from Idaho to make these purchases”.
Local voters would have to sign off on the higher tax.
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