substantial state taxes on the medical cannabis that they supply to patients in need. SB 829 corrects a hole in Proposition 64, which saddled these not-for-profit organizations with taxes. The Compassionate Use Act of 1996 made medical marijuana legal in California, which spurred the birth of compassionate-care programs for patients with serious health issues and financial restraints. According to NORML, these organizations have been able to donate product and function tax-free up until this year when recreational marijuana became legal.

What did recreational legalization have to do with medical marijuana patients and associated care programs? As our marijuana attorneys can explain, after voters approved Proposition 64, government representatives and officials began ironing out how the recreational program would work. It was determined a set of guidelines was needed that could pull together the medical marijuana industry (which had been active for 20 years) with the new recreational cannabis law. That is when MAUCRSA (Medicinal And Adult-Use Cannabis Regulatory Safety Act) was born. What was intended to streamline rules and make things easier for business owners, customers, and law enforcement officials ended up strapping medical marijuana institutions with a significant number of regulations they previously did not have to follow.Among those regulations was a stipulation that cannabis businesses must pay taxes on all marijuana products, which were already collecting a new level of taxes along each step of the supply chain. This rule applied even to medical marijuana businesses, and made no exception for not-for-profit institutions. Many patients with serious conditions, such as cancer and AIDS have come to rely on the help of compassionate-care organizations. Even patients who did not have financial difficulties before becoming ill often find themselves struggling once the expensive and constant medical bills start rolling in. In the case of patients with cancer and AIDS, each will often experience nausea and loss of appetite with certain treatments. Cannabis is used to effectively ease these symptoms, making it an important piece of the overall treatment program.

Compassionate-care programs receive marijuana through donations from retailers and cultivators. They then give it out for free to patients they have identified as being in need. As of late, though, these groups have been stifled or forced to go on a hiatus because of aggressive tax rates. There is not a way to mark certain cannabis as being meant for donation, so the groups are straddled with cultivation tax. If they were to give out 100 pounds of cannabis to patients, they would be charged an estimated $50,000 in taxes, even though the product is being given away for free.

Our Riverside marijuana attorneys applaud lawmakers for moving to remedy this situation. We know how critical cannabis can be for patients suffering from serious conditions. Organizations willing to help them should not be punished with insurmountable taxes. We continue to support common sense measures like this outside the courtroom while we fight for the rights of medical marijuana patients and businesses in the courtroom. Our team have both civil and criminal attorneys to best serve your needs.

The Los Angeles CANNABIS LAW Group represents growers, dispensaries, collectives, patients, defendants, workers and those facing criminal marijuana charges. Call us at 949-375-4734.

Additional Resources:

California Lawmakers OK Free Cannabis, Aug. 28, 2018, By Dan Mitchell, Leafly

More Blog Entries:

The Taxman Cometh: California Cannabis Businesses Unlikely to See Relief, May 29, 2018, Cannabis Law Group

grown for research purposes in the U.S. and decrease the amount of opioid drugs produced under the group’s watch. You heard that right. The same organization whose leaders for years have been wringing their collective hands over marijuana, who said we simply did not know enough about its effects, who defended its Schedule I classification, might finally be waking up to smell the coffee the rest of the country has been happily sipping for some time now.

According to a report from Forbes, a new Federal Register filing shows the agency increasing allowance of cannabis plants to 5,400 pounds in 2019, more than five times the 1,000 pounds the department OK’d this year. Representatives of the department said the move was necessary to meet the demands of the medical and scientific communities for research purposes. Of course this demand is nothing new. Health care providers, laboratories, and medical schools have been desperate for proper research on cannabis for decades. California medical practitioners have been using limited studies, anecdotal evidence, and trial and error to treat patients since medical marijuana was legalized in the state in 1996 under Proposition 215.DEA and other federal officials have long been playing a game of Catch-22, hiding behind Controlled Substances Act, 21 U.S.C. Section 812, which places cannabis in the most restricted categories of drugs. Schedule I narcotics are labeled such because they are considered the most dangerous, the most addictive, and have no medicinal value. For comparison purposes, heroin also resides in this category. The risks these drugs pose make it extremely difficult to get approval for medical testing, particularly if the thesis is to demonstrate the effectiveness of the drug. Limited testing means little verifiable evidence to prove the effectiveness of the drugs in question, fortifying the stance that the drugs should remain banned. As our Riverside medical cannabis attorneys know, applying this logic to marijuana is preposterous. Cannabis has proven itself time and again to be a relief to patients with numerous medical conditions. Marijuana certainly is a desirable alternative, as well, to opioids, which kill more than 100 people every day in the U.S. — many of whom had a prescription.

It seems the DEA is finally waking up to this fact as well. Even Attorney General Jeff Sessions voiced support for cutting opioid quotas next year by 10 percent, citing the opioid epidemic as the worst drug crisis in American history. Sessions, infamous for his fervent anti-marijuana beliefs, is less apt to acknowledge how cannabis can play a role in fighting opioid addictions, though he will likely need to OK more facilities to handle the increased marijuana production. We all know how many patients have found pain relief from cannabis, with many choosing marijuana after they had become overly dependent on opioids, such as morphine, fentanyl, hydrocodone, and oxycodone. Our trusted legal team can only hope now that DEA is also pulling together this important piece of the cannabis puzzle and will soon release their grip they have on the throat of the marijuana industry in this country.

The Los Angeles CANNABIS LAW Group represents growers, dispensaries, collectives, patients, defendants, workers and those facing criminal marijuana charges. Call us at 949-375-4734.

Additional Resources:

The DEA Wants to Grow More Marijuana, Aug. 20, 2018, By Joseph Misulonas, Civilized

More Blog Entries:

DEA Chief Woefully Unaware of Medical Marijuana Facts, May 21, 2018, Cannabis Law Group