Rhode Island Marijuana | RI Marijuana RI Marijuana News and Information
The Governor of Rhode Island, Gina Raimondo, has proposed changes to the medical marijuana program, making it harder for patients to afford to grow their own marijuana. These measures would also make it difficult for caregivers to continue to do so with the steep marijuana plant tag fees, according to Providence Journal.
Raimondo plans to charge patients $150 per tag to grow their own medical marijuana. Patients are permitted to grow up to 6 plants, and caregivers are permitted 5 plants per patient with a 24 plant limit. Caregivers would have to pay $350 per tag. These fees are not the only issue that supporters of medical marijuana have with the program, many claim that there are inconsistencies that make the program’s regulations difficult to decipher and follow.
Some of the controversy lies within taxing patients on their medicine. Advocates call this “extracting revenue from sick patients.” Director of Regulate Rhode Island, Jared Moffat said, “We tax alcohol, but not prescription medications. Similarly, it makes little sense to extract revenue from sick people who need marijuana as a medicine while keeping marijuana that is used for fun untaxed and in the illicit market.”
One medical marijuana patient, Richard Graham, is in opposition of the tag fees and voiced his opinion by saying, “This is outrageous. Why are we paying taxes on a medicine? Give these patients a break.”
Moffat went on to say, “I think what the governor will find [with the tag proposal] is that there’s going to be a lot of opposition coming from medical users. It’s going to be a real challenge to get this through the legislature. Our push will be instead of focusing on raising money from the medical community, why don’t you pivot to looking at taxing and regulating recreational users?”
These proposed tag fees would be annual fees. Compassion centers, or dispensaries, do not pay tag fees. Only caregivers and patients who grow their own marijuana would be required to pay the tag fee. Dispensaries charge sales tax and pay a surcharge.
