HILO — Kohala Councilwoman Margaret Wille wants the county to be able to levy a sales tax on medical marijuana, and she wants the counties to have authority over where it can be grown.
HILO — Kohala Councilwoman Margaret Wille wants the county to be able to levy a sales tax on medical marijuana, and she wants the counties to have authority over where it can be grown.
Wille is sponsoring two nonbinding resolutions asking the state Legislature to amend its new medical marijuana dispensaries law to give the counties more home rule on these issues. She also wants the Legislature to remove the ban that starts in 2019 on patients assigning “primary caregivers” to grow their pot for them.
A county sales tax of up to 5 percent is needed for the local government to pay for the added costs of security, police, emergency services and community social ills that could accompany the new dispensaries, Wille said Thursday.
“It’s another unfunded mandate,” Wille said. “The counties are going to be providing these services. … It’s one more cost that we have to absorb.”
Wille said the county’s costs will ultimately have to be paid in higher property taxes if there isn’t some other mechanism in place.
Two state legislators who were involved in the bill creating the medical marijuana dispensaries said they’d consider resolutions coming from the counties on the issue, but they weren’t too keen on Wille’s tax proposal.
Rep. Della Au Belotti, the Oahu Democrat who led a task force on dispensaries and was a co-sponsor of the bill, said she doesn’t expect much movement this session on changes to the new law, as the dispensaries will not yet be put in place.
“I don’t know the substance (of Wille’s resolutions), but in general, these are ideas that can be considered,” Belotti said.
She added, however, that attempts earlier this year by some lawmakers to add a surcharge to sales was met with great resistance. While some mainland dispensaries have surcharges, they are primarily for recreational marijuana use, not medical, she said.
Rep. Joy San Buenaventura, D-Puna, agreed. A member of the conference committee that put the finishing touches on the bill, San Buenaventura said the intent was to keep medical marijuana more affordable to patients.
“We want to make it affordable so patients won’t go to the black market,” San Buenaventura said.
Medical marijuana could be big business, according to an analysis in July by Pacific Business News. The Honolulu weekly newspaper estimated medical marijuana could bring in $31 million to $48 million annually, rivaling the state’s $54 million coffee crop in gross revenues.
There are approximately 13,800 registered medical marijuana users in the state, with most living on the Big Island.
Wille said adding language allowing caregivers to continue is one way she balanced the request for a county sales tax.
“I really don’t like that we’re enabling monopolies,” Wille said.
Resolutions 338 and 339 are scheduled to be heard Tuesday by the County Council Committee on Governmental Relations and Economic Development. The meeting begins at 9:30 a.m. at the West Hawaii Civic Center. The public can also testify by videoconference from the Hilo council chambers, Waimea council room, the conference room adjacent to the Hisaoka Gymnasium in Kapaau, the Naalehu state office building and the Pahoa neighborhood facility.
The state Legislature and Gov. David Ige earlier this year opened the way for two licensees on the Big Island to each operate two production centers, with a maximum of 3,000 plants on each, and two dispensaries. The state Department of Health is required to provide for a selection process and criteria for license applicants by Jan. 4.
Dispensaries and production centers will have to comply with county zoning regulations, and will not be allowed within 750 feet of a school, playground or public housing project or complex, under the new law.
But the prospect of turning the Kohala breadbasket into a medicine cabinet doesn’t sit well with residents there, who have organized meetings in opposition.
Wille said allowing the county to determine the best locations would bring the process back to the island, so interested members of the public wouldn’t have “to cross the ocean” to testify in Honolulu.
But San Buenaventura worries about a worst-case scenario.
“If it’s to zone it out of existence,” she said, “I would be opposed to that.”