Pennsylvania GOP lawmaker proposes medical marijuana tax

Republican State Representative Greg Rothman of Cumberland County has proposed a 6 percent tax on medical marijuana, a move he says will help to pay down Pennsylvania’s $1.5 billion deficit.

Medical marijuana is legal in at least 29 states, some of which tax the product. Rothman says, those states have seen windfalls from medical marijuana taxes.

The proposal has drawn criticism from at least one other state Republican. State Senator Mike Folmer of Lebanon County opposes the sales tax, noting that companies that grow the product already pay a 5 percent wholesale tax.

Folmer, who helped to craft Pennsylvania’s medical marijuana program, says the tax could make medical cannabis harder to afford for some patients. “In Pennsylvania we’re not taxing Oxycontin, Percocet and Vicodin, which is causing our greatest opiate epidemic of all times. People that really need this medicine as an alternative medication are going to be having a hard enough time to afford it.”

Exactly what medical marijuana will cost remains to be seen. Pennsylvania Department of Health spokeswoman April Hutcheson says, the state has established a “market-based program,” which will allow the industry to set pricing, though there are provisions for the Department of Health to step in if the prices were to get too high.

Rothman says, he hopes the measure will get more people talking about Pennsylvania’s tax code. He says, “necessesities” like food, clothing and medicine shouldn’t be taxed. However, he challenges the assertion that medical cannabis is a medicine. “I asked why we couldn’t tax it, and I was told we can’t tax it becuase it’s medicine. But who defines it as medicine? The federal government hasn’t. They still define it…as a Schedule II drug.”

Rothman’s plan also would also add an 11.5 percent tax on recreational marijuana sales, if it were to be legalized in the state.

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