Oregon Cannabis 2025: Legislative Forecast and Report

24 Jan Oregon Cannabis 2025: Legislative Forecast and Report

The Oregon legislative session formally kicked off this week, on Tuesday, January 21st. It’s a regular session in 2025, meaning we’re in for a longer stretch — a 160-day calendar, versus the 35-day affair we see in even-numbered years.

If you read any of the news articles previewing the 2025 session, you won’t see cannabis as a legislative priority. Most likely, you won’t see it mentioned at all. Legislators seem both wary and weary of cannabis: the 2023 industry scandals implicating public officials are still fairly recent; and, after ten dynamic years and hundreds of adult use cannabis proposals, bills and laws, the program needs to breathe.

All of that said, the Cannabis Industry Association of Oregon (CIAO) and others have been working on their wish lists, and I do expect to see a few new cannabis laws in 2025. Most of it will be scaffolding and maintenance.

Below, I summarize the draft bills currently teed up in the 2025 session (with links), and give some cursory comments. But first I’ll add my usual caveat: a large majority of these introduced bills will not pass. Some contain overlapping concepts and will never go to committee, while others will fail after a hearing or two, or be consolidated into omnibus or placeholder bills.

This is one of the omnibus bills, and one to watch. Its drafter described it to me yesterday as “omnibus but not complete,” in fact. Here’s what’s in there as of today:

• Authorizes the destruction of hoop houses when executing a search warrant to investigate the unlawful production of marijuana.
  • This strikes me as potentially problematic, as a due process issue.
• Requires the OLCC to make maps of licensed industrial hemp operations and marijuana production premises available to the Water Resources Department and the Department of Environmental Quality.
  • An inter-agency communication issue. Been on the list for a while.
• Repeals the prohibition on a marijuana retailer locating within 1,000 feet of a building where a public prekindergarten or kindergarten program is provided.
  • Something we’ve dealt with more than once, including with the Department of Justice way back when. Just a clarification needed.
• Allows the State Department of Agriculture to inspect biomass and processed industrial hemp stored at the location of a licensed industrial hemp operation.
  • Makes sense!

Here are a few concepts that may be added:

• Grant OLCC authority to move from a one-year licensing cycle to a two-year cycle, as with alcohol.
  • This could cut a lot of red tape for both OLCC and industry. The devil would be in the details as to marijuana retailer tax issues, but as a concept I really like it.
• Re-up the grant program targeting illegal grows in southwest Oregon, at current service levels.
  • This grant has been around since 2018: the sheriffs and victim’s rights folks are the main proponents. If you’d like to see data, the Oregon Criminal Justice Commission program published a recent report here.

• Requires OHA to study the medical use of marijuana.
  • This is a funny little bill and probably just a placeholder. We’ve only had a medical marijuana statute in Oregon for 27 years!

• Removes requirements that a registry identification cardholder who produces marijuana for personal medical use register with OHA.
• Requires a person responsible for a marijuana grow site that produces marijuana for medical use for three or more registry identification cardholders to apply for a designation from the OLCC.
• Directs OHA to issue electronic registration cards.
• Requires marijuana retailers to offer for sale medical grade cannabinoid items that contain not more than 20 percent total THC.
• Creates health care and employment protections for a person who is a registry identification cardholder.

This is an Oregon Cannabis Commission bill with some strong concepts, but it will need a lot of amending. OLCC has been slowly absorbing OHA’s medical marijuana program for years. At first that upset people, but a full windup is a fait accompli. SB 162 has a good chance to pass in some form.

• Requires OLCC to study cannabis.
• Directs OLCC to submit findings to the interim committees of the Legislative Assembly related to the judiciary not later than September 15, 2026.

Placeholder.

Same as SB 188. Placeholder.

• Ends special tax assessment for land, if the owner or the person in control of the land gets a civil penalty for growing marijuana on the land or is found guilty of growing it there.
• Makes an exception if the owner reasonably didn’t know about the pot or called the police as soon as they did know.
• Disqualifies land from farm use special assessments upon a final civil penalty or judgment of conviction for the illegal growing of marijuana against the landowner or person in possession and control of the land.
• Provides an exception for a landowner or other obligated taxpayer who reasonably lacked knowledge of the illegal growing of marijuana or promptly notified a law enforcement agency of the illegal growing of marijuana.

This bill appears to be poorly conceived and poorly structured at present. I’m guessing it doesn’t go anywhere for several reasons, not least of which will be the fiscal impact consideration.

• One-liner: establishes a division in the Department of State Police to enforce laws related to illegal marijuana cultivation.

I doubt it goes anywhere.

This one, along with SB 557 and 558 just below, are the CIAO bills. (You can view CIAO’s legislative priorities here.) Each of these bills are sponsored by Senator Floyd Prozanski, longtime industry supporter.

• Allows a marijuana producer, marijuana wholesaler, marijuana processor or marijuana retailer to use a motion detection camera system at a licensed premises.
  • I was surprised this would be disallowed by OLCC.
• Directs OLCC to establish by rule an industrial hemp endorsement for marijuana producers.
  • This would be useful.
• Prohibits OLCC from requiring physical tags or other identifiers on certain marijuana plants.
  • This would be very useful and cut down on lots of pointless “compliance” and labor and waste.
• Allows a marijuana item transport vehicle to use a digital manifest and edit the manifest during transport.
  • Let’s get with the times.
• Allows the State Department of Agriculture (ODA) to define “industrial hemp” by rule.
• Allows a marijuana licensee to engage in the interstate commerce of industrial hemp and marijuana. Becomes operative if federal law or the United States Department of Justice allow or tolerate the interstate commerce of industrial hemp or marijuana.
  • I need to ask about this too. In 2019, we passed SB 582 which already allows export of marijuana when the federal environment changes. This proposal seems very similar.

• Requires at least one OLCC commissioner to hold a marijuana processor, marijuana producer, marijuana retailer or marijuana wholesaler license.

Creative, and probably going nowhere.

• Allows a marijuana licensee to provide samples of marijuana items to other marijuana licensees at temporary events registered with OLCC.
• Allows the commission to establish by rule a temporary events registration system. Allows a marijuana wholesaler to sell marijuana items to a marijuana retailer at a temporary event.
• Allows a marijuana producer to provide samples of seeds and immature marijuana plants to permitted workers.
• Allows a marijuana producer, marijuana processor and marijuana wholesaler to provide samples of marijuana items in specified amounts to permitted workers.

A bunch of rulemaking coming up for OLCC if this passes. But it all makes sense.

• Increases the maximum percentage of tax that the governing body of a city or county may impose on the sale of marijuana items. 20% of the proceeds go to the city or county at issue.
• Requires a percentage of a newly enacted or increased amount to be transferred to the county in which the collecting retail establishment is located, provided the county is eligible for Oregon Marijuana Account distributions.

This will get the cannabis industry’s hackles up, severely. Similar bills have been beaten back in prior years and I expect the same result here.

• Establishes a state public bank task force.

The Governor vetoed this bill last time around, citing “logistical challenges.” I haven’t had a chance to talk with the sponsors of SB 583, so I’m not sure what the plan is on reintroduction. As a guy from North Dakota — the only state in the union with a state-chartered bank; and as an equitable banking access proponent — I hope this one succeeds.

• Exempts from public records disclosure the residential address or personal phone number of an individual who holds a permit issued under ORS 475C.273.

The reference there is to marijuana worker permits. Good idea. The proposed law should probably sweep in ORS 475C.269 as well.

• States that the person must tell the OHA or the OLCC where the person plans to grow, process or produce the marijuana or psilocybin and who owns the site that the person plans to use. Specifies some cases when the OHA or the OLCC cannot give permission to the person.
• Requires an applicant for a license to manufacture psilocybin to submit to OHA information regarding the ownership and location of the premises to be licensed, and prohibits the authority from issuing a license in specified circumstances.
• Requires an applicant for a license to produce or process marijuana to submit to the OLCC information regarding the ownership and location of the premises to be licensed. Prohibits the commission from issuing a license in specified circumstances.
• Requires an applicant for a medical marijuana grow site or medical marijuana processing site registration to submit to the authority information regarding the ownership and location of the premises to be registered. Prohibits OHA from issuing a registration in specified circumstances.

This is a big and rangy bill with concepts overlapping some of the others. Expect it to be absorbed somewhere, in some form.

• Provides items that have cannabis in them must have a label that says a person has to be at least 21 years old to consume or use the item.
• Requires labels on marijuana items and inhalant delivery systems that contain industrial hemp-derived vapor items to include that the minimum age for consumption or use is 21 years of age.

Everyone would have to re-do their labels.

• Requires that marijuana items and stores warn people that the use of marijuana by a person who is pregnant might cause danger.
• Requires a marijuana retailer and a medical marijuana dispensary to post warning signs regarding the consumption or use of marijuana during pregnancy.
• Requires marijuana items and inhalant delivery systems that contain an industrial-hemp derived vapor item to include in labeling that consumption or use of marijuana during pregnancy may be dangerous.

Some speech and label issues here.

• Requires OLCC to study itself. Directs OLCC to submit findings to the interim committees of the Legislative Assembly related to economic development not later than September 15, 2026.

Placeholder. Same as 2276.

Similar to the two above.

• Directs OLCC to look at cannabis and report to the judiciary committees. Directs the commission to submit findings to the interim committees of the Legislative Assembly related to the judiciary not later than September 15, 2026.

I believe this one also comes via the Oregon Cannabis Commission, like SB 176. And like SB 176, it likely has legs but will also see some amendments along the way.

• Provides that organizations that provide hospice, palliative care or home health care services, as well as certain residential facilities, must write policies and teach their staff about the medical use of marijuana.
• Same requirement of any such organization or residential facility that is designated as an additional caregiver for a medical marijuana cardholder.
• Protects an organization or residential facility and its employees and contractors from certain criminal liability related to the medical use of marijuana.
• Prohibits the Oregon State Board of Nursing from taking disciplinary action against a nurse for discussing the medical use of marijuana with a patient. (Note: nurses are already allowed by statute to discuss medical marijuana use with patients, consistent with First Amendment protections)
• Expands the definition of “debilitating medical condition” for the medical use of marijuana. The specific add-on I’m seeing is “the need for hospice, palliative care, comfort care or other symptom management, including comprehensive pain management.”

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That’s all she wrote for now. I’ll check in again at the end of the session, or before that with any significant developments.