Oakland voters will consider a new 5 percent tax on medical marijuana businesses in the November election after a divided council narrowly approved a proposal by Council Member Desley Brooks.

“The reality is that the dispensaries are the tested market, the untested market is the cultivation permit, and there is a lot of risk there in terms of cultivating,” said Brooks. “Patients will still get their medicine and they will not go to neighboring cities. … we need to vote for 5 percent across the board.”

An alternative proposal supported by council members Rebecca Kaplan and Jean Quan would have created a tiered tax structure that put a greater burden on marijuana growers. Their proposal would have also given the council flexibility to set final tax rate at a competitive level with other neighboring cities.

During the council meeting, patients and professionals from the cannabis industry argued that any significant tax increase will deny patients access to affordable medicine, compel others to travel outside Oakland, and even force cannabis establishments to leave town.

In one presentation to the council, several employees from Harborside Health Center, an Oakland dispensary that allegedly sold about $22 million worth of cannabis products last year, premiered a carefully-produced video that could easily be repackaged as a campaign ad against the proposed tax. In the video, a steady stream of workers address the dire state of job opportunities in Oakland and share their fears how a high tax on cannabis could leave them out of work. A woman breaks down in tears at one point near the end of the film.

But Council Member Larry Reid remained unconvinced a high tax rate would leave anyone out of work.

“I need to go get me a cannabis card!” said Reid after questioning city staff about how patients who grow their own marijuana can supplement their income by selling excess crop to dispensaries.

“I don’t see any of our dispensaries leaving if we raised it to 5 percent,” he said. “Folks are making money, they really are.”

But Angel Raich, the cannabis patient at the center of the US Supreme Court case Gonzales v. Raich who is also trying to open up her own dispensary in Oakland, told the council her primary concern is that other patients have easy, safe and affordable access to marijuana.

“It’s really about patients and the needs of the patients, and I really want this to work, both for the city and the patients,” she said. “I do support the tax, it’s just a question of what level of tax that concerns me.”

In the event that the state’s voters legalize marijuana with the passage of Proposition 19, the tax rate for non-medical recreational marijuana businesses would be set at 10 percent.

About Josh Wolf

Josh Wolf is an independent video journalist and documentarian currently studying at the UC Berkeley school of journalism.