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THE DAILY ASTORIAN • MONDAY, FEBRUARY 13, 2017
Controls sought for prescription drug prices
Oregon could
lead other states
By PARIS ACHEN
Capital Bureau
SALEM — Backers say
state legislation proposed this
month would go further than
any other state to control the
price of prescription drugs to
patients and insurers.
A bill by state Rep. Rob
Nosse, D-Portland, would cap
patients’ out-of-pocket copay-
ment for prescriptions, require
pharmaceutical
companies
to explain steep increases in
the cost of a medication and
mandate rebates when prices
exceed a certain threshold.
“This bill will finally put
some limits around what con-
sumers pay and for the drugs
that they need in order to con-
tinue to lead healthy and pro-
ductive lives and help us to
take steps toward affordabil-
ity, accountability and trans-
parency,” Nosse said.
Three other bills by Sen.
Elizabeth Steiner Hayward
would take similar steps but
also require pharmaceuti-
cal companies to include the
average wholesale price of a
drug in any type of direct con-
sumer advertising.
“Last week, there was a
story about a $35,000 price tag
for a drug that has been on the
market longer than I have been
alive, and that was almost back
in the 1950s, but that is not an
uncommon story,” said Steiner
Hayward, who also is a family
physician.
The antiparasitic drug —
mebendazole — is showing
promise for treatment of brain
tumors.
“Historically, that drug has
been $3 a pill; it’s now $369 a
pill,” Steiner Hayward noted.
“Those changes are unac-
ceptable for Oregonians.”
Work group
Nosse said his bill came out
of a work group that has been
meeting since August to brain-
storm solutions for the high
cost of prescription drugs.
The proposals cap out-of-
pocket patient copayments —
$250 per purchase in the Sen-
ate plan, $500 in the House
bill. Pharmaceutical manufac-
turers would be required to
explain to the state Department
of Consumer and Business
Services any price increases
that exceed $10,000 or 3.5 per-
cent a year.
Finally, the bill requires
Paris Achen/Pamplin Media Group
Left to right, Rep. Rob Nosse, D-Portland; Jesse O’Brien of the Oregon State Public Inter-
est Research Group; and Sen. Elizabeth Steiner Hayward, D-Beaverton, talk to reporters
about legislation to rein in the cost of prescription drugs during a news conference
Thursday at the state Capitol in Salem.
the state to calculate the aver-
age cost of drugs sold in 35
industrialized nations that are
members of the Organisa-
tion for Economic Coopera-
tion and Development. Phar-
maceutical
manufacturers
would be required to provide
rebates to insurers for the dif-
ference between the average
cost in those other nations and
the actual cost in the United
States.
Public hearings on the bills
are tentatively set for the end
of the month, the sponsors
said.
A coalition calling itself
Oregonians for Affordable
Drug Prices Now has coalesced
Lawmakers deliberate on consolidating
rules for medical, recreational marijuana
Regulations
under separate
state agencies
By PARIS ACHEN
Capital Bureau
SALEM — State legisla-
tors are moving toward con-
solidating the state’s medi-
cal and recreational marijuana
industries into one regulatory
system.
The co-chairwomen of the
Joint Committee on Marijuana
Regulation have dropped sev-
eral bills that would move
regulation of medical mar-
ijuana from the Oregon
Health Authority to the Ore-
gon Liquor Control Commis-
sion, the regulatory agency for
recreational sales of the drug.
Another proposal would estab-
lish a separate agency specifi-
cally for cannabis regulation.
The Oregon Health Author-
ity has regulated the medi-
cal marijuana program since
it was created through Bal-
lot Measure 67 in 1998. When
voters legalized recreational
cannabis use with Measure 91
in 2014, regulation of the new
program was assigned to the
liquor commission, while the
health authority retained over-
sight of the medical program.
Health authority offi-
cials from the beginning were
reluctant overseers, said Tom
Burns, a marijuana policy
consultant and former health
authority administrator.
The Oregon Health Author-
ity’s tardy and ill-conceived
rollout of rules and dedication
of resources to the program
was an “unmitigated disaster,”
Burns said.
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The state Legislature is considering bills that would place
regulation of the state’s medical and recreational marijua-
na programs under one agency.
In time, it became appar-
ent that two separate systems
made little or no sense because
of the health authority’s dis-
interest in regulating the pro-
gram, he said.
“The medical suppliers,
growers and patients said let
us get it out of OHA to some-
body who does want it and will
work with us to make a pro-
gram that works for us,” Burns
said.
But that sentiment may
not permeate the entire med-
ical marijuana industry and
its patients, said state Rep.
Carl Wilson, R-Grants Pass, a
member of the legislative mar-
ijuana regulation committee.
“I think we all realize that
there is a big push to have
everybody under OLCC,” said
Wilson, whose district covers
the marijuana-fertile lands of
southern Oregon.
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‘Unlikely allies’
“This is a group of unlikely
Coal-export terminal
backer appeals denial
of aquatic sublease
Associated Press
LONGVIEW, Wash. —
Developers of a proposed
coal-export terminal in
southwest Washington have
appealed after the state last
month denied the project an
aquatic lands sublease.
Millennium Bulk Termi-
nals and Northwest Alloys
challenged the state’s deci-
sion in Cowlitz County Supe-
rior Court, The Daily News of
Longview reported Sunday.
Before leaving office,
Public Lands Commissioner
Peter Goldmark last month
rejected a request from
Northwest Alloys — orig-
inally made in 2010 — to
sublease the state’s aquatic
lands to Millennium for the
coal-export project. North-
west Alloys owns the site of
a former aluminum smelter
where the coal terminal is
proposed.
The proposed terminal in
Longview would handle up
to 44 million metric tons of
coal a year. The coal would
arrive by train from Montana,
Wyoming and other states to
be stored and loaded on ships
for export to Asia.
The companies argue in
court filings that the deci-
sion infringes on their prop-
erty rights. They also dispute
Goldmark’s assertion that
they didn’t provide adequate
information about Millenni-
um’s financial standing.
Attorneys for the com-
pany wrote that they have
responded to numerous
requests for information from
the Department of Natural
Resources and cooperated by
providing extensive informa-
tion demonstrating Millen-
nium’s suitability as a sub-
tenant under the lease.
Department of Natural
Resources spokesman Joe
Smillie said the department
is reviewing how to move
forward, but he declined to
comment on the pending
litigation.
New state Lands Com-
missioner Hilary Franz said
last month that Goldmark
made the “right decision.”
Franz has repeatedly said she
opposes leasing state lands
for fossil fuel projects.
Millennium had previ-
ously contended the existing
lease with Northwest Alloys
was sufficient, but now the
companies say the appeal is a
cautionary measure.
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Part of the idea of splitting
up regulation was to keep med-
ical costs down for patients.
The liquor commission insti-
tuted much more strict and
expensive regulations to report
and track product, while health
authority’s system relied
largely on self-reporting. The
health authority also charges
lower fees for registration and
licensing.
“A lot of people have
griped about OMMP (the Ore-
gon Medical Marijuana Pro-
gram) and OHA over time, but
as they look at OLCC, they
are starting to fall in love with
OHA and OMMP again,” Wil-
son said.
Their hesitation in embrac-
ing the liquor commission
stems largely from the higher
cost of producing marijuana in
the recreational system, where
fees are higher for almost
everything and regulation is
more onerous.
Wilson said he would sup-
port consolidation if lower fees
were charged medical growers
and suppliers and if medical
growers could sell into the rec-
reational market, which they
are now prohibited from doing.
Andre Ourso, manager of
the health authority’s medi-
cal marijuana program, said
the health authority has had
its “hands full” regulating the
program.
“It’s definitely taken its
share of criticism, and in some
cases, rightfully so,” Ourso
said. “But overall I think we’ve
done a very good job in han-
dling the duties that have been
handed down to us.”
Nevertheless, health author-
ity officials see the sense in
consolidating the marijuana
programs.
“We can see that for bureau-
cratic efficiency’s sake, there
really shouldn’t be two parallel
regulatory systems, but there is
still going to be a necessity for
patients to have a program to
be in,” Ourso said.
For example, patients don’t
have to pay taxes when they
purchase medical marijuana.
They have access to higher
concentrations of tetrahydro-
cannabinol, the active ingredi-
ent in cannabis, and they can
buy more of it.
“I do think there is a place
for the registry program
within the state of Oregon,”
Ourso said. He said it’s up to
“this Legislature to determine
exactly how that would be
shaped.”
The Capital Bureau is a col-
laboration between EO Media
Group and Pamplin Media
Group.
around the legislation.
Members include nurses,
teachers, public-policy advo-
cates, public unions, hospitals
and medical groups, insurers
and the Oregon State Phar-
macy Association.
allies,” said Jesse O’Brien,
policy director for the Ore-
gon State Public Interest
Research Group, a coalition
member. “We definitely don’t
agree on everything, including
on everything in health care,
… but we all agree that it is
urgently important for the state
of Oregon to make the rising
cost of prescription drugs a
top priority this year, because
it really is a heavy burden on
every Oregonian.”
The powerful pharma-
ceutical lobby is expected to
push back against the propos-
als. PhRMA and the Oregon
Bioscience Association have
both issued statements on the
legislation.
“The proposal in its current
form is fatally flawed,” said
Caitlin A. Carroll, a Wash-
ington, D.C.-based spokes-
woman for PhRMA. “Impos-
ing aggressive price controls
on innovative, often life-sav-
ing medicines to simply fatten
the wallets of Oregon’s health
insurers is irresponsible and
could chill innovation, jobs,
and private investment in the
state for years to come.”
The Capital Bureau is a
collaboration between EO
Media Group and Pamplin
Media Group.
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