4A • COTTAGE GROVE SENTINEL • SEPTEMBER 5, 2018
The First Amendment
O PINION
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of
religion or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridg-
ing the freedom of speech, or of the press, or the right of
the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition their
Government for a redress of greivences.
“W e need a free press. We must have it. It’s vital. ... If you want to preserve democracy as
we know it, you have to have a free and many times adversarial press. And without it, I
am afraid that we would lose so much of our individual liberties over time. ”
Sen. John McCain
February 19, 2017
REMEMBERI NG JOH N MCCAI N 
Guest Viewpoint
Political/Election Letters:
Cannabis processing comes with natural lag
By Steven Marks
Oregon Liquor Control Commission
Since the Oregon Liquor Control
Commission began issuing recreational
marijuana licenses in April 2016, appli-
cant interest has never diminished. You
can see that reflected in the application
data we publish on a daily basis.
Earlier this summer, our agency
placed a pause on processing applica-
tions. Even before then, the number of
applications we had to get through was
significant. The surge of applications we
received right before the pause took ef-
fect June 15 just multiplied the numbers.
As a legal industry and as a regulated
industry, the cannabis business is still
immature. It has only been three years
since commercialized cannabis emerged
as a legitimate economic activity in Ore-
gon, and the laws and rules governing
its production and distribution are still
catching up.
Since legalization, during every regu-
lar and short session of Oregon’s legisla-
ture, lawmakers have made changes — a
tweak here, an adjustment there, a ma-
jor modification somewhere else. Then
our agency’s rulemaking process follows
(and the same for our sister agencies:
Oregon Health Authority, Oregon De-
partment of Agriculture and the Oregon
Department of Revenue.) It’s a process
that comes with a natural, systemic lag
built into it.
The statutory and rules changes are
improvements that will establish the
long-term viability of Oregon’s cannabis
industry. Incorporating these changes
into a dynamic licensing process has
brought unintended consequences and
unforeseen challenges. Our ability to
innovate our way out of this backlog
is limited, but we continue to look for
ways to improve and streamline our
work in the near term, while developing
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systematic long-term plans.
In the second half of 2017, when we
began renewing the licenses of existing
licensees, we determined that the time
it takes to complete a renewal is equiv-
alent to about 80 percent of the time it
takes to process a new license applica-
tion. Again, this can be attributed to the
immaturity of OLCC processes and to
the sudden confluence of an emerging
industry suddenly buffeted by consoli-
dation activity. Regardless our agency
did not build this amount of workload
into our initial staffing or work-force
models.
The merger and acquisition activi-
ty in Oregon’s cannabis industry has
led to frequent ownership changes and
continuous business structure modifi-
cations. Managing these changes is an-
other staffing demand that often takes
as much time as processing brand new
applications. The OLCC currently con-
siders processing business structure
changes to be part of the licensing fee
licensees pay for, and we do not charge a
separate fee for this work.
It is, however, one of many areas of
uncompensated activity that is over-
whelming the agency’s staff, which we
are monitoring closely to ensure the
agency is operating efficiently and effec-
tively.
So, in practical terms, what does this
mean right now for existing licens-
ees and new applicants? To handle the
backlog of license renewals and business
structure changes, we’ve concentrated
our staff resources to handle this activi-
ty; we have 11 investigators assigned to
this work. At our current pace, renewals
for 2017 and 2018 licensees will take ap-
proximately 12 months.
Business structure changes and own-
ership changes currently range from
three to six months, depending on the
complexity and volume.
Applications received by June 15,
2018, which currently total 2,210, are
expected to take at least 12-14 months
to process. This timeframe may be
longer for those new applications sub-
mitted just before OLCC’s pause went
into effect (from June 1-15, 2018). The
OLCC has two investigators assigned to
this work. We will prioritize processing
retailer, wholesaler and processor appli-
cations ahead of producer applications.
Our logic is straightforward; these ap-
plication types take less time to process
than producer applications which are
more complex, and there are fewer of
them to get through.
In the meantime, our agency has been
assigned additional responsibilities —
including incorporating larger medical
marijuana grow sites into our Cannabis
Tracking System — and expanding the
entry points for hemp and hemp prod-
ucts to enter the OLCC regulated mar-
ket. Some of this work we’re doing with
additional resources, while the rest of it
is being absorbed by the agency’s exist-
ing work force.
The processing of applications may
appear to be proceeding at a glacial pace
but I can tell you our team is operating
at capacity. In addition to asking the leg-
islature for additional staff to help with
compliance and enforcement activity,
we intend to seek more employees to
support our marijuana licensing oper-
ations. If we obtain those resources it
would be late 2019 before that assistance
arrives.
I don’t expect you find the informa-
tion in this message surprising, but I
hope it serves as a useful guidepost as
you plan your business activity in the
cannabis industry.
—Steven Marks
Executive Director,
Oregon Liquor Control Commission
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HOW TO CONTACT YOUR REPS
Oregon state
representatives
Oregon federal
representatives
• Sen. Floyd Prozanski
District 4 State Senator
PO Box 11511
Eugene, Ore. 97440
Phone: 541-342-2447
Email : sen.floydprozanski@
state.or.us
• Rep. Cedric Hayden
Republican District 7 State
Representative
900 Court St. NE
Salem, Ore. 97301
Phone: 503-986-1407
Website: www.leg.state.or.
us/hayden
Email: rep.cedrichayden@
state.or.us
• Rep. Peter DeFazio
(House of Representatives)
405 East 8th Ave.
#2030
Eugene, Ore. 97401
Email: defazio.house.gov/
contact/email-peter
Phone: 541-465-6732
• Sen. Ron Wyden
405 East 8th Ave., Suite 2020
Eugene, Ore. 97401
Email: wyden.senate.gov
Phone: (541) 431-0229
• Sen. Jeff Merkley
Email: merkley.senate.gov
Phone: 541-465-6750
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