SALEM — Oregon lawmakers unveiled a proposal Monday for new regulations on medical marijuana that would for the first time cap the size of pot gardens and require growers, processors and stores to track the product.

The goal is to reduce the amount of pot diverted from medical grows in Oregon to the black market, as the state prepares for the start of legal recreational cannabis July 1. Adults age 21 and older can possess four plants and up to 8 ounces of usable pot starting this summer.

Lawmakers have floated similar ideas for medical pot publicly in recent months, but the latest version nonetheless prompted an outcry from medical pot supporters who flooded legislators’ offices with calls and emails Monday.

“I had 350 emails come into my office today, and 60 phone calls suggesting tweaks,” said Rep. Carl Wilson, R-Grants Pass, during a work session of the Joint Committee On Implementing Measure 91. The committee is working to implement Oregon’s new legal recreational pot system.

Sen. Ginny Burdick, D-Portland, a co-chair of the committee, said she plans to hold a vote on the amendment Wednesday evening.

“We are running out of time,” Burdick said. “The job we were actually hired to do, which is implementing (Measure) 91, has not begun yet.”

The medical marijuana program changes are in an amendment to a bill to set up the recreational pot licensing system. Under the amendment, growers at sites registered with the Oregon medical marijuana program after Jan. 1, 2015 would face limits of 12 plants in residential zones inside cities, and 48 plants per garden in other areas.

The amendment would grandfather in higher limits for grow sites already registered in the Oregon medical marijuana program on Jan. 1, 2015. It would cap the size of these gardens at 24 plants in city residential zones and 96 plants at all other areas, both rural and urban. That is double the number of plants that would have been allowed at medical grows under the most generous bill lawmakers had previously considered, which would have allowed pot gardens with up to 48 plants outside city limits.

The amendment would also require all medical marijuana growers, processors and dispensary owners to be Oregon residents, although the requirement would be stricter — four years of residency, as of March 1, 2016 — for people registered with the medical program after Jan. 1, 2015.

Anthony Johnson, chief petitioner and co-author of Measure 91, said after the hearing that he lobbied against parts of the medical marijuana amendment Monday, but had little success. He did not expect lawmakers would make changes to the program this soon after the passage of legal recreational pot.

“To me, the patients come first,” Johnson said.

Rep. Peter Buckley, D-Ashland, said lawmakers are also looking out for patients in the medical pot program.

“I can tell you flat out there’s not a single person on this panel that wants to take medicine away from patients,” Buckley said.w allows each grower to serve four patients, multiple growers often share grow sites. Growers can sell excess marijuana to dispensaries, and state lawmakers have said they also want to address reports from law enforcement that growers are diverting medical pot to the black market.

The committee is scheduled to meet for another work session on the legislation at 5 p.m. Wednesday.

The Capital Bureau is a collaboration between EO Media Group and Pamplin Media Group.