Concerns were all over the place at a town hall meeting in Pauls Valley last week focused intensely on the dark side of the medical marijuana industry and how to turn around Oklahoma being what some are calling today’s “stoner state.”
Frustrations at times spilled out as a packed audience first listened to some presentations before then offering their own two cents worth on the concerns over the problems coming from a brand new industry created with a vote of the people back in 2018.
State Rep. Cindy Roe, R-Lindsay, organized the Dec. 16 gathering as legislators and officials on the criminal and regulatory sides of medical marijuana all offered up their thoughts on an industry that’s still new in terms of enforcement.
All in attendance admitted there are numerous problems for the state that still exist as one audience member shouted out it’s “not the Sooner state anymore. It’s the stoner state.”
“We were left to try and legislate what was in that petition,” Roe said about the citizens’ petition that led to an election and voters passing the medical marijuana issue into reality for Oklahoma three years ago.
“It’s been a headache and is continuing to be an issue.”
Mark Woodward of the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control said the first couple of years were relatively quiet for the new marijuana industry before a wave of illegal activity began building.
“Then we started to see people step outside the bounds of the law – those on the criminal side. We didn’t have that many at first. Some things changed last year,” Woodward said.
Illustrating his point, Woodward says there are now around 8,500 marijuana grow operations in Oklahoma compared to less than 2,400 in California and the entire west coast. He adds there are 2,200 dispensaries in Oklahoma, more than several western states put together.
“We had a lot of people come into Oklahoma who didn’t think the law applied to them,” he said. “The market got so oversaturated they couldn’t sell their product legally, so they started selling illegally.
“You can’t tell the good guys from the bad guys. Now Oklahoma is the number one source for illegal marijuana. Why Oklahoma? It was kind of a perfect storm.”
One factor – the virus pandemic shut down many businesses leading to workers being recruited from out of state to come to Oklahoma for jobs in medical marijuana.
Another, land is cheaper here leading to many operators from the west coast relocating to Oklahoma.
A third factor is it costs far less here for operators to get a license to grow marijuana.
“The legitimate grows are saying they can’t compete,” Woodward said.
“It’s a well oiled machine the way they’re shipping in the plants from California, the workers. What we’re after are the people bringing in the plants, bringing in the workers, moving the money for these organizations. There are professional criminal organizations.
“We’ve got to shut down these people that are moving the workers, the plants and the money.”
An example of just how profitable it can be, Woodward said they can grow marijuana for $100 a pound in Oklahoma and then turn around and sell it illegally for $4,000 a pound in let’s say Brooklyn, New York.
In fact, the month of October is being called “croptober” by some as officials say Oklahoma is now producing possibly two-thirds of the illegal marijuana in the entire country.
•••
Adria Berry, director of the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority, admits there’s been chaos from the start with the licensing process for marijuana growers.
“I’m not here to make excuses for the law not being enforced early in the process, but I can assure you that is turning around quickly,” Berry said.
Her hopes are the doubling of staff to work on license compliance will help make a difference.
“I think in the next year we’ll see a different environment. It will change the entire landscape of this industry. It’s at a boiling point, and we’re in a position where we’re going to have to fix this.”
•••
Also right in the middle of the legislative front for marijuana are state Rep. Scott Fetgatter, R-Okmulgee, and state Sen. Greg McCortney, R-Ada. Both have been on a legislative committee working to get a better handle on the legalities and enforcement of medical marijuana.
For Fetgatter, who has close ties to Pauls Valley, the medical marijuana thing is a “bad piece of law” as there’s plenty of gaps being taken advantage of by illegal operators.
Fetgatter also believes the OMMA has been an “absolute disaster” during these early times of the new marijuana law.
“It’s not going away,” Fetgatter said about the marijuana industry. “It’s probably just going to get bigger.
“My goal is to be the first state in the union to kill the black market. We need to make sure we’re not strangling legal businesses and still killing the black market.
“I don’t like marijuana. Whether I like it or not I’m going to support the businesses that do it right and fight like crazy to shut down the people that don’t.
“The real problem is to make it more challenging to get a license.”
McCortney agreed the problems of today are due to a real surprise when voters gave their OK to medical marijuana being the law of the land in Oklahoma.
As a result, he says no one was really prepared to deal with the issue at the start.
“It happened so fast we just haven’t wrapped our hands around it. This came out of nowhere,” McCortney said.
“I worked against this and knew it was going to be a nightmare. That’s exactly what’s happened. It’s worse than anybody even thought it was going to be.
“In the end it’s supply and demand. Right now we’re supplying marijuana for the east coast.”
McCortney believes one possibility is to create a new state agency – this one a law enforcement agency, not the health department – to oversee the medical marijuana industry.
“We’re still pretending this is medicine. The Legislature has the authority to fix it. We’ve taken a couple of swings the last two years. I think you’ll see us swinging pretty hard this next session.”
Be the first to comment