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Just eight months after voters passed State Question 788 last June, medical marijuana has become a booming business in Oklahoma.

As of last Wednesday, 16 entities and individuals in Kingfisher County have been licensed as commercial medical marijuana growers (see chart), while another five growers are licensed in Crescent and 30 in Guthrie, according to the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority’s website.

Another nine county companies are licensed as medical marijuana processors and three county dispensaries have been licensed, plus another three in Watonga.

Becoming Big Business

As of March 18, 68,578 patient licenses and 495 caregiver licenses had been issued in the state and 2,057 growers, 580 processors and 1,150 dispensaries had been licensed, according to an OMMA tweet.

And the pace of new patient applications continues to increase exponentially, from 1,200 per week back in September to more than 4,000 a week since the first of the year.

OMMA continues to hire new staff to keep up with the pace, at one point temporarily closing its call center so it could divert those employees to the task of license processing.

Because all identifying information for patient license holders is sealed by law, an OMMA representative told the Times and Free Press that the number of license holders residing in Kingfisher County was not available.

At $2,500 a pop, commercial licensing fees have already generated nearly $9.5 million in new state revenue.

While the amount of additional fees generated by patient and caregiver licenses wasn’t readily available, at either $100 or $20 (for Medicaid, Medicare or Soonercare patients), the total amount collected so far could range from $1.3-6.9 million.

As the private business side of the equation gets up and running, medical marijuana sales also continue to increase, growing from $4.3 million in total sales in January to $7.2 million last month.

The state’s 7 percent tax on marijuana products generated $508,000 last month, which by law goes first to fund agencies that regulate the growing industry, with any surplus divided between the general fund (75 percent) and substance abuse treatment services (25 percent).

Unprecedented Growth

The Oklahoma medical marijuana experience is far from typical.

Among the other 32 states that have legalized pot for medical purposes, the lag time between legislation and a functioning system has been about two years.

In fact, voters in North Dakota, Ohio and Arkansas all approved medical marijuana in 2016 but have yet to see sales begin.

By contrast, Oklahoma’s first retail outlets opened just four months after legalization.

Most observers attribute the state’s speedy implementation on one of the most liberally-worded ballot initiatives in the country.

Unlike most other states, Oklahoma does not require physicians recommending a patient for medical marijuana to specify a particular medical condition.

Once licensed, each marijuana patient is allowed to purchase up to the specified limits for possession, described as “very generous” in comparison to other state allowances:

•Possess up to three ounces of cannabis in public.

•Store up to eight ounces of cannabis at home.

•Grow up to six mature plants in their private residence (in addition to six seedlings).

•Possess up to 1 ounce of cannabis concentrates (including THC oils, waxes, extracts, etc.)

•Possess up to 72 ounces of “marijuana-infused edibles.”

Cardholders also can designate a caregiver to purchase and even grow marijuana on their behalf.

Attempts to Regulate

Tightening some of the language of the state question has brought mixed results.

Early health department rules that added requirements and subtracted some privileges incorporated in the state question were reversed when Attorney General Mike Hunter pointed out the regulations likely were an unconstitutional infringement on the will of voters.

In the waning days of her administration, Gov. Mary Fallin signed new rules developed by the state’s Food Safety Standards Board for marijuana processors that ban “kid-friendly” packaging for edibles and require all edibles to display a uniform red and black symbol reading “Contains THC – Not Safe for Kids or Pets.”

Packaging also is required to display a list of ingredients, a marijuana batch number and lot code and dosage of THC per milligram of product.

Less than two weeks ago, Gov. Kevin Stitt signed the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana and Patient Protection Act, an outgrowth of the bipartisan working group which met weekly since the state question was adopted last summer.

In addition to statutorily codifying the food safety rules and the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority as a regulatory agency under the state health department with licensing and enforcement powers, the act:

•Establishes requirements for testing medical marijuana products for contaminants and THC content.

•Requires child-resistant containers at point of sale.

•Bans county laws that restrict access to medical marijuana and protects access to food stamps, Medicaid and other safety net programs for medical marijuana patients.

•Affirms the right of license holders to own firearms.

•Restricts marijuana smoking in public in the same way that cigarette smoking is already restricted.

•Reduces license fees for disabled veterans.

•Imposes seed-to-sale inventory tracking requirements.

•Establishes rules for commercial growers, processors, transporters, testing labs and dispensaries.

•Regulates medical marijuana research.

•Creates a patient registry for physicians.

•Modifies the rule that employers can’t penalize license holders who test positive for THC by creating an exception for “safety sensitive” jobs, including firefighting, any job involving a firearm, hazardous materials or power tools, and child care workers.

The act was dubbed the “Unity Bill” because it enjoyed broad support from proponents of medical marijuana and those who sought additional regulation.

All of the county’s state legislative delegation, including representatives Mike Sanders and Denise Crosswhite-Hader and senators Darcy Jech and Chuck Hall, voted for the measure.

Jech, who was part of the medical marijuana working group, said the Unity Bill was a 90-page attempted clarification of the five-page state question.

“Most of the points address public safety and transparency of the industry,” he said. “Also important to know is that the original language of SQ 788 remains in the Unity Bill.”

State Rep. Mike Sanders said the bill creates “a much better framework and clearer regulations.”

“SQ 788 was written so poorly that major guidelines had to be put in place,” he said.

Widespread Appeal

Legalizing marijuana for medical purposes enjoyed widespread support in the county as well as statewide among many who saw a legitimate need for another treatment option for themselves or their family members.

An informal survey conducted by the Times and Free Press early last summer drew comments from many local residents suffering from conditions that were no longer responding to traditional medicine or which required copious use of opioids or other potentially addictive painkillers.

Legal access to a treatment with potentially fewer side effects is appealing to many and the greater the number of in-state growers and processors, the less expensive medical marijuana will be for the end-user.

Because most of the commercial growers licensed in the county are identified only by company rather than individual identities, it’s not possible to determine from the state registry how many of the farms listed are actually locally owned and operated.

But medical marijuana certainly offers a legal cash crop alternative for farmers suffering from depressed prices for other locally-grown commodities.

Law Enforcement Nightmare?

County Sheriff Dennis Banther and Kingfisher Police Chief Dennis Baker, vocal opponents of the liberal wording of SQ 788 since it was first proposed, are concerned about the sheer quantity of legal marijuana that could be circulating through the county.

During the entire year of 2017, the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics seized 2,132 pounds of illegal marijuana in traffic stops.

Based on the current number of license holders and the three ounces of marijuana they can have on their person, 12,858 pounds of marijuana now could be walking around in the pockets and vehicles of legal license holders on any given day.

And that’s not counting the quantity that can legally be present in their homes

“I can’t foresee any issues where someone needs that much marijuana in their possession for medicinal purposes,” Banther said.

That much legal pot creates concerns about black market diversion and easier access for non license holders, he added.

“The potential for abuse to make larger profits selling illegally will increase the workload on our department which is already overburdened,” Banther said. “That abuse will be shared by every agency across the state as there will always be a select few who choose to seek their fortunes in a method that voters didn’t intend.”

He added that although the commercial side of the equation is regulated entirely at the state level, local law enforcement will carry the added policing burden arising from thefts and other security breaches at commercial facilities.

“It makes for a complex strategy on how to integrate this into our policing policy,” Banther said.

“I believe we will see a number of illegal marijuana cultivations as well as illegal sales and diversions as a result of the state question’s passage and the lack of a clear management strategy by the state on the front end of it,” Baker said. “Encountering people in possession of marijuana will now require officers to spend more time to ensure the possession is legal and the quantities are not in excess of statutory limits.”

Oklahoma lawyer Brian Ted Jones explained the impact of the SQ 788 on the current criminal law framework in an article in the March issue of the Oklahoma Bar Journal:

“788 ended a system where regulation of an agricultural commodity was the exclusive domain of the criminal code and transferred jurisdiction over that commodity to authorities in the state’s civil law.

“The simplicity of this transfer belies the revolutionary nature of its effect.

“In spite of this massive alteration to Oklahoma law, the text of 788 is almost entirely silent on the changes this measure will produce in Oklahoma criminal law.”

That lack of criminal framework causes concern for local law enforcement agencies faced with dealing with the fallout.

“I previously predicted drug-induced crime, as well as driving under the influence of drug arrests, to increase and continue to believe we have not yet seen the complete extent of it,” Baker said.

Banther also is concerned with the lack of clear regulation of the operation of cultivation and processing facilities, including chemicals used and their potential runoff and appropriate disposal of the parts of the marijuana plants which are not used in the end product.

Baker agreed: “State Question 788 was so loosely written that the state is now scrambling to get rules in place to manage it as the marijuana mushroom cloud continues to rise over the election results.”