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OKLAHOMA CITY — A new slate of laws aims to clean up Oklahoma’s reputation as the “Wild West of Weed.”
The state Legislature passed a total of 10 new regulations in 2024 for the state’s medicinal marijuana industry, some of which take effect Jan. 1. But producers are worried that the new laws will hurt growers and dispensaries in the state.
“This industry has continued to only see an avalanche of disturbing and inefficient changes,” said dispensary owner Summer Whiteman, whose business is in Seminole, about an hour east of Oklahoma City. “The excessive change will only continue to mount against the odds of survival of locally owned businesses.”
The Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority, which oversees medical marijuana regulation in the state, gathered public input in December regarding proposed changes to its rules, signed into law by Republican Gov. Kevin Stitt earlier this year.
Growers and dispensary owners voiced their concerns about the incoming regulations, such as fingerprinting added to background checks for employees, proof of occupancy for license renewal, and a change in the limits of pesticide residue allowed in the product. Others at a Dec. 17 public hearing expressed frustration over what they described as an overwhelming and constant influx of new requirements.
Oklahoma voters legalized medicinal marijuana through State Question 788 in 2018. The state saw a “green rush.” In 2021, more than 9,400 grow operations were registered with the state., according to OMMA, Oklahoma’s regulatory arm for the state’s medical marijuana operations.
Medicinal marijuana buds are dried at the Stability Cannabis wearhouse in Oklahoma City on Wednesday, Nov. 30, 2022.
The state put a moratorium on new dispensary, grower and processor licenses in August 2022, after the passage of HB 3208.
Since then, the number of growers and dispensaries has steadily dropped in the state. As of December, there were around 3,000 growers and about 1,800 dispensaries licensed across the state.
That moratorium was extended through August 2026.
Lawmakers are also concerned about an increase in criminal activity around the legal weed industry, including a 2022 case involving a man killing four workers at a marijuana farm. Some of Oklahoma’s top officials also say they’re worried about foreign influence on operations. Thirty-three new state laws have been put in place since 2022, seeking to crack down on the budding industry.
“This opportunity was supposed to improve the quality of our state’s cannabis community,” Whiteman said, adding that there’s a “blatant disconnect” between the state’s laws and the promise of legalizing marijuana years ago.
“We have watched what we voted for in 2018 fall into a blundering abyss at the hands of our government and bad actors,” she said.
What are Oklahoma’s new marijuana laws?
The latest regulations, which will begin rolling out in 2025, include:
A requirement for all medical marijuana products be sold in pre-packaged quantities between 0.5 grams to 3 ounces.
New rules for returning defective or hazardous products
A fingerprint check to be added to background checks for medical marijuana employees
A change in how certificates of compliance for medical marijuana businesses are renewed
New standards for final product testing
Adjusted rules for the transfer of commercial licenses and submission of license renewal applications
State Sen. Bill Coleman, who authored one of the new regulations, said this latest slate of laws was designed to help regulate an industry that was born with few rules in place and has since allowed for “bad actors” in the state to prosper.
“This is a critical public safety measure that protects medical marijuana patients by preventing growers from selling garbage bags full of illegal product from unlicensed and unregulated entities,” Coleman said in a statement in April after the state Senate passed House Bill 3361, which lays out the new packaging requirement. “Requiring growers to prepackage marijuana flower limits the number of people who handle the product, allows the parcels to be tracked and ensures patients know where their medicine is coming from.”
Medicinal marijuana is grown at the Stability Cannabis warehouse in Oklahoma City. Photo by Nathan J. Fish/The Oklahoman/USA Today Network
But growers and processors raised concerns about a proposed requirement mandating pre-packaging for medical marijuana products. They argued this change would pose significant logistical challenges, as many growers lack the necessary equipment for such packaging.
Kat Turner and her mother, Tracy, owners of The Groovy Cats dispensary in Tulsa, said they continue to “jump through the hoops” that OMMA is asking.
Turner said being forced to package marijuana too early and not allowing it to dry can cause it to mildew and possibly sicken patients. Turner also said these new regulations are unfair to all the “mom and pop growers” because the financial burden will be too high.
“Some of these growers take pride and effort into growing some of the most beautiful and wonderful medicine and seeing it go into a bag that [sucks] the life out of it is so ridiculous,” she added.
Jeremy Woods, whose company, “Wild West Compliance,” helps local growers and dispensary owners prepare and pass state inspections, said the number of new regulations can be overwhelming for business owners.
“A lot of people never went in and read the regulations,” Woods said. “(The state is) changing these rules and they are changing them often.”
Red tape
Concerns about a backlog of licenses and slow inspection times deepened when the OMMA announced in July that the agency would lay off 10 percent of its staff, between 25 and 30 employees. OMMA executive director Adria Berry said in a statement that a decrease in the number of commercial licenses caused the need to decrease staff.
Lee Bayless, who owns the Doctor Big Bud grow operation in Choctaw, Oklahoma, said he recently had his license renewal rejected because the new OMMA regulations would require him to re-register his business and pay hundreds of dollars in application fees so that his wife could be listed as a business owner.
“I’ve been a by-the-book grower even though I’m one of the smallest growers in the state,” he said. “I’ve passed every inspection, never had a citation or license problem, but this year I’m going through this difficulty.”
Berry assured attendees at the December hearing that anyone who submitted comments, either in person or online, would receive a written response from the agency. She also emphasized that public input is a vital part of the rule-making process. With the public comment period for the new laws now over, OMMA will review the feedback and determine if adjustments to the proposed rules are needed before submitting them to the Legislature for approval by Feb. 1.
Many growers had comments about the planned state-run laboratory, which is scheduled to open in February. The lab, which was approved by the Legislature in 2023 through Senate Bill 813 and will be run by OMMA, will serve two main functions when it opens.
The state laboratory will analyze marijuana products that have previously undergone commercial testing to verify the accuracy of those results. The lab will also send marijuana samples to private testing laboratories across Oklahoma to evaluate those individual labs’ results.
Many growers asked whether the lab could effectively hold non-compliant operators accountable and hoped that transparency and a smoothly operated from the lab could be used to build trust within the industry.
Mounting concerns over foreign-owned land
Many of the proposed regulations from state lawmakers have come after years of warnings from Gov. Kevin Stitt that Oklahoma farmland was under threat from the “Chinese Communist Party.”
In a 2022 Fox News interview, he pointed to the large number of land purchases by foreign nationals in 2020 compared to other states. “That’s a red flag for anybody.”
Woods, who travels across the state inspecting grow operations, said the issue of illegal and foreign-owned businesses is a concern for the entire industry.
“It’s a major threat,” Woods said. “We get to see it first hand and I see it all over the state.”
But Woods does believe that the “mom and pop” grow shops and dispensaries are being caught in the crossfire of the state government trying to root out the illegal operations with excessive regulations and rules.
“I think they are trying to get it contained, and it needed some regulation,” Woods said. “But the honest businesses are being punished at the same time.”
Stitt’s warning joins a chorus of lawmakers around the nation concerned about the amount of land being bought by foreign companies or individuals.
Oklahoma has seen a marked increase in land purchases from foreign countries.. According to the latest U.S. Department of Agriculture report, land holdings by foreign investors in Oklahoma increased by 119,617 acres in 2022 compared to the previous year. In total, foreign owners hold 1.7 million acres of land out of Oklahoma’s some 44 million acres, yet most of the land is owned or leased by Canadian and European companies focused on solar and wind energy development, not cannabis cultivation.
Yet the fear persists. Oklahoma legislators addressed the matter in 2023 by enacting Senate Bill 212, a law prohibiting foreign individuals or entities from purchasing land in the state for marijuana cultivation.
Stitt signed nearly 20 marijuana-related bills into law in 2024, most of which aim to narrow who can access the industry.
“Our hands have been forced by the unprecedented border security crisis that has seen more than 52,000 Chinese Nationals, along with terror organizations, illegally infiltrate and wreak havoc on our great nation and state,” he said at an April news conference before the signing of House Bill 4156, which gave authorities broader authority to arrest people in the U.S. illegally.
With all the changes to Oklahoma’s medical marijuana industry, dispensary owner Whiteman said the constant barrage of new legislation has taken a toll on her business and family.
She isn’t sure if he can hold on much longer. She wonders if that is the point.
“}]] Ten new laws will begin to take effect in 2025. Here’s what they mean for Oklahoma growers and dispensaries. Read More
