The “wild west” of medical cannabis might not be so wild should a group of seven Oklahoma House Republicans find a path to passing a legislative package aimed at cleaning up the state’s program. Headlined by Majority Floor Leader Jon Echols and Rep. TJ Marti, who chairs the chamber’s Alcohol, Tobacco and Controlled Substances Committee, a group of state lawmakers outlined a 12-point plan to better regulate Oklahoma’s medical cannabis industry during a press conference on March 7. The majority of that plan is directed at weeding out “bad actors” in the state, while patient safety and protecting Oklahoma farmers from liability is also at the forefront of the proposed bills, Marti said. The seven-member House working group on medical cannabis—which also includes Reps. Rusty Cornwell, Scott Fetgatter, Kevin McDugle, John Pfeiffer, and Jay Steagall—has spent months collaborating with fellow legislators, regulators, law enforcement, and industry experts to come up with the plan, Marti said. When Oklahomans passed State Question 788 via a 56.9% majority as an initiated statute on the June 2018 ballot, they voted for a legal medical cannabis “free-market program,” Echols said. “The black market is not the free market,” he said during the press conference.
Posted Melissa Schiller, Cannabis Business Times, 03/07/2022 15:18:00