Late Tuesday afternoon the Oklahoma Department of Health(ODH) published a final draft set of emergency rules for the newly enacted medical marijuana laws that the people of Oklahoma passed into law by a historic voter turnout.
  The ODH Board had passed a very predatory set of rules just 3 weeks ago but lawsuits by the citizens forced the Attorney General and Governor to move quickly and rescind those emergency rules.
   Just last Thursday, the Interim Director, Tom Bates; met with proponents of the new law and conceded several points to the working group. When that group heard Director Bates' proposal, they added several more issues where the agency clearly went beyond the authorization and even contradicted the new law in numerous ways.
   To the ODH's credit, they spent the weekend and early this week to remove more than half of the previous rules. 

  Last week we posted an article about the state's paraphernalia laws, in light of the new medical marijuana initiative petition law.
  We noticed that the existing statutes were not stricken, and that the Health Department did not establish emergency rules to address the matter.
   But we completely failed to thoroughly scour the actual  State Question 788 language!  Yes, we feel stupid and quite humbled by the failure.  But rather than run away from our mistake, we're going to embrace our humiliation and encourage the readers to clean out the 'cache' in their brains and 'refresh' their mental cognisance. The fact is, Initiative Petition 412, known as SQ788 says in Section 4F;
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"F. Any device used for the consumption of medical marijuana shall be considered legal to be sold, manufactured, distributed, and possessed. No merchant, wholesaler, manufacturer, or individual may unduly be harassed or prosecuted for selling, manufacturing, or possession of medical marijuana paraphernalia. "

UPDATE: Version '3.1' was passed by the OBH *.

  The Oklahoma Department of Health is trying for a 2nd time to get a sensible and workable set of temporary rules to administrate the new law enabling doctors to treat patients with Cannabis medicines.

  Earlier this month a policy team built a framework with multiple egregious errors and unconstitutional overreaches. then the Board of Health added even harsher rules in their last-minute unannounced  and rogue amendments.
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  When the authors of 788 and others filed a lawsuit,  the Attorney General stepped up and reviewed just a few rules and found not just two, but eight named violations that the Board of Health, Department of Health, and Oklahoma Governor wrongfully passed & enacted.

  Today I, as a citizen, wrote to the ODH, asking them to look at some remaining issues.

  How does an Oklahoma death row murder appeal end up with the possible removal of all non Muscogee Creek Nation tribal members from a massive portion of eastern Oklahoma?
​    That's the tale of  Patrick Murphy, a man claiming to be a member of the Muscogee Creek Nation.

  The Oklahoma Department of Health (ODH) just published their new draft of Medical MArijuana Rules, due to a set of lawsuits, a strong warning from the Attorney General's office, and the request of the Governor's office.
 The working group who created the first drafts has been working directly with the interim director, Tom Bates. Director Bartes met with several industry advocates and the authors of SQ788, to explain to them his team's initial concessions. 
  The Health Department has not presented a means of public comment for this new set of proposals. Director Bates seemed to indicate some sort of organized manner of public comment when he spoke to groups yesterday, but nothing seems to be detailed, yet.
 The ODH adds this disclaimer to their website's summary and draft:

  A Bixby police officer is under investigation for unjustified use of deadly force, resulting in the death of a 17 year old local resident.  Atty. Kevin Adams conducted a press conference outside the Tulsa County Courthouse on Thursday.  Adams has a long legacy of providing 'pro bono' legal assistance to underserved citizens. 
  It appears that young Logan Simpson was fleeing from attackers who had assaulted his older brother with an axe in the dark hours of early Sunday. Logan's father had detained the attacker and he was in police custody at last report. But initially the parents did not know who had taken Logan's vehicle, so they suspected it was stolen, and included the suspicion to the police dispatcher. When an officer arrived the mother told the responding deputy that their younger son was confirmed to be in possession of the vehicle, so the auto theft report should be disregarded.
  Evidently that communication did not get relayed to another officer, who followed & attempted to detain Logan at another location, about a mile south of the Simpson home. It seems the cop thought he had Logan pinned in, but when the boy evaded, the cop shot him.

  Cannabis medicines are now acceptable and lawful for licensed patients in Oklahoma, but a pipe, lighter, or even potting soil could land a person in court to face  a 1-year jail sentence and more than $10,000 in fines.  That's because the Oklahoma board of health has not addressed their rules regarding licensed cannabis patients. The paraphernalia law is so poorly written that law enforcement and wealth dept. have vast latitude in how they implement the 2014 updated statute.
  The paraphernalia law relies heavily upon establishing intent. A disposable lighter could be a basis for arrest if a cop says he has probable cause to believe a person may eventually light a joint with that lighter.  When a medical marijuana patient goes down to the local nursery next month to get supplies and advice on growing cannabis medicines at home, the nursery staff could face charges for selling the potting soil and containers.
​ The statute (§63-2-405) only makes exceptions for  physicians with proper certification to practice healthcare. 

  Early this morning there will be a new draft set of Medical Marijuana Rules being prepared for next Wednesday's meeting of the Board of Health.
  Isaac Caviness (CBD shop owner) & Chris Moe (MMJ patient) were two of the select group of Cannabis medicine proponents whom Interim Director Tom Bates of the Oklahoma Health Department (ODH) invited to get a sneak preview and give feedback on the ODH new draft rules. SQ788 author, Chip Paul called SoonerPolitics yesterday to confirm he is also attending the meeting.
  The draft will be posted at http://omma.ok.gov/ at any moment. There will be some public response accommodations over the next 4 days. On Tuesday a final draft will likely be posted for the Wednesday OBH emergency meeting.
   It is essential to the constitutional right of petitioning of Govt. and right or redress of grievance; that citizens study this and any set of proposed rules. Waiting until Wednesday to speak up, is a roadmap to more failure. If a citizen has a concern, then they have a duty to become informed promptly!
  If further board obstruction occurs, citizens say they may exercise another petition drive.... to get 5000 signatures for a grand jury to look at evidence  regarding the state agencies & board members in collusion to obstruct the law.

 When the Board of Health was repeatedly warned not to go beyond the proper boundaries of agency rulemaking, President Tim Starkey issued his own justification by citing an intra-agency vision statement which was made to sound like a constitutional or statutory authority.
  OBH President, Tim Starkey and his colleagues were clearly and repeatedly told that they lack constitutional authority to write new restrictions that are not reflective of statutory law.
  Starkey said, "Our task, by the board, is to protect the health of Oklahoma. Anyone have comments to that effect?"
  Then Board member, Terry Gerard asked if the medical associations were urging for a pharmacist requirement.   The new board member, Skillings, chimed in that a smoking ban should also be imposed. ​

  The Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority is now distributing many supporting documentation forms for medical marijuana patients. While the patient application form, itself, is not available until August 25th, many of the supporting documents are available for patients planning a trip to their clinician.
​  The rules state that the patient application must be submitted within 30 days of attaining a physician's recommendation. 
  The Board of Health indicated that physicians need to be registered in the MMA database of recommending physicians prior to making these patient recommendations.  The OMMA set up an online process of registering as an Oklahoma  board certified physician.
  The key document is not yet online. that document is the application of the patient. It may be that some legal matters have required the Board of Health to revise the rules before that application sets in motion the  process of getting the license. 
The Health department could issue mm licenses today, but they indicated that they will delay until they must issue (which is August 25th)

  The Oklahoma State Board of Pharmacy leaders met Wednesday to seek and end to a major embarrassment to the agency. In simple motions and without substantive discussion, the board unanimously voted to immediately terminate Chelsea Church's contract and position at the helm of the agency which oversees the many thousands of pharmacists and drug retailers in the state.
  Church's attorney is threatening legal actions but would not specify those means.  It is not yet clear just how broad the OSBI investigation will be when the final indictments are litigated or settled. The matter is undermining the credibility of Oklahoma's most trusted healthcare agencies just as they are seeking the imposition of new regulatory restrictions to medical cannabis.
  The Board of Health is named in a lawsuit by several proponents of medical marijuana. the State Attorney General has also scolded the Board of Health for vastly overstepping their constitutional authority. That board has called an emergency meeting to revisit the matter on August 1st.

  The Oklahoma legislators stepped up, today. A bicameral & bipartisan group of lawmakers took time to hear from several Oklahomans who made impassioned pleas for liberty to get the medicines they need for themselves and their children.
  We're including a clip of a couple of the presenters today.

  Several organized groups came together at the capitol and presented many different aspects of why Oklahomans voted is such strong numbers, to reform our cannabis laws.
  Some discussed civil liberties, others discussed medical research and recent discoveries, still others discussed their own life & death struggles. Others focused on what the intent of the peoples' law is supposed to be understood as. And others provided thoughtful ideas of how to make government's role easier to accomplish.

    Radio talkshow host, Pat Campbell,  has devoted extensive time & energy toward better understanding of what problems & promises lie in Oklahoma's future regarding healthcare options involving parts of the marijuana plant.
​  Maybe the biggest political story of 2018; the medical marijuana policy reversal; will move toward a more informed understanding as a result of a radio debate held today.
  At 7am, Tuesday; Dr. Jim Meehan(MD), and Cannabis  researcher Chip Paul devoted an hour to assisting KFAQ1170's efforts to dispel the myths. Jim Meehan is known to many for his opposition to Dr. Ervin Yen and a few resulting confrontations at the state capitol. Meehan is an advocate for informed consent healthcare options, rather than state mandates. Chip Paul is the principal author of SQ788 and the founder of GNUPharma, in Owasso, OK.
​  Pat Campbell has hosted the KFAQ morning show for about a decade and provides a podcast library of his radio events.  Listen to KFAQ live at https://www.1170kfaq.com/listen-live

  The clients and allies of New Health Solutions of Oklahoma are making their positions known to the legislature, this week.  We last heard from them just prior to the Board of Health's July meeting. At that time they openly called for regulations on home growing.
  Critics said Oklahomans can see right through those words. Corporate growers and distributors are looking out for their stockholders and see the self-sufficient patients as a threat to their domination of the cannabis markets.
  This past weekend Oklahomans got a first look at 49 new Cannabis laws being proposed by New Health Solutions. Among those new laws will be a first-offense $5000 fine imposed on any patient whose home cultivation exceeds the plant and plant size limit. If even one of the seedlings grows too fast and the 6 flowering mature plants are still intact, the prosecutors are not allowed to show mercy.
  At the same time, the corporate growers are only assessed a fine if the exceedance a "gross violation and without explanation".

  James Bowman is an unlikely farmer. His younger days were spent immersed in the counterculture and harshly criticizing materialism.
  Today he's a very successful farmer and a trailblazer for healthcare public policy. He became a role model by picking up a shovel and planting a crop.  In his 50s now, he still weaves through the idiotic regulations of his state's ridiculous rules for providing cannabis medicines to very needy patients.  His state legalized medical marijuana 20 years ago, but during the first 15 years, they essentially made it impossible to commercially grow the crops and harvest the medicinal yield in a sustaining manner. 
  Oregon's agency which created the rules, said that if you're going to grow the plants for someone else, you cannot earn an income for your work.  During the early years the federal govt. would send in raiding parties to gather up the crops & either burn them or haul them off. It's like having your farm pillaged by some rogue Viking marauders.
​  Take a moment to tour his Oregon farm, below. Read more from the publishers.

  Oklahoma now joins a majority of states who have openly rejected the federal govt. policy of an absolute ban on cannabis. It's been a 'schedule 1' controlled substance for nearly 50 years. Not even opiates and meth are controlled as strictly by federal law.