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"Medical Marijuana 3.1" passes the OBH
The Oklahoma Board of Health met in open meeting for all of 8 minutes, today. they passed a far better set of medical marijuana(cannabis) rules than most patients had even hoped for. Immediately after opening motions, the board unanimously voted to go into executive session where an assistant Attorney General was said to be advising them of their legal jeopardy and the Attorney General's prescribed path for handling the matter. That 'sidebar' in a sealed separate room lasted the better part of an hour. When they came back into open meeting, they quickly took a motion to accept the July 31 draft proposal and pass it as the replacement document of emergency rules, thereby voiding the current rules enacted by the governor on July 11th. The motion, by Becky Payton of Mercy Hospital included a clause to say that this draft proposal had been thoroughly screened and approved by the Attorney General, personally. There was one late addendum of 4 changes. Two of them were matters I brought to the attention of the department in a Monday afternoon email. |
OBH President, Tim Starkey, wrapped up a very short open session by the unanimous passage of a new set of Medical Marijuana Rules.
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The question was called and the vote was unanimous. Oddly missing from today's meeting was Dr. Terry Gerard of Durant. No explanation was given and the current quorum of 8 voted unanimously on every procedural roll call.
The board announced the rescheduling of their normal August meeting (August 8th) to mid September.
This leaves the Emergency rules of Medical Marijuana as a far simpler document and provides for cities and other agencies to manage other issues which the health Dept. is less suited to address.
Here are the new rules, which Gov. Fallin is expected to sign. These rules will only be temporary, and expire in Sept. of next year, or when the legislature & governor enact a replacement.
There are still many problems with this document, in that;
The board announced the rescheduling of their normal August meeting (August 8th) to mid September.
This leaves the Emergency rules of Medical Marijuana as a far simpler document and provides for cities and other agencies to manage other issues which the health Dept. is less suited to address.
Here are the new rules, which Gov. Fallin is expected to sign. These rules will only be temporary, and expire in Sept. of next year, or when the legislature & governor enact a replacement.
There are still many problems with this document, in that;
- It does not provide for the acquisition of seeds for the initial startup growers and patients.
- It goes further in restricting youth access to dispensaries, than our current drugstores.
- It bans physicians from continuing their care for cannabis patients if the physician should ever become a cannabis patient.
- It may require a license for all CBD products, by not listing a threshold enacting content of THC.
