The chairman of the House Rules Committee informally declared today's committee meeting' the Fetgatter Show'; as Rep. Scott Fetgatter achieved overwhelming bipartisan support for his series of major reforms to medical marijuana policies.

• HB 3954 - Fetgatter - Medical marijuana; specifying manner by which distance between properties shall be measured; emergency. 
   This bill clarifies the 1000ft. distance from school properties in greater detail.
    It also strikes the old "certificate of compliance" rules from last year, and creates a much simpler one, just for first year of licensing under current operations.
    It also  allows reciprocities, so that visiting patients can attain their medicines while in Oklahoma. It may open Oklahomans to opportunities to attain medicines in other states that reciprocate.
• HB 3956 - Fetgatter - Medical marijuana; exempting transporter agents from residency requirement; emergency. 
   This complies with a recent federal court ruling and is advised by the Oklahoma Attorney General, regarding interstate commerce.
• HB 3957 - Fetgatter - Medical marijuana; authorizing dispensaries to sell certain products;
   This allows dispensaries who sell dried cannabis flower, to create 'prerolls' in smoking papers, without a separate processor license.
• HB 3959 - Fetgatter - Medical marijuana; creating Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority as a separate and distinct state agency; removing references to the State Department of Health and updating language; 
   This moves the current OMMA to a stand-alone agency, apart from the Oklahoma Dept. of Health, to avoid the bureaucratic problems of implementing innovations and allows more direct collaboration with the legislature.

  Oklahoma's nearly 10,000 Medical Marijuana Businesses (MMBs) have faced inconvenience, frustration, & deadly risks from the federal ban on banking services. Even paying taxes is a terrible problem for not only the shop owners, but also for the state employees at the Oklahoma Tax Commission.
  Finally, one Oklahoma bank has stepped up to provide a public safety and business convenience for this industry. BancFirst has started accepting deposits for tax payments to the State of Oklahoma. 
The long lines of proprietors at the State Tax Commission Office in Oklahoma City is now thinning out. 
  No, this isn't full service banking for dispensaries. Bancfirst isn't taking daily sales deposits or processing credit card sales, but it's the first statewide banking brand to form broad relationships with thousands of shops, growers, and processors.
  This gives BancFirst access to millions of dollars each month, as it passes through their branches. It relieves MMBs of the wasted time of traveling to OKC with thousands of dollars in cash. It makes the Oklahoma Tax Commission run so much more efficiently and calms the fears of the state workers who were handling millions in cash deposits at the OTC.

  Below you'll find the press statements from the OMMA and BancFirst, detailing this venture into MMB accommodations.
​  The soft rollout actually occurred last summer, but now it's getting even more efficient.

  Last night, OMMA Director, Travis Kirkpatrick, told a town hall meeting in Tulsa that about 1600 of the more than 2000 dispensary licenses issued, are actually showing signs of commerce in their monthly filings with the state.
  This leads a market analyst to compare how Oklahoma compares to several of the other 32 'sanctuary states' allowing medical cannabis distribution. 
  Much of the Oklahoma model is unprecedented and has garnered us as the "Wild West of Cannabis'.  Oklahoma has no quotas or caps on state licensing.  While some of the members of the State Board of Health signaled ambitions to use a bidding system, caps on license awarding, and county set-asides, The states' Attorney General slapped them a strong advisement that they lack any constitutional authority to any such actions.
  Much of the reason for Oklahoma's more libertarian model is because of our state's founders regard for citizen empowerment to go around the legislature & governor, to create laws via direct democracy. The Initiative petition has been the bane of many lawmakers who would rather concentrate power to their own committees. Some believe campaign contributions are another motivation. Lobby groups fund much of our state's legislative race funding.

  In a separate but similar application of commerce law, the Oklahoma Attorney General, Mike Hunter; told the State Liquor Agency, ABLE Commission; that the statutes requiring Liquor businesses to be owned by people with a 5 year residency requirement; is likely afoul of  federal interstate commerce dictates.
  Could  Oklahoma Marijuana laws be struck down, as well?
  ABLE had sought the AG's opinion in light of a recent federal ruling on a Tennessee law to restrict out-of-state wineries. He concluded;
​  "Your question is what effect, if any, the Tennessee Wine decision has on the validity of the residency requirements found in Section 4 of Article 28A of our State Constitution. We believe the U.S. Supreme Court would now hold those requirements to be unconstitutional."
  Another potential matter is the ban on out-of-state products being banned, while in-state versions are legal. This  would possibly open Oklahoma to cannabis products from Colorado. It certainly opens Oklahoma to trace hemp products.
  Protectionism is the term that Hunter finally alleges. He says the courts would ultimately accuse the legislature of being motivated in a way that the US Constitution does not allow.  At the ratification of the 1789 US Constitution, the states entered into an open trade agreement. Our constitution cannot tolerate this. It's one thing to ban a product from another state if you're also banning the local versions of the product or service. But a ban on Texas beef, for instance; would clearly be a violation designed to bolster Oklahoma Beef.

  The advocates and patients impacted by medical marijuana reforms are now scheduled to hold an event at the state capitol, next Thursday.  Leading attorney and industry consultant, Ronald Durbin  is very involved in this initiative.
  Durbin was successful in the summer of 2018, to push back against unconstitutional emergency Health Dept rules. The Attorney General ultimately advised the state to rescind those rules and issue a set which is within their constitutional authority.
  Last August, Durbin organized a march on the Health Dept. after the commissioner & Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority (OMMA) refused to meet with industry consultants to find a workable implementation of the new rules which became effective on Sept. 1st.  That day, the Commissioner of Health resigned. within days the OMMA director also resigned.
 Durbin issued this message;
"..​we are marching to protect 788 against unnecessary over regulation and limitation. We will be voicing our opinion about the problems created by the Legislature last year, and what bills that have been filed this session that will hurt medical marijuana patients and local businesses."

UPDATE: The author has pointed  out that the repeal is only of duplicative language. If that's so, then her bill is based only on a perceived fear that toddlers will run away from the daycares and go into licensed dispensaries and buy medicine which cost over $200 per ounce and only does cash sales.  No such restriction is put on other pharmaceutical shops.

  Deep within Rep. Jadine Nollan's bill to 'protect our babies from the shop down the street'; we see a little paragraph that contains no explanation. You're not supposed to notice it.  In fact, you're supposed to applaud any effort to repeal arcane and unenforceable statutes which no longer reflect the values of Oklahomans.
  But one university professor happened to read the language and do some checking. It's good that there are people willing to dig into the details and report on them. Clearly, none of the major media outlets have discovered the  disturbing attempts to target suffering patients, based on the treatment their physicians recommended.

  Leading MMB Attorney, Ron Durbin is urging formation of cooperative associations for growers, processors, & dispensaries. He expressed those sentiments last night at the Oklahoma Legislative Town Hall on Marijuana Policy.
  Durbin says that these business entities are not represented at the capitol and the result is bad laws & rules, which end up costing businesses more than what an effective lobbyist would cost.
 Perhaps a statewide association is more than what could be built in a cooperative format, but county associations are certainly doable in a workable format. Dispensaries may want to also form in a similar manner, especially in the bigger cities.  A series of local developments like this would easily foster better cooperative relationships with county and city officials. Agencies tasked with implementing state policy can then call together the members of the voluntary business associations and discuss what's coming, or inquire what adjustments the industry members want the county commissioners to consider.

  The Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority (OMMA) is now solidly under new management of Travis Kirkpatrick. In the fall of 2019, the entire Oklahoma Health Dept. faced yet another change in leadership when Tom Bates left to seek a different appointment from Governor Stitt. 
  SoonerPolitics was at the State Health Dept. when more than 100 cannabis patients held a protest of the intransigent silence of both Bates and his former director of the OMMA.
  But within weeks the new leadership reached out to industry advocates and legal experts seeking to make sense of the hastily-implemented new rules.
  This came at a time when all the licensed medical marijuana businesses (MMBs) were required to comply with rules they had no way of attaining compliance in.
  The new leadership of the OMMA, under the interim directorship of Travis Kirkpatrick; granted grace periods, but the monthly reporting of the OMMA began to show radical decreases in MMB licenses. Those growers, processors, & dispensaries seeking county documents (which didn't exist in most counties), were spending massive funds in legal services just to make their best showing of good faith to comply with the nuttiness at the OMMA.
  But now the new director seems to have nearly all of the MMB application backlog resolved. Only about 600 incompleted applications are in the system. 

 Vanessa Avery & Amy Young have filed a petition to end the decades-long prohibition on the adult possession of Cannabis plants (marijuana).  They filed their initiative petition with the Secretary of State's office, today.
  In a cursory review of the language, I see some ambiguities that I wish were spelled out more clearly.  There will be far more scrutiny in the days & months to come.
  The petition will require upwards of 200,000 qualified electors' signatures, in order to advance to an upcoming statewide election ballot. It would create another constitutional amendment. Our state's constitution has about 160 amendments in the 112 years of existence. 
  I'm not convinced that enough eyes have reviewed this document before filing it. Had more advisors been in the process, they may have caught some simple and repeated errors from the last petition we voted on.

  In the past 3 months the medical marijuana dispensaries have undergone significant market changes. Just 3 months ago, there were 25% more retail dispensary licenses than there currently are. 
  November Sales have also dropped by nearly 10% from the previous month.  The average licensed patient was spending 20% more, last August, than they did in November. The patient licensing continues to grow.
  Perhaps the drop in active dispensary licenses reflects those speculators who grabbed up a license a year earlier, but never followed through on setting up shop? Certainly there are several dispensaries who either failed economically, or sold their operations to another proprietor?
  Another factor could be the home growing patients? The optimal harvest came in last month. For those who can grow, and succeed in the horticultural arts, there is an annual cost savings of perhaps several thousand dollars.
  Another concern is the employers who are now emboldened to assert their medical preferences upon the employees. Several employees are facing termination for desk jobs because the employer accessed medical records or imposed drug testing.
​  See the full set of spreadsheets at our library, below.