With legal cannabis medicine prices stabilizing in Oklahoma dispensaries, the black market dealers are seeing the 'writing on the wall'.
  In states where patients have to turn to the cartels for cannabis medicine, the prices are commonly over $300 per ounce for medium/high quality raw dried flower buds.
  But the legal dispensaries which have been opening all over the Sooner State, prices and supply have created market conditions which allow licensed patients to safely and legally attain tested cannabis medicine at prices of around $200-300 per ounce.
  At this rate it makes little sense for a patient not to get a medical consultation and pay the $100 for a medical license. It's almost like getting a Sam's Club card. You pay a membership fee up front, but you expect to recoup that expense through lower priced products.  It's as though the state created a "Sam's Club" for naturopathic medicines.
  Last December, the wholesale prices for legal cannabis was over $300 per ounce. Now it is half that.

  On Tuesday, Gov. Kevin Stitt signed a new law into immediate effect. It's Emergency clause requires the OMMA to accept a medical recommendation from any MD or DO physician whose license is in good standing with the State of Oklahoma. The physician no longer is required to be a "board certified specialist" in addition to being a general practitioner.
  The impact is huge for patients who want to remain in the care of their own local clinic. It will allow them to seek the new recommendation at any follow-up, med check, or annual physical exam.  Until now the patients have had to go hunt down a willing physician who does not know anything about their complex health condition. It also puts an additional financial burden on patients who may be battling cancer, mental illness, or other serious conditions. But this law doesn't mean their current physician will be willing to recommend cannabis treatments for them or any of their patients. Some physicians simply won't recommend any treatment that they have not been sufficiently trained to utilize in the care of patients.
  The new law's author, Senator Rob Standridge, (R-Norman) is a pharmacist who initially opposed the SQ788 initiative, but he's seen firsthand the impact that cannabis meds can have for end-of-life care and alleviating severe pain while avoiding opiates. 
  Other major changes to medical marijuana law will go into effect 90 days after the legislature's May adjournment.

  Over the past few months, the OMMA has been sinking further under a flood of applications, but lacking the proper appropriations from the legislature, in order to hire permanent staff. They relied on temporary staffing contractors and had to devote more time to training.
 But in the run-up to Easter weekend, a major accomplishment was achieved. Over 10,000 new licenses were issued, eclipsing the previous record of 5,000+.
  Statutes require the OMMA to issue a license within 14 days, unless a known problem exists in the forms submitted online. But the OMMA's weekly tweets indicated that they had a typical backlog of about 12,000, either rejected or awaiting action. Now that backlog is around 7,000.
  Some of those are likely to be from patients who have given up or have deceased. But many more are forms which just needed additional clarification or documentation. And it's likely that every application sits en queue for over a week before the staff even gets to a first review.