Oklahoma's Cannabis Industry Registration Renewals Decline Sharply in November
Policy changes taking effect requiring new compliance standards and fee increases in a small window of time have created an industry disruption in an otherwise robust market.
On the morning of November 1st, many members of the Oklahoma cannabis community woke up to a social media post, either on X/Twitter, on reddit, or Instagram, from renewal watchers sharing the numbers of how many licensees made the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics submission deadline on October 31st.
The numbers were… not good.
The active license count dropped from over 6700 Growers and Processors on October 31, 2023, to fewer than 3,800 on November 1st. The Distributor registrations- or Dispensaries- fell from around 2500 in October 2023 to only around 1780.
This contraction comes after a steady decline in active commercial licenses from regular enforcement actions after OMMA has been made both a standalone agency and has been given more enforcement authority, and a moratorium set on issuing of new licenses.
How Does this Affect Patients?
In October 2023, OMMA reported 358,875 Patient and Caregiver licenses, about 9% of the state’s population.
Some small businesses that patients may not see in their pre-October 2023 form in the future, or at all, were smaller more medical focused operations that made specialty products like topicals and creams, or small craft grows on which underserved areas may have come to rely.
While bills to add regulations to businesses continue with each legislative session, we see fewer patient rights in policy form. Last session also saw attempts to target and restrict patient rights outside of provider care via a qualifying condition bill and additional requirements for physicians, both bills introduced by Senator Garvin (R).
The Framing around SQ820
There have been some comments, speculation, rants, and inferences made online that these changes had a causal relationship to the voter behavior of the adult use ballot petition question SQ820 that was voted on March 7, 2023 - all in the wake of many businesses closing shop, avoiding legal trouble/concerns of arrest, or trying to pivot to a viable income stream right before a holiday season. These changes seem to be industry disrupting in a few ways, getting the community to go at each other as opposed to collaborate. A brief recap is below.
SQ820 faced many direct and indirect opponents including a special election date that ultimately had only a 25.37% turnout- a vast contrast from SQ788’s June 2018 primary voter rollout that surpassed turnout numbers for 2014’s General Election and the 2016 Presidential Primary.
Also a PAC led by Frank Keating and managed by Pat McFerron that gained members including the OK Farm Bureau, the Oklahoma Sheriffs Association, the OK State Chamber, The OK District Attorneys’ Association, among others led a widespread social media campaign, mostly on the “think of the children” rhetorical tactic. The Baptists General Convention of Oklahoma, which also opposed and campaigned against SQ788 were involved, to the surprise of no one.
A few days before the March vote, MJBiz Daily released a piece about SQ820 with some local speculation about what could happen following the results.
But if State Question 820 loses, industry insiders fear that conservative state lawmakers and officials, including Gov. Kevin Stitt, will use the setback as cover to end the state’s wide-open MMJ program.
The line from cannabis skeptics is that Oklahoma voters had no idea what they were in for when they approved medical cannabis, observed Joanna Hamrick, director of operations and sales at Enid-based cultivator Primal Cannabis and a board member of the Oklahoma Cannabis Industry Association (OCIA).
In this way, the adult-use legalization vote is also a referendum on cannabis in deeply conservative Oklahoma, she said.
“If 820 does not pass, I’m afraid that legislators and government officials will say that in fact, Oklahomans did not know what they were voting on, and they will create more restrictions,” she told MJBizDaily.
But also in the piece Hamrick said “I feel like the industry is split on it, and I really don’t know where that split lies.”
That piece was published only a few days before the March election but before that time some in Oklahoma cannabis (not cattle ranch lobbyists or prosecutors or pastors) challenged the SQ820 petition during it’s path to the ballot while putting forth their own petitions which they ended up withdrawing. As there are links throughout this piece for diving deeper, the “TLDR” of all these petitions and is that, since SQ788 many ‘recreational’ / adult use petitions have been filed (well over a dozen), and sometimes some are by the same individuals and groups, and sometimes some have good points and bad points and some don’t go anywhere, and some are “legalize but not like that".
In Oklahoma, ballot petitions have been filed from jail(SQ808) and they have been backed the much more affluent and their groups(SQ640). When citizen led ballot initiative petitions succeed from truly grassroots organizing it’s a really amazing thing, otherwise the state would not try so hard to take the petition rights away every year (they also include right to citizen referendum- repealing a law, though that has never been successful).
We are now watching legislators discuss —before 2024 has started or any pre-filing deadlines— capping potency, putting up more barriers to my license renewal, and making it harder to determine what I am buying in the shop itself, to say nothing of the cost increase I know is coming, just so those who grow my safe, quality medicine will be able to stay compliant and keep doing what they’re doing. And I am more likely to pursue growing more on my own, which patients are allowed to do on their property. But two cities have already tried to restrict personal growing rights for Oklahomans - Yukon and Heavener.
Money is up for so many policing agencies (OBNDD is one of only eight - yes only 8- dedicated state narcotics bureaus; other states have divisions within police departments for this) while money for education, one of the original intents of SQ788, is down by comparison to the rest of the nation.
To circle back to the state of medical things while we’re at it, it’s also healthcare enrollment season, and premiums are rising. As selections shrink and prices at dispensaries go up so will the expenses for the average medical cannabis patient with a number of other health needs.
What’s Next, and also if you’re just getting started…
Also over the fall concurrent to cannabis businesses attempting to stay compliant, the Oklahoma Legislature has been conducting interim studies. While these can sometimes be performative in nature, as the legislator holding the study chooses who they would like to invite to speak on the topic, they can also give clues as to what sort of policy to expect introduced in the spring session. We’ve covered a few easy to use existing tools for navigating the legislative sessions and doing advocacy at a very basic level.
We will continue to post here and on our other accounts any information that is free to use and share for any continued advocacy efforts including our small reddit community and those twitter-like platforms- this one and this one.