For one of his final acts in office, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt wants to eliminate legal medical cannabis.
Termed out next year, Stitt plans to ask the state legislature to send to the voters a ballot initiative on medical marijuana that would “shut it down,” he said during his final State of the State speech on Monday, according to NonDoc.
“This industry is plagued by foreign criminal interests and bad actors, making it nearly impossible to rein in,” he said, according to NonDoc.
“We can’t put a Band-Aid on a broken bone.
“Knowing what we know, it’s time to let Oklahomans bring safety and sanity back to their neighborhoods.”
Will Oklahoma repeal medical marijuana?
According to NonDoc, Stitt’s call to be the first state to completely recriminalize a cannabis industry after years in operation drew a standing ovation from Republican state lawmakers.
If successful, cannabis recriminalization would mark a stunning turnaround for Oklahoma, once the country’s hottest medical cannabis market, thanks to a lack of license caps and a low barrier to entry for cannabis patients and operators alike.
Oklahoma voters legalized medical cannabis in 2018. But an initial boom soured in part because of complaints that the industry was quickly overrun by bad actors, including criminal gangs.
Stitt’s call to end medical cannabis in Oklahoma represents yet another push to roll back cannabis policy reform.
Campaigns to qualify voter initiatives that would repeal adult-use marijuana sales in Arizona, Maine and Massachusetts are underway.
Oklahoma medical cannabis’ steady decline
Stitt has already overseen a severe cutback to the state industry, which records about $600 million a year in retail sales, according to state data.
By contrast, annual sales in 2020 exceeded $831 million.
But in 2023, with about 6,675 registered growers in the state, Stitt extended a moratorium on new permits until August 2026.
There are now fewer than 2,500 cultivators in Oklahoma, where voters also soundly rejected an adult-use legalization measure in a March 2023 special election.
Sales have plummeted from the days when Oklahoma was considered to have billion-dollar market potential.
Retail sales in January totaled about $42 million, according to state data. That’s down substantially from October’s $56.1 million.
