Oklahoma’s top cannabis regulator will step down, Gov. Kevin Stitt said Thursday, leaving a much-reduced $600 million annual MMJ industry and serious questions about its future in her wake.
Adria Berry, who’d served as the executive director of the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority since 2021, will remain in Stitt’s administration through the end of his term, which expires Jan. 11, 2027.
Berry praised the governor in a statement.
“Having his support as we built a regulatory structure that reigned in the ‘Wild West of Weed’ made it possible to root out bad actors and make our state safer,” she said, according to Stitt’s office.
Her replacement, James Yingling, a former Oklahoma sheriff and highway patrolman who is OMMA’s current deputy chief of compliance and enforcement, will serve out the rest of Berry’s term.
In a statement, Stitt thanked Berry for a “clear track record of results,” adding she “navigated a complex industry with grit and professionalism.”
Naming a permanent Oklahoma cannabis chief will be up to Stitt’s successor as governor.
Who will be the next leader of the Oklahoma marijuana regulatory authority?
Neither Republican gubernatorial nominee Mike Mazzei nor Democratic opponent Cyndi Munson embraced Stitt’s call for cannabis to be recriminalized in Oklahoma, according to The Oklahoman.
Under Berry, Oklahoma’s medical marijuana industry transformed from one of the most notoriously free-market opportunities in the country to possibly the most scrutinized, with a vast reduction in the number of operators and in sales.
When Berry took office in 2021, there were roughly 14,000 licensed Oklahoma medical marijuana operators. There are now 3,566 remaining, according to the latest state data.
Critics said the state’s lax licensing requirements led to a flood of outside investors and entrepreneurs seeking quick riches. These included foreign nationals, with individuals connected to China repeatedly fingered by conservative elected officials and commentators as a major problem.
Sales have also plummeted, from $831 million in 2020 to about $600 million annually now, according to the most recent data.
And the rules are set to become even stricter.
Is Oklahoma still friendly to cannabis business?
In May, the state Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control informed Oklahoma cannabis cultivators that U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration registration will be required in order to maintain state licensure.
While the DEA has inspected operators, it’s unclear whether any MMJ operators have obtained a DEA license in the U.S.
As The Oklahoman reported, Munson, a state lawmaker and a vocal Stitt critic, has pledged to “veto any effort to recriminalize medical marijuana,” which a majority of voters legalized in June 2018.
“If there are illegal grows or criminal activity, those should be shut down, but patients and legitimate businesses should not be treated like criminals for following the law,” she said, according to the newspaper.
Mazzei, who has the endorsement of President Donald Trump, has pledged to “jack up the cost of a marijuana grow” on “day one” of his administration.
Despite the Stitt administration’s tough posturing on cannabis licensing, critics say other key problems remain. This includes cannabis commercial testing laboratory “shopping,” a widespread practice that continues in Oklahoma in large part due to the lack of a functioning state reference laboratory.
