Oklahoma won’t legalize adult-use cannabis anytime soon.
An effort to qualify an adult-use marijuana legalization voter initiative for the 2026 ballot fizzled earlier this week after supporters failed to collect enough signatures ahead of a Nov. 3 deadline, organizers said Tuesday.
Oklahomans for Responsible Cannabis Action had until Nov. 3 to collect 173,000 signatures but “did not gather enough,” organizers posted on Facebook.
That comes after a 2023 legalization measure in a low-turnout March special election lost badly – and after state lawmakers changed election rules, significantly increasing the difficulty for voter initiatives.
Lead organizer Jed Green had earlier told KOCO-5 News that the campaign had collected at least 100,000 signatures.
However, a new state law requires voter petitions to gather no more than 20.8% of signatures from a single county.
Out of the state’s 4 million residents, 1.5 million live in two counties.
Once considered one of the country’s most exciting and open medical cannabis markets, Oklahoma has suffered a sharp turn since legalizing MMJ in 2018.
Amid heightened law enforcement scrutiny and allegations of infiltration by foreign nationals, the number of licensed operators has steadily declined, from 14,000 in 2021 to 4,837 today, according to state data.
Sales have also plummeted from the days when Oklahoma was considered to have billion-dollar market potential.
Retail sales in October totaled $56.1 million, according to state data.
By contrast, annual sales in 2020 exceeded $831 million.
