Oklahoma’s nascent medical marijuana industry would be relatively open with no explicit license caps or patient-condition restrictions under the state’s proposed rules published over the weekend.
However, a coalition of medical providers on Monday, according to media reports, called for a ban on smokable marijuana, restrictions on the number of dispensaries and a requirement that a pharmacist be at each retail location.
Bud Scott – executive director of New Health Solutions Oklahoma, a cannabis industry group – meanwhile expressed concerns over THC limits, required setbacks and other language in the draft rules that could restrict businesses.
The state says in the draft that it won’t begin reviewing applications until at least 60 days after the landmark June 26 vote that approved one of the least restrictive MMJ laws in the country.
Here are some key draft rules:
- Individuals or businesses could hold grower, processing and dispensary licenses.
- The property line of an MMJ business must be at least 1,000 feet from a school or church entrance.
- Medical marijuana products would not be permitted to have a THC content of more than 12%. Mature plants would not have a THC content of more than 20%.
- A single transaction by a dispensary with a patient or caregiver would be limited to 3 ounces of marijuana, 1 ounce of marijuana concentrate, and/or 72 ounces of MMJ products.
- Medical marijuana could be sold in smokable form but with the same restrictions on public consumption as with tobacco.
- Commercial growers would be allowed to cultivate marijuana only indoors.
Separately, activists concerned about overregulation of medical marijuana are trying to collect enough signatures to put initiatives on the November ballot to classify MMJ as an herbal drug and also to legalize recreational cannabis. The petitions must be submitted by Aug. 8.