Booming medical marijuana market in Okla. seen as a national model — and a cautionary tale

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In Oklahoma, officials have licensed 12,000+ marijuana-related businesses and about 1 in 10 people own medical marijuana cards. Growers see the state as a national model for medical marijuana, but others say its lax regulation is a warning to other states.

for people with debilitating conditions — including cancer, AIDS and sickle cell disease — the Legislature studied Oklahoma’s oversight problems before it decided how to implement its own law, said Ken Newburger, the executive director of the Mississippi Medical Marijuana Association, an interest group that represents medical marijuana business licensees.

Known for hanging its economic fortunes on the boom-or-bust fuel markets, Oklahoma welcomed the marijuana market with low regulation and a competitive entrepreneurial spirit. In California, he paid more than $100,000 a year in state and local taxes to operate two cultivation sites even after one outdoor crop was destroyed by smoke and ash following the Oak Fire in Mendocino County in September 2020. He pays a fraction of that cost in Oklahoma.

Oklahoma’s growing medical marijuana market has been lucrative for the state, generating nearly $150 million in revenue in 2021, up from nearly $128 million in 2020, according to state data.Brett Deering for NBC NewsThe Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority, which has almost doubled its staff in the past year, is still struggling to get inspectors to all of the licensees, said Adria Berry, the agency’s executive director.

In Texas, advocates for legalization are seeing positive signs. Texas allows the sale of medical marijuana with very low THC concentrations . Republican Gov. Greg Abbott doubled that from 0.5 percent in June when he signed a law that also added cancer and post-traumatic stress disorder to the list of qualifying conditions.

Half of the states that continue to hold out on legalizing medical and recreational marijuana are in the South. Debate over a bill that would legalize medical marijuana isled by conservatives in the North Carolina Senate, and two bills were introduced last month in Kentucky, one to decriminalize marijuana and another to allow its recreational use.

 

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PaulEst76220738

Just legalize it already. Marijuana is good and better than alcohol which kills ppl. They fight when they drink. They beat up their wives/gfs/kids. They kill when they drive. It eats at their liver.

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