Medical cannabis proponents rally for transparency, announce lawsuit

“We have the most liberal medical cannabis program in the reddest state in the nation. That says a lot. That says what the people want,” Oklahoma City-based attorney Rachel Bussett said outside the Oklahoma State Department of Health offices at 123 Robert S. Kerr Ave. “I don’t have a problem with regulation so long as regulation is done properly, appropriately and transparently.”

But Bussett and Tulsa-area attorney Ron Durbin say the agency’s adoption last month of an updated set of rules for businesses violated the Oklahoma Open Meeting Act.

Court records show that Bussett filed a lawsuit against the OMMA on Friday on behalf of plaintiff Kenneth Wogoman in Oklahoma County District Court in hopes of preventing enforcement of those rules. Bussett said it was her impression that the department wanted a “rubber stamp” on the rules in question and therefore approved them improperly.

“They didn’t make everybody aware of what was going on,” she said. “And most importantly they didn’t give the people who were making the decisions on the rules the time to really read and understand the rules that were being made.”

Durbin — who helped promote Friday’s event and represented Wogoman in another lawsuit against the OMMA — alleged Friday that the agency is continuously “bumbling” the rollout of the state’s medical marijuana program.

“So at this point we have no choice but to call for the resignation of Dr. Kelly Williams, the current head of the OMMA,” Durbin said to the crowd on camera outside the Capitol. “But we’re pragmatic people. We would simply ask that they work in an open, fair and transparent manner.

“But we’ve been calling for that for 2½ years, and we’re not getting it.”

Durbin has also called for the OMMA to operate separately from the Oklahoma State Department of Health, which oversees the OMMA, citing a lack of consistent compliance enforcement.

Earlier this month, the OMMA told the Tulsa World it has so far found about 10 compliance employees out of the more than 70 that state law requires the agency to hire by Dec. 1.

“Inspectors on the ground going into these businesses is what’s going to solve Oklahoma’s problems, and the only way that’s going to happen is OMMA has to get off their rear end and start doing their job,” Durbin said.

The OMMA generally does not comment on pending litigation, and it has not yet been served with a copy of the newest lawsuit. It also did not issue a public response to Friday’s demonstration.

But its announcement in late June of the rule changes was a source of frustration for many rally attendees. Bussett and Durbin said even they have had challenges trying to keep up with the agency’s updates, the most recent of which Bussett said were reviewed by people “not normally part of the rule-making process.”

“We’re talking 389,000 patients and I think over 11,000 businesses,” said Darrell Carnes, a dispensary owner in Moore who helped organize Friday’s event. “We have 100 pages of new rules that just came out. It’s 100 pages that they passed without notice to the industry, without a public comment period.”

Carnes described Friday’s rally as a “kind of deja vu” because it was, like demonstrations he attended in 2018, a response to the actions of state employees. And when he and the others arrived at the OMMA’s offices — now in the former SandRidge Energy building — at least one employee blocked their entry, saying the building was private property.

No OMMA employees formally addressed the crowd, which was told Williams was at home. An Oklahoma City police officer on a bicycle monitored the crowd from outside, as did at least one private security guard who observed through the building’s glass doors.

“We’re not trying to bum-rush in there and be a mob mentality. We just want to talk to somebody to be able to figure out what’s going on on the inside,” John Koumbis, a processor based in Oklahoma City, said of the situation. Koumbis said the new rules, if allowed to stay in place, would have the potential to “cash-strap” his business.

“If this is how we’re treated here, imagine what it’s like when we’re trying to call them and trying to get stuff worked out,” he said.

Carnes also expressed disappointment at the lack of engagement upon the group’s arrival at the OMMA, as the demonstrators took time out of a weekday in hot weather.

He and Koumbis said another issue is that, in their view, the OMMA does not genuinely understand the industry it is tasked with overseeing.

Koumbis pointed out that the agency has had at least three people in its top position since its creation in 2018.

“We’re still learning (the rules) like everybody else is, but it just seems that OMMA doesn’t care,” he said. “They’re gonna do what they’re gonna do. And that’s why we’re out here doing this.”

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