The state House continued to address on Wednesday what lawmakers said are serious problems with the state’s young medical marijuana industry, moved to further reorganize state government by investing more authority in the executive branch, and looked to alleviate the backlog of driver’s license applications.
All of this with Thursday’s deadline for House bills to be voted off the House floor or go dormant for the remainder of the session.
One of Wednesday’s most thoroughly discussed and revealing measures was House Bill 1497, by Speaker Charles McCall, R-Atoka.
Carried by Rep. Kevin McDugle, R-Broken Arrow, the bill ostensibly seeks to prohibit sales of agricultural land to citizens of countries that do not allow American ownership of land.
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Floor discussion disclosed that HB 1497 is really intended to target Chinese and other interests from getting into the medical marijuana business — or to use it as a front.
Rural representatives from every corner of the state described foreign buyers snapping up property at far above market rates, driving up real estate prices and taxes for surrounding residents.
That led to a broader discussion that connected the dots on the purpose behind a stack of medical marijuana bills passed Tuesday night and Wednesday.
“We toss a lot of stuff around, and we assume it’s political grandstanding and hyperbole because it’s what we do,” said Rep. John Pfeiffer, R-Orlando, a rancher in north-central Oklahoma.
“But it is sincere when I stand up here and tell you this is a huge issue for my district and something my constituents come to me about every day.”
Pfeiffer said the state has “lost the handle” on medical marijuana.
“That’s why we’ve had several medical marijuana bills up,” he said. “It’s gotten away from us.”
Pfeiffer and others said the state lacks sufficient capability to enforce the state’s medical marijuana laws, allowing illegal operations alongside legal ones.
Rep. Jim Grego, R-Talihina, said Interpol, the international law enforcement agency, has been in his neck of the woods.
“I don’t think it’s because of the cow-calf guys like me,” Grego said. “I don’t think it’s the chicken farmers.”
Among measures adopted and sent to the Senate this week are bills that pay the Oklahoma Tax Commission to make sure licensed medical marijuana businesses are paying state excise tax and that link the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority with the Alcoholic Beverage Laws Enforcement Commission for enforcement purposes.
Rep. Josh West, R-Grove, managed to win approval of legislation that would temporarily cap the number of licenses issued by the state until it gets control of the situation. West said that because Oklahoma cannot keep up with testing, the state has become “an importer of junk” rejected by inspectors elsewhere.
He also said a small grower near Tulsa had been offered $300,000 to maintain a license in his name while turning over operations to an unnamed out-of-state and perhaps international interest.
“We’ve got what,” Pfeiffer said, “a handful of inspectors in the state of Oklahoma? Other states have hundreds.
“There are a lot of good actors in the medical marijuana industry who want regulation,” said Pfeiffer. “They want to do things right. They want regulation. Because when we don’t handle these things, everybody gets painted with the same brush.”
