Oklahoma May Vote on Medical Marijuana Again

In his last State of the State address, Governor Kevin Stitt mentioned that it may be time for Oklahoma voters to have another vote on our medical marijuana industry.

In his remarks, he talked about how the industry here as a whole is full of crime, and with the pretty regular news of more and more foreign-owned illegal marijuana farms being discovered, he may not be wrong.

There's a But...

But... When our Oklahoma legislature had the opportunity and chance to craft a bill and vote on their own version of this issue, they chose to cower for fear of voter reprisal. They couldn't fathom that most Oklahomans would adopt marijuana as a medicinal option.

The result was a homegrown movement that managed to get a wildly free-for-all industry approved in a single vote.

I haven't talked about it to a single Oklahoma State politician since who doesn't share the hindsight that they should've tackled the issue themselves. What we have instead is the system as it is.

Are There Problems?

Yes, and this isn't a for-it/against-it belief. People on both sides of our medical marijuana program will admit there are problems with it, even if they don't agree on what those problems are.

Oklahoma has long believed, at the highest levels, that matters of health and personal well-being have a home between a patient and their chosen doctor. In fact, that's one of the few talking points that has come up in every governor's election campaign since I've been in this state, and I don't think there's a single good argument to counter that belief.

All the same, there is a common thought that medical marijuana licenses are too easy to obtain. Oklahoma went from a "Your doctor knows best" state to this weird place of us not trusting our neighbors when it comes to their own health.

Then again, how many times have you been in traffic and caught the skunky smell of someone self-medicating as they drive along next to you?

That's where we're at in Oklahoma. We see the idiotic few, and now we must make sweeping changes for the many who follow the rules.

The Solution.

Like most aspects in life, there are no easy solutions. The two sides of this issue will continue fighting each other, and no common ground will be reached. If you pay attention to politics, that's probably the oldest game plan in the book. For all we know, maybe this is just the setup for the next governor's race to have talking points right out of the gate.

The rest of us in the middle of this topic, who don't care one way or the other, will probably sit back and watch, wondering which way it'll go, knowing it'll be a good show that could be completely avoided if both sides of this coin would come together to better serve all of Oklahoma.