With 5 more states legalizing pot last month, there are now 15 states where the drug is legal and 35 where medical marijuana is legal. Most people assume that complete legalization is more libertarian that merely legalizing medical marijuana. That’s been my view as well.
A recent article in Politico, however, makes a strong case for the proposition that Oklahoma has the nation’s freest pot market, despite not legalizing recreational marijuana. There are two parts to this argument:
1. It’s so easy to get a medical marijuana license in Oklahoma that for all intents and purposes the drug has been fully legalized:
Oklahoma is now the biggest medical marijuana market in the country on a per capita basis. More than 360,000 Oklahomans—nearly 10 percent of the state’s population—have acquired medical marijuana cards over the last two years. By comparison, New Mexico has the country’s second most popular program, with about 5 percent of state residents obtaining medical cards. Last month, sales since 2018 surpassed $1 billion. . . .
If a patient can persuade a doctor that he needs to smoke weed in order to soothe a stubbed toe, that’s just as legitimate as a dying cancer patient seeking to mitigate pain. The cards are so easy to obtain—$60 and a five-minute consultation—that many consider Oklahoma to have a de facto recreational use program.
2. The supply of marijuana is much less heavily regulated in Oklahoma than in even states that opted for full “legalization”:
To meet that demand, Oklahoma has more than 9,000 licensed marijuana businesses, including nearly 2,000 dispensaries and almost 6,000 grow operations. In comparison, Colorado—the country’s oldest recreational marijuana market, with a population almost 50 percent larger than Oklahoma—has barely half as many licensed dispensaries and less than 20 percent as many grow operations. In Ardmore, a town of 25,000 in the oil patch near the Texas border, there are 36 licensed dispensaries—roughly one for every 700 residents. In neighboring Wilson (pop. 1,695), state officials have issued 32 cultivation licenses, meaning about one out of 50 residents can legally grow weed.
(I use scare quotes for “legalization” as the drug is still illegal at the federal level, which restricts access to the banking system and increases the cost of production.)
All of this is occurring in a very conservative state:
“Turns out rednecks love to smoke weed,” Baker laughs. “That’s the thing about cannabis: It really bridges socio-economic gaps. The only other thing that does it is handguns. All types of people are into firearms. All types of people are into cannabis.”
Indeed, Oklahoma has established arguably the only free-market marijuana industry in the country. Unlike almost every other state, there are no limits on how many business licenses can be issued and cities can’t ban marijuana businesses from operating within their borders. In addition, the cost of entry is far lower than in most states: a license costs just $2,500. In other words, anyone with a credit card and a dream can take a crack at becoming a marijuana millionaire.
Pot legalization is one of those rare issues where the biggest divide is not left vs. right; rather it’s elites vs. average people:
Though polls indicated the measure was getting roughly 60 percent support from voters, Republican Gov. Mary Fallin and practically every member of her cabinet opposed the legalization referendum, as did the entire Oklahoma congressional delegation. Police and prosecutors came out against it, along with every major religious organization, the Oklahoma State Medical Association and most of the business community, including the State Chamber of Oklahoma.
Even the Democratic Party elites have been slow to warm to the idea, which is why conservative states that allow referenda often legalize pot faster than liberal states (like New York) where the legislature determines the issue. Even President-elect Biden is skeptical of the idea.
Age is another factor, and Biden is of course from the “silent generation” that preceded the Baby Boomers.
Perhaps now Oklahoma can begin to repair the damage done to so many of its citizens:
At that time, the overwhelming consensus among the state’s lawmakers was that the best way to deal with illegal drug use—including marijuana consumption—was to lock up lots of Oklahomans for long periods of time.“
I knew that we were ruining families,” Sapp says of the state’s harsh criminal penalties. “It literally will take generations to repair the damage that we’ve done to people and their children and their grandchildren.”
READER COMMENTS
Howard Roberts
Dec 3 2020 at 9:26am
To provide somee context from an Oklahoma resident, this state had full alcohol prohibition until 1959. When I moved here in 1980 liquor by the drink was illegal outside of a “club” membership and beer, other than 3.2%, had to be sold in a state licensesed liquor store and could not be sold cold! How things have changed. Everything in the article is true as stated. Anyone can get a license over a phone call and there is a shop on every corner. Not sure what the charade of “medical” gets us. Pot is legal here.
Tom Jackson
Dec 3 2020 at 10:47am
I am a native of Oklahoma who frequently returns and I was astounded a few months ago at the number of medical marijuana shops in Tulsa.
This sort of legalized hypocrisy is endemic to Oklahoma. Las Vegas style gambling is illegal,for example, but Indian casinos are all over the place. When I was young buying any sort of alcoholic drink other than beer in a restaurant was illegal, but the larger cities all have places where you could buy a drink.
Austin Vernon
Dec 3 2020 at 11:22am
I live in Oklahoma City and have two dispensaries within 2 blocks of me. They are literally everywhere. The common opinion is that many will go out of business, with the better stores surviving.
The article states that there was favorable polling, but that was not the perception at all. Most people thought it would fail. This is a state where people often drive 10 miles to the next town to buy beer because they wouldn’t want their neighbors to see them buying a six-pack at the gas station.
CBD was relatively unregulated and we had tons of CDB stores before this vote. And people have become so leery of opioids. So I think it was one of those deals where everyone knows someone that had already benefited from CBD in pain relief. And those people were broadcasting their stories on social media. That really outweighed the elite warnings about how permissive the law was. People ended up being extremely fired up in support. When I had my “I Voted” sticker on at lunch at Taco Bell the manager almost yelled at me “Did you vote the right way?!?” meaning did I vote “Yes” for marijuana!
Let me tell you, the aftermath of that vote was hilarious. The politicians tried to come up with every way to not implement the law. But Oklahoma’s state constitution was written in the progressive era, so it is very friendly to these ballot measures being fully implemented. The most bizarre was a health regulation board that was going to try to pass regulations basically making it where only pharmacists could sell the weed and limiting stores. There was a lot of uproar and the chair of this board was arrested for sending death threats to herself that she fashioned to look like they had been sent by marijuana supporters. The politicians basically gave up after that and we got the law that was fully written by marijuana boosters.
I haven’t met anyone that cares about it and the main topic of conversation is laughing about how many stores there are and when they are going to start going out of business.
Austin Vernon
Dec 3 2020 at 2:23pm
I forgot to add, right before this law Oklahoma still had some pretty archaic alcohol distribution laws. Grocery stores could only sell 3.2% beer and liquor stores could not sell anything cold or any non-alcohol items.
The legislature passed some reforms, but the implementation period was over a year before it took effect. So Oklahoma had weed before real, cold beer!
The economics of this change were fascinating. The bigger liquor stores spent a lot of money making their stores look nicer since they now had competition from grocery stores for beer and wine sales. Before you couldn’t buy ice and the beer was warm, afterwards you could buy ice and cold beer!
Oklahoma’s grocery store situation was terrible for the higher end stores. There were no national retailers (except Wal-Mart), The companies were 30 store or less type companies. When we finally got a Trader Joe’s and Whole Foods right before this law, it took lots of incentives (a now-deceased oilman named Aubrey McClendon willed it to happen.) and the stores are very small compared to ones you visit in other places. The only thing I could figure is they didn’t want to come because their margins are already so low and not being able to sell wine was a killer. That change led to the local chains investing significantly more in redoing their stores and we have gotten more chains like Costco. Hopefully it is only a matter of time before we get Kroger or HEB. Alcohol has lots of negative externalities, but it might have some positive ones in subsidizing fancy grocery stores.
Probably more than you want to know, but it is not every day you see such big amounts of deregulation.
mike
Dec 5 2020 at 12:48pm
I love the detail and appreciate a detailed account of a real life account of where incentives matter, and showing how regulation massively impacts downstream business impacts.
This smaller anecdote i think serves a ton to show how big of a deal onerous requiremetns (think healthcare, education, housing) drive up prices and vastly limit options! Just like options were limited for grocery stores etc in your example. thanks
Scott Sumner
Dec 3 2020 at 12:01pm
Tom and Austin, Thanks for the info.
Floccina
Dec 8 2020 at 5:14pm
I cannot help but remember that song “I’m Proud to be an Okie from Muskogee“.
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