Top Oklahoma Lawmakers Give Mixed Reactions To Governor’s Call To Roll Back Medical Marijuana Legalization

The governor of Oklahoma’s recent comments suggesting the state should reevaluate its voter-approved medical marijuana law are drawing mixed reactions from top lawmakers and officials.

Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) said during his State of the State address on Monday that voters were misled into supporting the 2018 ballot initiative that created a medical cannabis program, and he wants to see the state “shut it down” to address public safety issues.

Senate President Pro Tem Lonnie Paxton (R) expressed openness to the idea, though he made clear the will of voters must still be respected, so it’s unlikely he would agree to an outright repeal of the legalization law.

There should, however, be an “actual medical marijuana program,” the Senate president said.

“When you’re actually reversing the vote of the people—I think the appropriate place would be to put it back in front of the people rather than just saying, ‘Oh, this didn’t work, we’re going to undo your state question,’” Paxton said, according to Oklahoma Voices. “We do take seriously the voters’ intent and what the voters actually voted on.”

The senator also weighed in on the governor’s remarks in an interview with KFOR, saying he “stood up and clapped” during that part of Stitt’s speech because “I’ve been pushing back on this state question since it was passed, and trying to get it reined in.”

“The original vote passed with 57 percent of the vote, and a couple years ago, they tried a recreational marijuana state question that was defeated by 63 percent of the voters,” he said. “So I think the second vote is Oklahomans saying they’re fed up with what we ended up with.”

“I think the governor’s path, if we want to actually repeal it, it would need a state question just from the standpoint of doing the right thing,” he said.

Senate Minority Leader Julia Kirt (D), for her part, said she’s “not into revisiting state questions,” and lawmakers should “trust the people, and we should actually implement them as well.”

“This legislature, before our time, could have made a decision to put guardrails in place before this state question passed,” the senator said. “Instead, they stuck their head in the sand and let that question pass and be mayhem.”

“It’s taken a lot to try to get any kind of order around medical marijuana. So I think proactive policy making would be a very wise idea, and I hope that we’re doing that for all those state questions that could pass this year, because what we need to think about is how we can make it better, and if the people tell us that’s what they want, let’s make sure we implement it correctly.”

Chris Anoatubby, the lieutenant governor of the Chickasaw Nation in Oklahoma, aligned himself with Stitt’s position, stating that the medical marijuana program as currently implemented has “been a problem all over Oklahoma.”

He added that he’d “absolutely” support “reforming” the cannabis law.

During his speech on Monday, the governor complained that the state has “more dispensaries than we do pharmacies,” adding that marijuana retailers “hide an industry that enables cartel activity, human trafficking, and foreign influence in our state.”

While regulators and law enforcement have “done incredible work to hold back the tide of illegal activity,” Stitt said, the industry is “plagued by foreign criminal interests and bad actors, making it nearly impossible to rein in.”

“We can’t put a band-aid on a broken bone,” he said. “Knowing what we know, it’s time to let Oklahomans bring safety and sanity back to their neighborhoods. Send the marijuana issue back to the vote of the people and shut it down.”

While the governor’s rhetoric signals he may be interested in seeing the medical cannabis industry shuttered altogether, it’s not clear what exactly he wants voters to decide on and his office has not released specific language of a proposed ballot measure.

Back in 2022, Stitt similarly used his State of the State address as an opportunity to dig at the voter-approved medical marijuana law, arguing that residents were misled by proponents of the ballot initiative.

Meanwhile, in November, Oklahoma activists withdrew an adult-use marijuana legalization initiative that they’d hoped to place on the state’s 2026 ballot.

After a short but aggressive signature push to secure ballot placement, Oklahomans for Responsible Cannabis Action (ORCA) ultimately did not turn in its petitions by the deadline, according to the secretary of state’s office.

There were challenges unique to this election cycle, as last year the governor gave final approval to legislation that some advocates worry will inhibit future citizen-led policy changes, including cannabis reform.

The law puts additional requirements on initiative “gist” language that voters see on the ballot and also revise policies around signature gathering to make it so petitioners could only submit signatures from up to 11.5 percent of registered voters in a single county for statutory proposals and 20.8 percent for constitutional measures.

Meanwhile, amid the signature gathering process, law enforcement leaders with the Oklahoma Association of Chiefs and Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs had been raising concerns about cannabis.

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Also in Oklahoma, lawmakers in March advanced a bill aimed at protecting gun rights of state-registered medical marijuana patients, although federal law still bars cannabis users from owning firearms regardless of their patient status.

Another state bill filed last January by a GOP legislator would criminalize the use of medical cannabis during pregnancy.