Director of Executive Legislative Services Amy Canton checks in the boxes Oklahomans for Sensible Marijuana Laws delivered over 164,000 signatures to the Office of the Secretary of State at the Oklahoma Capitol on Tuesday. (Doug Hoke/The Oklahoman via AP)
OKLAHOMA CITY – A group seeking to legalize recreational use of marijuana in Oklahoma gathered more than enough signatures required to put the measure on the ballot and well in advance of the statutory deadline.
Oklahomans For Sensible Marijuana Laws needed to collect about 100,000 signatures before Aug. 1, 2022, in order for State Question 820 to make it onto the November 2022 ballot. On Tuesday, the group submitted more than 164,000 signatures to the Office of the Secretary of State at the Oklahoma Capitol.
“The overwhelming number of signatures we have received demonstrates that our campaign has the momentum and that Oklahomans are ready to vote to legalize recreational marijuana for adults,” said campaign director Michelle Tilley in a statement issued by the group.
Senior Campaign Advisor Ryan Kiesel said the measure received strong support in areas outside of the Oklahoma City and Tulsa metropolitan areas.
“From Woodward to Ardmore and Broken Bow to Tulsa, our campaign has been everywhere,” Kiesel said. “We have been overwhelmed by the tremendous outpouring of support for State Question 820 and the momentum of our campaign. The massive number of signatures we collected means that Oklahoma voters are ready to take the next step in common-sense marijuana laws and make major investments in critical state services.”
SQ 820 would change state law – not the state constitution – to allow for legal recreational use of marijuana.
The same group had attempted to get a similar measure on the ballot in 2019 and again in 2020, but both times withdrew the proposals. Sponsors of the initiative had attempted to rework the ballot measure to avoid harming the state’s new medical marijuana industry, after voters approved medical use of marijuana in June 2018.
SQ 820 would make use of the regulatory structure already in place, vesting the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority with the power to license and regulate recreational licenses.
The measure would restrict business licenses to already established medical marijuana licensees for the first two years.
SQ 820 would retain the current 7% excise tax on medical marijuana sales, but also would impose a new 15% excise tax on sales to recreational consumers, which would not be applied to medical marijuana users. The money collected would be divided among the state’s General Revenue Fund, courts, schools and drug addiction treatment programs.
The measure also provides a mechanism for people convicted of certain prior marijuana-related judgments and sentences to seek reversal, modification or expungement in keeping with the new law.
SQ 820 is the first of three initiative petitions dealing with recreational marijuana active this year to provide the required signatures in order to move ahead.
All three were challenged in the courts by the authors of competing measures. The Oklahoma Supreme Court approved the wording of each of the ballot measures.
Signatures are still being collected for SQ 818 and SQ 819, sponsored by Oklahomans for Responsible Cannabis Action, a group headed by Jed Green. Those measures would create a constitutional amendment, reworking the OMMA into a new entity called Oklahoma State Cannabis Commission.
SQ 819 would eliminate the current 7% excise tax on medical marijuana and replace it with a 15% excise tax on recreational sales and a 3% wholesale tax on future export sales.
Oklahoma is currently one of 22 states to have legalized medical marijuana sales; recreational use is legal in 19 states and the District of Columbia.
The OMMA reports that as of June 2022, more than 11,000 business licenses are active in the state, including 7,444 growers and 2,266 dispensaries. Nearly 10% of the state’s population is licensed to use medical marijuana, with 386,000 Oklahomans holding a patient license, plus another 1,821 caregiver licenses.
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