OK medical cannabis licenses exceed 200,000

TULSA — The Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority says it has now issued more than 200,000 patient licenses in the state since the program's inception in August of last year.

Tony Sellars is Director of Communications for the Oklahoma State Department of Health, and thus for OMMA.

“That's an average of 3,500 a week since the inception of the program,” Sellars told KRMG Monday. “It represents nearly five percent of the population of Oklahoma.”

That, he said, well exceeds the expectations once held by OSDH and lawmakers alike.

“It's more than double of what we originally expected when we were putting the program together and evaluating what had happened in other states that had approved medical marijuana,” he said. “We were anticipating somewhere in the neighborhood of 80,000 total applications in the first year.”

Considering the short time the OMMA had to implement the program, the many changes of the statutes governing it, and the high demand for it, Sellars says things have gone fairly well.

There have been inquiries from nearby states about best practices and quick implementation, he says. Meanwhile, the renewal period for business licenses has begun, the OMMA continues to expand in terms of personnel and office space, and the number of applications for patient licenses continues to climb.