Tulsa takes measured approach to medical cannabis ordinance

TULSA — Unlike several other Oklahoma communities, the City of Tulsa listened to the concerns from the business and legal community before passing an ordinance governing medical cannabis operations.

The original draft of the ordinance raised some serious concerns among entrepreneurs looking to jump in to what promises to be a highly-competitive, fast-growing industry.

Tulsa attorney Ron Durbin represents several of those business owners, and has spent a lot of time dealing with city attorneys, city councils, and lawsuits filed over municipalities’ efforts to regulate medical cannabis.

He says Tulsa’s approach seemed more like an honest effort to implement the new state law, rather than trying to block it with overreaching regulations and punitive fee structures.

“They didn’t, as a lot of cities have done across the state, put in those ridiculously high permit fees and application fees and license fees for any of the medical cannabis businesses,” he told KRMG Thursday.

The city also grandfathered in dispensaries that had licenses prior to December 1 of this year, allowing them to locate within 1,000 feet of one another - a restriction that will be in place for dispensaries moving forward.

And the city didn’t try to define medical cannabis - instead, basing its ordinances on businesses which had been issued licenses through the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority (OMMA).

That prevented the unintended consequence of regulating businesses that sell products based on cannabidiol, or CBD, which were already legal before voters approved medical cannabis, or even businesses which make or sell items containing hemp - a plant related to marijuana, but which has extremely low levels of THC, the chemical which produces the “high” from ingesting marijuana.

Durbin says there’s still room for improvement in the ordinance as passed by the city council, and that he will continue to work with the city and INCOG to try and address those concerns.