Sooner State again sees a rush — marijuana

Entrepreneurs lured by looser regulations

OKLAHOMA CITY — From their keen taste for sun-ripened pot to their first meeting at a pro-marijuana rally in college in the 1990s, everything about Chip and Jessica Baker fits the stereotype of cannabis country in Northern California, where they lived for 20 years.

She is a practicing herbalist, acupuncturist and aromatherapist who teaches classes on the health benefits of cannabis. He hosts a marijuana podcast called “The Real Dirt.” They started their pot business in Humboldt County when it was the thriving epicenter of marijuana cultivation.

But the couple bid goodbye to the weed-friendly West and moved somewhere that might seem like the last place they would end up — Oklahoma.

They’re part of a green rush into the Bible Belt that no one anticipated when Oklahoma voters approved medical marijuana less than two years ago. Since then, a combination of factors — including an open-ended law and a red state’s aversion to government regulation — have created such ideal conditions for the cannabis industry that entrepreneurs are pouring in from states where legal weed has been established for years.

Though 11 states, including Nevada, have fully legalized marijuana for recreational use, Oklahoma’s medical law is the closest thing to it: Anyone with any ailment, real or imagined, who can get a doctor’s approval can get a license to buy. It’s not hard to do. Already, nearly 6 percent of the state’s 4 million residents have obtained their prescription cards. And people who want to sell pot can do it as easily as opening a taco stand.

“Oklahoma is really allowing for normal people to get into the cannabis industry, as opposed to other places where you need $20 million up front,” Jessica Baker said.

The Bakers have a marijuana farm about 40 miles from Oklahoma City, with a dispensary, nursery and gardening shop in a working-class part of town where nearly every vacant shop and building has been snapped up by weed entrepreneurs in the last year.

Unlike other states, Oklahoma did not limit the number of business licenses for dispensaries, growers or processors.

The state now has more than 2,300 pot stores, or the second-most per capita in the U.S. behind only Oregon, which has had recreational marijuana sales for five years. Oklahoma has four times more retail outlets than more populous Colorado, which pioneered full legalization.

“Some of these states are regulating cannabis like plutonium,” said Morgan Fox, a spokesman for the National Cannabis Industry Association, the national trade group for marijuana businesses. “And the financial burdens that are placed on licensed businesses are so onerous, that not only is it very difficult to stay in business, but it’s also very difficult for the legal, state-regulated systems to compete with the illicit market.”

Sue Ogrocki The Associated Press Jessica Baker takes a cutting of a plant Wednesday at the marijuana nursery at Baker Medical in Oklahoma City. She and her husband are part of a green rush that no one anticipated when Oklahoma voters approved medical marijuana.