Bill on marijuana rules heads to House

A bill creating a framework for medical marijuana regulation cleared a key House committee Thursday and could be heard as soon as next week by the full House.

The so-called “unity bill” was approved by the House Rules Committee. House Bill 2612 is a nearly 80-page bill setting guidelines for medical marijuana testing, tax collections, seed-to-sale product tracking, packaging, employment restrictions and more.

The bill emerged from the bicameral Medical Marijuana Working Group and is intended to address broad issues in the emerging medical marijuana industry created by the passage of State Question 788 in June.

“The goal was to create a framework,” House Majority Leader Jon Echols, R-Oklahoma City said to members of the Rules Committee. “We didn't want to get too deep into the details.”

Echols said he hoped the language was broad enough to keep from micro-managing the industry. He also said much of the language for the guidelines was adapted from regulations in other states that legalized some form of marijuana use, be it medical or recreational, before Oklahoma.

Legislators had concluded the 2018 legislative session when SQ 788 passed. Now, with medical marijuana use and sales occurring across the state, there is a push to implement basic regulations quickly.

“This truly has become a bipartisan issue up here,” Echols said.

The bill had been worked on for nearly nine months before it was approved by the working group Feb. 15, according to Sen. Greg McCortney, R-Ada. The working group made some adjustments to the bill before it was considered in the Rules Committee, but members of both the working group and committee voted unanimously to pass the bill along to the next level.