A newly introduced bill seeks to ban foreign ownership of land in Oklahoma in an attempt to curb illegal cannabis cultivation. House Bill 3125 was introduced to the Oklahoma House of Representatives earlier this month, and most recently on Feb. 19 it was recommended to the full Appropriations and Budget Natural Resources Subcommittee.

HB-3125 is sponsored by Rep. Danny Williams, who represents District 28 in Oklahoma. Recently he told Fox25 that foreign land ownership is one of the biggest problems in his area. “A lot of people when they come in, they’re involved in illegal activity and foreign ownership,” Williams said. “Rules and laws don’t matter to them. It’s profit.”

According to the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs Control (OBN), more than 250 people have been arrested in connection to illegal cannabis cultivation since 2021. The issue began to escalate after the pandemic began.

In an interview with OBN representative Mark Woodward in September 2023, he explained the nationalities of many of the arrested individuals. “Many of them were Chinese,” said Woodward. “Now some were tied to organized crime out of Mexico, the cartels, we’ve certainly busted a lot of those farms. We’ve raided farms linked to Serbian, Armenian, and Russian. But one of the biggest criminal organizations and concerns are those that are tied back to Chinese organized crime, and the Chinese Communist Party.”

HB-3125 would task the Oklahoma Department of Agriculture, Food, and Forestry (ODAFF) to landowners. “The benefit is: I believe we’re all going to be safer,” said Williams about the bill. “We’re really looking at an in-depth look at who owns the property, and how it’s owned. Really hold people accountable to make sure it’s owned by the right people, which are Oklahomans and U.S. citizens.”

Fox25 obtained a statement from the Oklahoma Farm Bureau (OKFB), which shared its interest in finding a solution to the land ownership problem. “Oklahoma Farm Bureau members have a vested interest in land ownership, and while Oklahoma has some of the strongest land ownership laws in the United States, loopholes can be found in any law,” the organization said. “OKFB is assessing current proposals and working with key stakeholders to find a responsible solution for our state’s family farmers, ranchers, and rural communities.”

In July 2022, Oklahoma Gov. Kevin Stitt spoke about the state being threatened by the Chinese “Communist Party.” “We pulled the stats, and Oklahoma was the Number 1 (in) land purchases by the communists or foreign nationals (in 2020) than any other state, it’s like 380,000 acres,” said Stitt. “That’s a red flag for anybody.” A report from The Lawton Constitution shared that between 2015 and 2021, foreign land ownership increased by 300%.

Nebraska is the only other state that surpassed that growth in the same time period. According to the Nebraska Farm Bureau, 1.5% of the state’s private land is foreign-owned (73% is owned by Canadian investors, while 36% belongs to Italian investors.) 

The Oklahoma constitution prohibits foreign land ownership, but a loophole was created by a 1981 court case that allowed a Canadian investment company to purchase land in Oklahoma under the condition that it conducts qualified business. The Lawton Constitution adds that exceptions were also made for foreign-based companies to establish swine and poultry businesses in Oklahoma in the 1970s.

The Agriculture Foreign Investments Disclosure Act of 1978 (AFIDA) requires foreign companies to report their purchase or land leases, but there isn’t enough enforcement to ensure that landowners are self-reporting. USDA’s Deputy Under Secretary Gloria Montaño Greene told The Lawton Constitution last September that the AFIDA reporting system is all paper-based, and the process hasn’t been updated since it was established. “Companies print out legal descriptions from their internal electronic land management systems and mail their hard copy AFIDA filings in bankers’ boxes to USDA,” Greene said. “We currently have no way to electronically identify the geographic location of AFIDA filings more specifically than at the county level.”

Two other bills were recently introduced in the Oklahoman legislature as well, which aim to add metering requirements for water use. “The surface water is basically owned or regulated by the state,” said Sen. Brent Howard about Senate Bill 1341. “Groundwater is owned by the individuals, but it is subject to regulation by the state. We’re trying to get some teeth behind that, some coordination between those two.” 

Another bill, Senate Bill 1352, would specifically require cannabis cultivators to pay $1.25 for every 1,000 gallons of water used, no matter if it comes from a private well or public water. “A typical marijuana plant requires six gallons of water a day,” Sen. David Bullard said. “We want to make sure that we’re metering that and using those funds to be able to store and capture more of that water.”

Some legislators such as Sen. Shane Jett voted against SB-1352, claiming that it would negatively affect law-abiding businesses. “Individuals who are stealing water from farms, by using fire hoses and siphoning off under cover of darkness—those people are not going to be paying these fees,” said Jett. “The ones who are the moms and pops who are already struggling to stay open after sinking their life funds because they thought this was the new economic boom coming for Oklahoma.”

A new law in Oklahoma gives the state’s cannabis regulators the authority to launch a medical marijuana dispensary secret shopper program. The legislation, which was passed by state legislators and signed into law in 2022, tasks the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority (OMMA) with inspecting at least 50 licensed medical marijuana retailers for violations of the state’s regulations each year.

The new law, House Bill 3971 (HB 3971), went into effect this week along with several other bills designed to rein in control of Oklahoma’s burgeoning medical cannabis industry. Medical marijuana was legalized in the Sooner State in 2018 with the passage of a statewide ballot measure, leading to an explosion of licensed weed businesses in the loosely controlled industry. Since then, state lawmakers have been working to regulate pot businesses, passing several bills in 2022 after an initiative to legalize recreational pot failed at the polls.

State Representative Josh West, one of the sponsors of HB 3971, said that the new law is designed to protect Oklahomans who consume cannabis products.

“Constituents, people in the industry, people outside of the industry, the average public, they wanted some checks and balances in place,” West told local media in a recent interview.

New Law Authorizes Weed Secret Shoppers

The legislation authorizes OMMA to send undercover secret shoppers into the state’s medical marijuana dispensaries. Under the program, secret shoppers will purchase medical marijuana products so that they can be lab-tested by the regulatory agency.

The law requires OMMA to investigate at least 50 medical marijuana dispensaries per year under the secret shopper program. West said that he wants the OMMA to have the same authority as the Oklahoma Alcoholic Beverage Laws Enforcement Commission (ABLE), the state’s alcoholic beverage regulator.

“Consumer safety is the biggest part of it,” said West. “And we want to ensure that we are keeping the bad actors out. And so it’s no different than what ABLE does when ABLE goes into a liquor store and ensures that they’re following the law.”

HB 3971 was passed by the state legislature and signed into law by Republican Governor Kevin Stitt in May 2022. The bill’s language delayed implementation of the law until 2024 in order to give OMMA time to develop regulations and processes needed to carry out the legislation.

“Now granted they’ve had two years to figure this out,” West said. “And so I haven’t talked to Director Berry, and so I would assume that they knew this was going to be coming along.”

West said that he has heard from legitimate medical marijuana business owners who are struggling to compete with operators diverting cannabis to the unregulated market. He added that the new law requires all businesses to uphold the same standards.

“If I have a dispensary, I’m going to ensure that not only myself, but that my employees know at any point that someone can come in there and make sure they’re following the laws,” West said. “So I think that it will be a positive thing for the industry, and at the end of the day it’s a positive thing for the consumers.”

After being asked about the new medical marijuana secret shopper law, OMMA declined to offer details about the program.

“We appreciate the public’s interest in our ongoing efforts to implement new state laws,” the agency wrote in a statement to the press. “We will provide the latest information on our website, social media channels and newsletters.”

More New MMJ Laws Also Now In Effect

Several other laws related to Oklahoma’s medical marijuana industry also went into effect this week. Under Senate Bill 1704 (SB 1704), employees at licensed medical marijuana businesses are required to apply for and obtain identification cards from OMMA. Those who fail to receive the proper credentials are subject to losing their jobs and the right to continue working in the state’s medical cannabis industry.

Another new law, House Bill 3929 (HB 3929), regulates product quality at cannabis testing laboratories. The legislation sets standards and rules for process validation OMMA will be required to follow and authorizes sanctions for failure to comply with state requirements.

House Bill 4056 (HB 4056) establishes a process to submit feedback about Oklahoma’s medical marijuana program. The legislation tasks certain entities with submitting recommendations for standards and best operating practices to OMMA. The new law also requires the regulatory agency to advocate for rules to govern the industry and to require cannabis testing labs to comply with the regulations.

West said the state legislature could be working on cannabis regulations for the next 30 years.

Oklahoma lawmakers return to the state Capitol in Oklahoma City in February for the launch of the state’s 60th legislative session. 

More than 150 Oklahoma medical marijuana dispensaries have received letters from state regulators notifying owners that they owe thousands of dollars in fines for transactions that do not comply with the state’s medical cannabis regulations. Some providers could also lose their licenses for selling too much medical marijuana in a single transaction, according to a spokesperson for the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority (OMMA).

The letters, one of which has been shared with High Times, notify owners that the potentially illegal transactions occurred between January and May of this year. The correspondence also informs the businesses that a November court date has been set in relation to the alleged violations. Dispensary owner Rob Speight is one of several business owners who say the letter came as a shock, adding that he is unsure how he will afford to pay the fine.

“It is saying that I’m getting charged $5,000 for a transaction that was over the limit of 84 grams,” Speight, who received the letter from OMMA last week, told local media.

He also adds that the letter is lacking in detail and does not contain basic information such as the date of the flagged transaction.

“We don’t know exactly when it was, I’m not saying it didn’t happen,” said Speight. “We don’t make a habit of ever overweighing the legal limit…it’s simple, you just break it up into a second transaction.”

Under Oklahoma’s medical marijuana laws, purchases by patients are limited to 84.9 grams (about 3 ounces) of cannabis flower, 28.3 grams (one ounce) of cannabis concentrate, 72 ounces of marijuana edibles, six mature cannabis plants and/or six cannabis plant seedlings. Transactions that exceed the stated limits are contrary to the state’s regulations and subject owners to fines.

Jed Green, the director of the medicinal cannabis advocacy group Oklahoman’s for Responsible Cannabis Action, met with OMMA officials last week in an effort to gain more information about the letters and alleged rule infractions.

“It has left some of our business owners scrambling. Especially those who truly are compliant…to go back looking for a needle in a haystack of say one potential violation over 10s of thousands of transactions,” Green said. “OMMA has indicated that they will make those violations known… it would be nice if that might have been more isolated up front.” 

Green added that technical glitches in the OMMA’s tracking system could be responsible for some of the alleged infractions.

“We talked about the way mathematics were being done in conversion of standard American units to metric units,” Green said. “We were discussing that and wanting to ensure that OMMA was being thorough and that in some of these cases there could be some glitches between multiple software systems.”

The letters note that upon the first violation, offenders are subject to a fine of $5,000. Subsequent violations are levied fines of $15,000. The letter shared with High Times, which was sent to a business owner who wishes to remain anonymous, detailed three violations, bringing the total fines assessed to $35,000. Some dispensary owners fear that the penalties could put them out of business.

“It’s also a crisis to the business owners to get fined so much that it’s shutting people’s door is it’s costing them their livelihood,” said Cynthia Myers, the owner of three dispensaries. “I’ve been in this five years and in November….I don’t have $30,000 to pay a fine on top of raising other permits and stuff, too.”

In a statement to local media, OMMA public relations manager Porsha Riley said that some of the dispensaries that received letters also face losing their license to serve patients.

“As the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority, we are responsible for regulating the medical cannabis industry in our state. That responsibility includes upholding the highest standard of compliance,” Riley said in a statement. “Our agency recently filed petitions against 161 licensed dispensaries for sales over the legal limit. Of those 161 cases, 39 seek fines and revocation of licenses; 122 seek fines. Enforcing legal limits on sales is essential to maintaining the integrity of our medical market, preventing unauthorized use or distribution, and controlling oversupply.”

Speight said he faces a court date on November 8 to answer for the alleged violation.

“I have to obtain a lawyer, to go to court, to challenge something that I actually have no idea what, where, or when it happened,” he said.

According to the letters, business owners who have their licenses revoked are ineligible to apply for a new license for a period of five years. Bri Padilla, the executive director of the trade group The Chamber of Cannabis, said that some dispensary owners had reached out for help about compliance before the letters were issued but did not receive the support they needed.

“What is particularly concerning, is that operators and lawmakers in Oklahoma have been asking for support as it relates to seed-to-sale tracking options since before January of this year. Now, we are seeing operators fined, shut down, and otherwise threatened due to potential glitches in software. That is unacceptable and merits inspection,” Padilla wrote in a statement to High Times. “As all Cannabis programs roll out and grow, some hiccups are to be expected but issues of this scope simply should not be happening.”

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