Oklahoma: signature fraud for recreational cannabis

While supporters of the very permissive In the wake of the recent success of the medical cannabis campaign against the Health Board's restrictions, legalization fever has gripped some members of Green the Vote, who wanted to rush things along. They have announced a few weeks ago that they had reached the 125,000 signatures required to put Bill SQ 797 on the November ballot. However, the group that claimed to have 132,527 signatures actually had only 75,000.

A dubious strategy

This lie is the initiative of two members of the group; they specify that they alone are responsible for this action and that the association Green the Vote as such is not to blame. Faced with a lack of signatures for the issue to reach the hands of legislators this November 6, and certainly wanting to take advantage of the progressive atmosphere surrounding the legalization of medical cannabis in Oklahoma, the two accomplices decided to inflate the numbers in the hope of attracting more signatures. But doubling the numbers was a bold gamble.

This strategy is all the more flawed in that the State of Oklahoma has repeatedly stated that even if Green the Vote had enough signatures, it was probably already too late to see the proposal debated in the November session, given that all signatures had to be verified and that such a procedure would have exceeded the required timeframe. So, in both cases, the legalization of recreational cannabis was not on the cards for this year in Oklahoma, a state which has just had to implement its recently enacted medical cannabis program after a bumpy ride to say the least.

The medical program in its final form

The Health Council, which had tried to restrict the scope of the law, was called to order by the prosecutor and had to back down. The final law has just been signed this week by Governor Mary Fallin and authorizes smokable forms of cannabis, requires no THC limit and does not require the presence of a pharmacist in dispensaries. The Governor said on Monday that the new regulations were «very basic and represent the best option for developing a meaningful regulatory framework for medical cannabis».