Oklahoma Medical Cannabis Bill Fails to Pass

[dropcap class=”kp-dropcap”]D[/dropcap]espite the excitement of regulated medical cannabis as a possibility in Oklahoma, the most recent attempt to legalize has failed.

The Oklahoma Senate denied the progress of Senate Bill 1120, which received 21 “yes” votes, but needed 25 in order to pass. The bill achieved preliminary approval from Oklahoma legislature in late-February. According to Senator Ervin Yen, there’s still a lot of work to be done with the bill. “There’s stuff in it that could be changed, because it’s a work in progress,” said Yen. “As you can imagine, legalizing marijuana, there’s a lot of moving parts with that.”

However, Yen, as the bill’s sponsor, believes that he may be able to give the bill one more shot with a motion to reconsider the vote. “If we legalize it, it needs to be done the right way,” Yen said. In its current state, SB-1120 would have allowed patients who suffer from neuropathic pain, muscle spasms, multiple sclerosis, nausea, vomiting and HIV/AIDS to use medical cannabis. However, patients who suffer from post-traumatic stress disorder, anxiety or depression would not be allowed to use medical cannabis.

Luckily, the failure of SB-1120 is not the end-all-be-all for cannabis in Oklahoma. Instead, on June 26, residents of Oklahoma will vote on the future of State Question 788, which if passed, would legalize medical cannabis. SQ-788 became an option once the advocates behind Oklahomans For Health collected enough signatures to qualify as a ballot proposal.

Compared to SB-1120, SQ-788 would not prevent certain medical conditions from qualifying for patient consumption.

Some believe that SQ-788 isn’t restrictive enough, and is intentionally left open to the eventuality of recreational cannabis in the future. Ottawa County District Attorney Kenny Wright, for instance, believes this was the intention of AQ-788’s current wording. “My guess is the proponents of the state question have their eye on recreational legalization eventually, so medical legalization is the first step towards recreational legalization like we’ve seen in a handful of other states,” said Wright. “But if we just look at the state question we have before us now, it is written based on the proponents’ experiences in other states.”