Gov. Kevin Stitt didn’t tiptoe around it. In his State of the State address Monday, he called Oklahoma’s medical marijuana industry “plagued by foreign criminal interests and bad actors” and urged lawmakers to send the issue “back to the vote of the people and let’s shut it down.”
That’s a striking declaration — and a politically loaded one — given how Oklahoma got here in the first place.
Medical marijuana was approved by voters in 2018 with nearly 57% support. In Oklahoma terms, that’s pretty close to bipartisan. Recreational marijuana has since failed at the ballot box, but medical marijuana has endured, even as its rollout has been widely criticized for being too loose, too fast, and too vulnerable to abuse.
Oklahoma is often referred to as the “wild west of weed,” and most wouldn’t argue that the program isn’t in need of reform. And better funding. And tighter regulation.
But is that marijuana’s problem, or (relative to Gov. Stitt) is that a you problem?
To the state’s credit, regulators at OMMA and the Attorney General’s office have shut down thousands of illegal grows and seized massive quantities of product. Even the governor acknowledged that progress in his speech.
But calling for the outright elimination of a voter-approved program is a very different move — and not one the governor can make unilaterally.
Ending medical marijuana would require another statewide vote. That means an initiative petition, signatures, and a long, expensive campaign. Or it means a legislative referendum against something that ultimately will prove to be very unpopular in an election year, nonetheless.
Ironically, the initiative petition path is harder now because lawmakers and the governor previously backed changes limiting how many signatures can come from any single county. Those reforms were meant to curb ballot access. Now, they may slow the governor’s own ambitions.
The political landscape is also more complicated than it appeared on the House floor. Leadership from the Chickasaw Nation stood in support of Stitt’s recommendation — but other tribal leaders have been more cautious. In an interview with Marijuana Moment, Chris Anoatubby, the Chickasaw Nation's lieutenant governor in Oklahoma, said he supported reform.
He never indicated that he supported eliminating the program altogether.
That distinction matters. There’s broad agreement that Oklahoma’s medical marijuana system needs guardrails. There is far less agreement that it should be dismantled entirely.
So where does that leave us?
Stitt has thrown down a marker in his final years in office, framing medical marijuana as a public safety issue and daring lawmakers — and voters — to follow him. But the fate of the program doesn’t rest in a speech, or even in the Capitol. It rests with the same people who approved it eight years ago.
The question now isn’t whether Oklahoma’s medical marijuana program should change. It’s whether Oklahomans want to undo it altogether.
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