Cannabis boom in Oklahoma, will Texas follow suit?

By Nicolas Jose Rodriguez

Texas’ compassionate use program remains one of the most restrictive in the United States. Through the program, the Ministry of Public Security operates a secure online registry of qualified physicians who can prescribe low-level tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) to patients with certain medical conditions.

The Compassionate Use Registry of Texas (CURT) was designed to prevent more than one qualified physician from registering as a prescriber for a single patient and is accessible to law enforcement and dispensing organizations to account for patients using low-THC cannabis check.

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Meanwhile, Oklahoma, where voters legalized medical marijuana in 2018, is seeing a cross-state cannabis industry boom, NBC News reported. The Sooner State medical cannabis market generated approximately $150 million in revenue in 2021.

In Texas, only three companies are authorized to supply cannabis for the state medical program. However, in Oklahoma, state officials have licensed about 12,000 marijuana-related businesses, and about 1 in 10 people have medical marijuana cards.

Republican Oklahoma Governor Kevin Stitt pointed to the relatively low cost of obtaining a cannabis business license and noted that without a cap on marijuana operators, the market has grown at an unsustainable pace.

“Oklahoma only charges $2,500 for a commercial license,” Stitt said, noting that California charges a lot more, actually up to 72 times more. “As a result, in California we have seven times as many growers with only 10 percent of the population.

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Next door in Arkansas they have eight breeders. We have 8,300,” the governor said. “You know as well as I do that not all of these products are sold legally. This is a perfect example of why we must ensure that initiative petitions represent Oklahomans and not out-of-state interest groups,” the governor added.

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Morgan Fox, NORML policy director, said the system rightly favors small businesses.

“This is a system that’s set up to essentially create opportunity for small businesses,” Fox said. “There is a lot of room for people to start a business without a lot of capital.”

RELATED: Oklahoma Gov. Implies Voters Didn’t Fully Understand Marijuana Law They Approved

Paulie Wood, a former California grower and CEO of Kannabiz Monkeeyz, told NBC that he decided to close his West Coast operations because of “insane over-taxation” and head to Oklahoma.

“In Oklahoma, you can literally start growing for less than $10,000, while in California you’ll lose hundreds of thousands of dollars just starting out,” Wood added. “They call it the wild west of cannabis. It is the most beautiful and kindest state we could ever wish for.”

Oklahoma grower Josh Blevins told NBC that he and other growers regularly serve Texan customers who are on their way to buy legal cannabis.

This article originally appeared on Benzinga and has been republished with permission.