Image Source: Ryoji Iwata via Unsplashed
A July 1 email from the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority (OMMA) informed stakeholders of the following:
“New emergency rules impacting OMMA licensees have been signed by the Governor and became effective June 28, 2021. The new emergency rules address changes and/or new requirements in recently passed legislation and also add new requirements relating to the implementation of the State inventory tracking system. The rules and a summary are available on the OMMA website.”
The OMMA email continued: “Pursuant to a court agreement, OMMA is extending the beginning inventory deadline for the state’s seed-to-sale tracking system, Metrc, and new seed-to-sale tracking rules will not be enforced until further guidance is provided by the court. Licensees will be notified with a new timeline for implementation as soon as one is available. Instructions and notice will be provided before the revised deadline to ensure licensees are able to implement the new system.”
As the above indicates, to this point there has been no required plant and inventory tracking in place in Oklahoma’s legal medical cannabis market. As a result, there have been reports that suggest that product may be entering the system from unlicensed sources, as well as leaving it for illicit channels. The implementation of a traceability system will provide more accountability for inventory, though how it might impact supply and demand is difficult to say at this point. What is certain is that once OMMA licensees are required to use Metrc, they will bear additional costs associated with tags for plants and product, as well as higher labor costs due to physically tagging those items and the data entry required to maintain compliance.