Episode 1 – “Inside SQ 837: Oklahoma’s Push for Cannabis Freedom”
In this first episode of The Green Brief Podcast, host Mason Pain interviews Jed Green, Director of ORCA, about State Question 837—a proposed constitutional amendment that would reform cannabis laws in Oklahoma.
Together, they explore the lessons from previous state questions, the importance of protecting patient rights under the Constitution, and the need for streamlined, clear regulations. The conversation highlights critical issues like homegrow protections, employment rights, search and seizure reforms, and fair access for pregnant patients and parents.
Mason and Jed also discuss the broader economic and social impact of cannabis legalization in Oklahoma, the importance of education in overcoming stigma, and the future of a well-regulated cannabis market.
Get involved in the SQ 837 campaign at orca4ok.com
Jed Green and SQ 837 introduction
Mason Pain (00:00)
Welcome to the very first episode of The Green Brief. I'm your host, Mason Pain, and I couldn't think of a better way to kick off this platform than by bringing in a guest who's been at the forefront of cannabis advocacy here in Oklahoma for years, Today we're joined by Jed Green, Director of ORCA, Oklahomans for Responsible Cannabis Action and the author behind State Question 837.
If you've been following the evolution of cannabis reform in our state, know that JED has been a central figure fighting for patient rights, small businesses, and fair constitutional protections. State Question 837 is not just another legalization measure. It's a constitutional amendment designed to enshrine civil liberties, protect the medical program, and establish real guardrails against government overreach, all while positioning Oklahoma for leadership in a rapidly changing national market. So today we're going to break it all down, why constitutional reform matters, how this petition protects patient rights and parental rights, employment rights, what it means for home grow, due process, and a whole lot more. Jed, thanks so much for being here, for being our first guest.
JED GREEN (01:18)
Thank you for having me.
Mason Pain (01:21)
Yeah, of course.
You and I have been talking quite a bit, over the past few weeks, just about, not even really about what we're going to discuss on this podcast, but, just about the variety of things that are constantly being thrown at the wall, cannabis businesses are facing. And, ⁓ I feel like we always circle back into those conversations at how eight 37 is the answer to even the, ⁓ conflicts that we're confronting in the cannabis industry ⁓ today in the medical market. So I want to step back and start at the beginning because you previously filed a constitutional petition alongside State Question 820. So what were the core lessons from those efforts and how does State Question 837 reflect what you believed should have been the foundation from the start?
Lessons from Previous state questions
JED GREEN (02:15)
Well, we had filed state questions both 818 and 819. 818 was a medical measure, 819 was a recreational measure, and then 820 was filed as well. You know, the big takeaways for us from 818 and 819 was, as it relates to 837, is
Mason Pain (02:31)
That's right.
JED GREEN (02:45)
We wanted to streamline the offering instead of having two petitions, one to give folks a medical and one to give folks a recreational option. You one thing we saw was that there was basically no bandwidth to discuss medical. You know, the state, you know, the conversation was just recreational. That's what it was going to be in the press among consumers and so on and so forth.
What we did with 837 was we streamlined things and we basically just adopted, immediately adopted medical protections into a recreational measure. And we also, ⁓ the results of work with lawmakers the last few years, we were able to greatly streamline what was in there and really simplify the overall measure. Those were important things to do. think that, I think for a lot of folks involved, the conflict created by a lack of a lack of willingness to communicate from the 820 camp and the way that they kind of approached the process that we were in where we had engaged folks from across the state for months to draft language. The issue was, was that we had reached out to those folks, known them for a long time.
And they really didn't want to participate in what we were doing with the 818 and 819. And we filed that and a couple of months later they came in and filed 820. So it being a statutory measure, ours being constitutional. I mean, the writing was on the wall. There's no way that 820 would be the actual prevailing law if 818 and 819 passed. So, I mean, there was some regrettable conflict there. I know that we were on the right side of things. The good news is that we've been able to circle back after time and reach out and talk with some of the folks that were supporting 820. Some of those folks unfortunately are no longer with us but some are and we've been able to you know have some conversations early and I think we're on the same page with what's going on here. So it's a big project. It takes everyone rowing in the right direction. We think we've really streamlined what the offering is. We know it's a really solid measure so that's kind of my take.
The importance of constitutional reform
Mason Pain (05:28)
Very good. Yeah,
So ⁓ that brought up something what you were discussing earlier is just the constitutional amendment versus the statutory petition. why is it important for Oklahoma to pass this kind of reform at the constitutional level?
JED GREEN (05:29)
Uh-huh.
Well, it's pretty simple really. Right now, our medical program is a statutory privilege. It is something that can be modified in any way, or form by lawmakers, and that is a year in, year out discussion. And what we saw early in the program was kind of a focus on regulating businesses. And as they have overdone that the last few years, they're now, we see evidence that they're starting to move towards, you know, restricting patient access very subtly, not overnight, but over time, you know, suppressing medical access. And so, the difference is, is that state SQ8 37 being a constitutional amendment. What that does is it grants us not a privilege, but a constitutional right. And so what we do with 837 in most part is to address individual rights, freedoms, and access to cannabis. We also do address implementation and business licensure structure to remove a two master system that we have over time. But fundamentally that area we still leave lawmakers a lot of room to adapt to the program or adapt the program over time as far as the industry goes. So as dynamic as that is we wanted to make sure that we got some baseline, kind of some foundational blocks of what that program would look like that are more in line with 788 than what we have now. But, you know, for anyone to say that they are, you know, all seeing with the future of cannabis industry and what may need to be done at the state level, we wanted to make sure that we didn't lock ourselves in ultimately. So. But that's the key. Statutory is a privilege, constitutional is a right. And I know I'll sleep a lot better at night if I know that the only thing we've really got to worry about at the Capitol year in, year out relates to the industry and not our individual rights and protections. I think if lawmakers think about this proposition a little bit, then they may too see the benefit to knowing that... we're not going to succumb to the temptation to go hit the hornet's nest as opposed to just work it out with the industry on how we're providing consumer safe products at a reasonable.
Mason Pain (08:35)
In effect, it should make everyone's life easier, whether you're on the industry side as an operator, patient, or you're on the regulatory side in the legislature or at OMMA, OBN, because of the simplified nature of things and how it does create those protections that aren't just put on the chopping block and reanalyzed year in, year out.
JED GREEN (08:57)
Right, the number of committee discussions and such we're going to save ourselves. It's talk about government efficiency. Let's get the dumb shit off the table. Or more, more the important things. Let's get that off the table and then get back over here to what needs discussing.
Rights and Protections of SQ 837
Mason Pain (09:06)
For sure.
Absolutely. So that is a great segue into this next point of just those protections for the medical market as it exists today, One of the loudest concerns we always hear, you know, across legal markets when they start as medical and then transform into rec,
is that the rec market will just erode the medical market. And I've noticed a lot of infighting within the industry about that specific topic, where people may think that they're protecting their business or their patient access, so they would vote against a recreational measure for that reason, to protect what they already have.
So I was wondering if you could speak to that and to those folks who have that concern specifically of how this petition protects rather than replaces medical cannabis access.
JED GREEN (10:06)
Yeah, definitely. that's huge thing for us as proponents, campaigners for 788, folks that stick around and defend it and defend patient access. mean, one of the first rules of politics is do no harm in what you're trying to do. so, this kind of, flops back a little bit. We'd had a similar system in 818 and 819, but we were able to streamline it once again the big issue that I think a lot of folks in the industry had with 820 was that like other states, it created a duplicate license system. You would have a license for medical and a license for recreational. so that was, and so that's what we're not doing in 837, which is so foundational, so foundational to what, to, protecting patient access and here's why. So we have the benefit of learning of what happened in other states when they went about it this way. And fundamentally what it created was yet another license that had to be achieved. So what did that process look like? You know, those things were fraught with pitfalls from inclusion programs to limited number of licenses. Was that a lottery? I mean, it had problems everywhere.
Also what it did was it forced operators to make a choice. Are we going to, because they had different sets of regs for medical than they did recreational. And so it forced operators to have to make a decision. Are we going to grow product for the recreational side of the market or are we going to grow product for the medical side of the market? And so most operators saying, okay, well the greater market are going to be is going to be recreational because anyone can get it. know, if patients really want it, they can just go over there and get it. They, in essence, drive up access to product over on the medical side. what, and you know, we talked a lot about this with everyone when we wrote original language and the concept is simple, is that marijuana is marijuana. The difference between medical and recreational use is the intent of the consumer. Why are you consuming this to, you know, cure your cancer just because you want to go fishing and, you know, smoke a joint, you know, but at the end of the day, it's still all the same product. It's all marijuana or concentrates, et cetera. So there's no need to create a duplicate system. You know, the product is there and we simply, you know, say, hey, all licenses are now marijuana licenses. The difference is the cash register. If you have a medical card, you won't pay an excise tax. We removed the 7 % excise tax. If you're state ID, then you're going to pay a 10 % excise tax on adult use sales. So what that basically does is there is no, there's nothing that has to happen other than at the point of sale system for the dispensary.
You know, no new license applications, not waiting on that, you know, or, and we know, all know very well how mightily OMA has struggled just to renew existing medical licenses that, I mean, we don't even have to go into it. We all already know. And again, that was a, you know, one of the issues with that type of system. And we felt with 820, and I feel that we were probably correct in hindsight, is that what would it look like for OMMA to attempt to have a completely duplicate system, but with differences in what you had to do, would they have those issued now? I guarantee 95 % of anyone would not have those except for maybe a dozen well politically connected people. And the rest of everyone else would be pounding sand right now.
You know, we've got that. You know, that's what we wanted to do. ⁓ also make it abundantly clear that all THC sales occur in licensed dispensaries as opposed to gas stations and on the internet where they happen now. So ⁓ it's a needed consumer safety measure as well.
Mason Pain (14:40)
Yeah, that's another really great point because that does absolutely affect medical patient numbers where medical patients go to access cannabis, And it's kind of could be a wild card. Absolutely.
So talking more about that, about how this just makes it easy to kind of flip the switch, turn it on. Another thing I noticed is the possession limits in State Question 837 mirror those in the existing medical program. And so that kind of stands out to me as...
One, a way to protect patients from any infringement on their possession and home grow rights. Like we're actively sort of seeing those slow goalpost moving efforts from the legislature, if not here at home, then definitely in other states. So the State Question 837 basically says that those limits can only be increased. And that would be constitutionally set in stone what we currently have.
And two, you're not asking regulators to approve anything that they haven't already agreed to and approved and historically practiced. So, you know, I know that was an intentional strategy based upon what you've discussed already to reduce confusion, regulatory burden, and I think like you're saying, basically consolidating the end goal of 818 and 819 into one bill makes it all the more clear what the original intention was here. Do you want to speak any more to that intention to reduce burden from these regulators, from the legislature?
JED GREEN (16:28)
Yeah, mean, here's what it really comes down to. Here's what it really comes down to. The only... The only real decision being made at any point here is legality. At the end of the day, marijuana is here, it's been here, it's gonna be here. That's a fact. mean, we had it for all of recorded civilization until 100 years ago when they took the plant and gave us drugs and fossil fuels instead. So that's... ⁓
Mason Pain (17:01)
Right
JED GREEN (17:03)
You know, that's what this is, that's fundamentally what this is about. And so, you know, when I talk to the state about, I put it in terms of market share, right? You've got various markets, white, gray, black, you know, that's how it's kind of, you know, commonly referred to. But at the end of the day, the goal should be for the state should be to have the most, should have, you know, licensed, consumer safety tested product establishments picking up as much of the market share as possible. And that's where state revenue comes from. That's how public safety happens. And so right now we're in this weird situation where 50 % of the, we'll call it cannabis, but it's, you know, it's definitely, you know, marijuana and then weird. You know, synthetics that are being cooked up, that are being called marijuana, but they're not, you know. You know, that's 40 to 50 % market share in our state now. And you see it in the collections data. We see it in every gas station, liquor stores, all over the damn place, vape shops across the state. It's recreational. It's not just because it's easy to get a med card.
You know, I mean, this is that is the state we are living in. And so what we're doing is we're putting guardrails on it to protect everything from consumer safety to people's actual rights. So.
Mason Pain (18:31)
Absolutely. Yes. Let's let's talk about that general protections section a little bit more because there are really big constitutional stakes as we've seen, you know, over the past. We've learned a lot, I think, since 788 went into place. So what are some other protections that we haven't already discussed that Oklahomans should know about? And why do you feel that – that those particular rights needed to be constitutionally enshrined?
JED GREEN (19:03)
Well, I think that there are, I think that there are really a couple of key ones. know, the first is prohibition of metabolite testing to determine impairment. In other words, we're prohibiting blood or hair follicle samples from being used to say that at some point in time when you got pulled over, you were actually impaired. We all know the trap that that is and have a lot of know a lot of folks that have been, you know, caught up, had to pay fines, got a bad record over that. And so that also kind of extends over into employment, employment zone. But what we want to note out on the public safety side of this, because, you know, no one wants people driving down the street or operating heavy equipment that are all dabbed out and can't even keep their eyes open.
None of us want that. What we do make sure is outside of metabolite testing, what's available are cognitive and kinetic testing. Field sobriety, as it's called by law enforcement. But OSHA has standards for that for employers as well. Additionally, ⁓ since prior times, just in the last couple of years,
National Transportation Safety Board has come up with a saliva test to determine active THC and are recommending it for use as opposed to as a way for them to get away from metabolite testing tests, which given the lack of help that they've got in the trucking industry, mean, something's got to give and that's when common sense can finally kind of start to kick in.
So we also, we do allow testing in case there's a workplace accident. And part of what that ties into is when we're doing this, we have to, just like balancing individual rights and public safety, we have to balance employee rights and employer rights. And so there's a balance in there. And where it really comes to bear is that, you know, your employer, you know, you shouldn't be impaired on the job. Your employer has a right to say no to that. You know, what they don't have a right to is to conduct testing in a way that monitors what you do when you're off their clock, you know, when you're not on the job. And the nuance to this is, is that when there is an accident, you know, a lot of times that involves an insurance and so, you know, insurance, insurance is going to want to know, you know, where are their drugs present, you know, so on and so forth. And so a lot of times, you know, they could do kinetic, they could potentially detect for active THC and saliva if they had the tests available. But the problem here is, is that if we go into this and say, okay, insurance companies are prohibited from using metabolite testing, now we're starting to get down a real slippery slope here with what we're doing to impede on actual employer rights and protections. And so, you you've got that balance there where we would, you know, allowed employers and insurance companies to do that, you know. The one thing that really underpins this that folks all need to recognize in Oklahoma is that it was a state question that made Oklahoma what's known as a right to work state. What that simply means in labor law is the employer has the right to fire you for with no cause. You you can go into work and you can be terminated and they don't have to give you a reason. That's it. So, you know, we want to make sure that we're kind of lining things out for responsible employer-employee relationships. We always have to keep in mind here that if your employer objects to your cannabis use, they can fire you and they don't have to tell you that's why they fired you. So it's kind of a balancing act. Pick your battles. We go where we need to go for responsible folks, but we stop short of…
Mason Pain (23:14)
Right
JED GREEN (23:23)
picking an open war with the state chamber of commerce.
Mason Pain (23:28)
Right, yeah, and it sounds like you've...
JED GREEN (23:30)
Unnecessarily. Unnecessarily.
Mason Pain (23:34)
For sure.
And I think that's another thing that just the ongoing education effort from people who actually understand the plant and how the plant is used by not only medical patients, but really the general population who's, like you said, just smoking a joint to go fishing as an example. It's not like people who use cannabis are inherently irresponsible people. we don't make these assumptions about about other substances that we have free access to as adults. And so these assumptions should not extend to the cannabis plant and especially the way that it does now within a medical context.
I cannot tell you how many calls I've received over the years from medical patients wondering if they have a lawsuit because they were fired over some small accident that required them to then take a drug test and then they lose the job that they've had for 10 years just because they use a specific type of medicine that registered on a drug test. And then they have absolutely no recourse from their… to do anything about it, because of exactly what you've described. It's the liability that the employer is keeping in mind and it is what it is. that to me is a huge piece of this for sure. Being more granular about what can qualify in those cases as evidence of intoxication So it's those sort of nuances, I think, that are very needed to be set in stone so that the gaps can't be weaponized the gaps of understanding.
Another one that really stuck out to me is the clause preventing doctors from being penalized for recommending cannabis. Because we all know medical freedom doesn't stop with access. It extends to care. And that's another thing that a lot of patients in Oklahoma are facing is choosing one prescription over their cannabis recommendation or having to move doctors because their doctor has a certain opinion or anxiety about their liability. So I wondered if you speak on that a little bit. The significance of this clause that prevents those doctors from being penalized and patients being denied care because of it, especially as we start to see education efforts in the legislature that could go any direction, really.
JED GREEN (26:21)
Yeah, definitely. Well, and this is one of those things where, this is one of those things, especially when we look at legislatively what we've got going on, that it's a good thing that we're taking this step and putting these couple of guardrails in, right? So what we're doing here is we're making sure that cannabis use does not get you discriminated against for any form of healthcare, be it in organ transplant, be it pain management, you know, things like that. The other thing that we're doing is we're making sure that doctors who recommend are not discriminated against. And where this generally would come from is their own peer group, you know, their boards of licensure. And so, you know, what we see right now is we actually, it's something that's been a topic of discussion last week was a Senate bill 1066 that creates a physicians registry with an education requirement for recommending physicians here in Oklahoma. They'd be required to register with the OMMA and do education classes as prescribed by OMMA in concert with the state medical association crowd. Now, a lot of us are aware from the struggle that the state medical association has basically been our number one op and source of reefer madness, correlational data conclusions, and generalized reefer madness. The reason is clear. mean, this is Big Pharma, the folks that represent them, their agents, their drug dealers in the field who are probably mildly upset that when we passed State Question 788, we took about a $750 million annual bite out of their pocketbook simply by reducing the amount of opioids that folks are having to take. So we're a billion dollar problem for those guys. Okay, and so to that end, we see this requirement. Now, a lot of us know and lot of us participate in real deal research on how cannabis helps, not the focus on how cannabis harms you, which again, given that it's never killed anyone, which can't be said for alcohol, if we, footnote, if we survived the ending of prohibition on alcohol, we'll survive the ending of the prohibition on cannabis. So, you know, that's our concern is that, you know, and we're going to be on this. mean, everyone knows, you know, outside of the state question, you know, you know, we stay on it. And so that's what we're waiting to see here on 1066 when it's ultimately passed and signed into law is that…
Mason Pain (28:42)
Right.
JED GREEN (28:58)
What do these education courses look like? So let's say that OSMA and OMMA may come out and they've got some real reefer madness shit that they put in together and you know are recommending physicians that Even they they know it's bullshit, know, I've got to sit through it for a couple hours to be able to recommend well with this protection in place they could question authority and not you know be denied licensure or otherwise persecuted. So our cannabis friendly physicians who are in this world, this would give them greater standing to influence that conversation in the darkest halls of those who oppose us.
Mason Pain (29:43)
That's huge. Yeah, because we all know there are good doctors out there too who are just making sound evidence based decisions and not riding the pharma-corral.
JED GREEN (29:57)
That's absolutely it. And it's really, it's that, where you really see it as the divide between, know, especially independent practicers, you know, small operators and corporate healthcare, you know, like we've got it Integris or, know, whatever those guys aren't recommending anything, you know, so, but they're also not going to be allowed to persecute the guys that are guys and gals, the good men and women who are…
Mason Pain (30:10)
Absolutely.
Yeah. Right.
JED GREEN (30:25)
…you know, helping folks get access to this so they're not caught in the big pharma drug trap.
Mason Pain (30:32)
Absolutely. Yeah, that's crucial. And this also has so many different tie-ins, especially the education piece and how that could exacerbate existing problems for certain populations of patients that we're already seeing one of those populations I want to talk directly about because it really, it's one of my ⁓ biggest irks right now with enforcement in the state. And that's the prosecution of pregnant women, pregnant patients. ⁓ Oklahoma is the only state where women have been criminally charged for using medical marijuana during pregnancy, even with a valid medical card.
There were a couple articles that were published last year. Pregnancy Justice and the Frontier reported that Oklahoma had the second highest number of pregnancy related prosecutions in the nation in the year following the Roe v. And this year we saw bills that luckily have gone dormant that would have made cannabis used by pregnant women grounds for felony neglect, even if they're licensed medical patients. I see this as a human rights crisis, So I want to talk about this specific issue. How does state question 837 directly intervene to protect pregnant women and parents from this kind of demonization and criminalization?
JED GREEN (31:53)
Mm-hmm.
Yeah, again, this is a current privilege, current statutory privilege versus a constitutional right. I can't tell you how important this is to me personally, you know, and so many people I know. Any government, anyone that believes that the greater risk to a family is someone smoking a joint as opposed to the family being ripped apart is pardon my French, a fucked up individual. and to have that institutionalized is even worse. And so, you know, the good news is, is that post passage of 788, we were able to get statutory protection for, families, for mothers and their, and their children. Unfortunately, we've got a couple of activist DAs here in the state that didn't think that it didn't think that state law applied. And so in their local jurisdictions within their, you know, little power circles of their local network, they were able to get through district court an agreeing decision from a judge. Now, mind you, all in the meantime, you know, we've got a family torn up here. And under this stress of persecution of the state, and what was glorious was that when this then did go to appellate court, the appellate court bluntly shut down this and future prosecution by pointing out very directly that there are protections in place for medical marijuana card holders and that if the district attorney didn't like it to go to the legislature and get the law changed.
Because until that happened, this protection was in place. you know, we saw that, but again, that is statutory. we saw where, guys, they're not gonna stop. You know, it may be slow, it may be subtle, but what we do with 837 is again, we make this a, you know, we have a constitutional protection, a constitutional right not to be persecuted for this this fuckery. And so that's the importance. That's the importance of getting that done. And again, it goes back to what we were talking about earlier. There's so much of this, I think everyone, us and lawmakers included, would be better off if this just wasn't on the table for them to consider.
Mason Pain (34:36)
Right, yeah, yeah, I completely agree.
Yeah, just the education also plays an important role in this as well. You I know you contributed to that Tulsa world conversation a little bit. But how we frame education or what the content of that education is, is incredibly important. Because if that education, like you said, funded with an agenda to prove harm as opposed just to even look from a neutral lens at what's happening, what the effects are for XYZ population, as opposed to just making broad, general assumptions and keeping the stigma alive.
That's another part of why I even really want to have this conversation with you is because how important I think education is to bringing more people in who aren't so in the cannabis activist silo where we all know what we know about the plant because we've been interacting with it for 20 plus years. this might be new you know, less than 10 years, 788 could have been the very first exposure for many people in this state to any of these ideas. And so I think the way that we approach these conversations is incredibly important. It's not like we're advocating for the stereotypical projection of a pregnant woman going out and partying and smoking weed and, you know, whatever.
This is like we're going back to the beginning of our conversation. Cannabis use like anything else is about intention. And there are a number of things that cross blood brain barriers even administered directly in the hospital right before birth that, you know, we can have, we should have more nuanced evidence based conversations about this as opposed to she shouldn't do this because of X. I think that's also an extension of just the broader landscape of the projection field, we'll call it, that often leads to and informs policy that women have to navigate. And yeah, I appreciate that being really set in stone, because that Supreme Court ruling on this was great, but like you said,
JED GREEN (36:40)
the…
Mason Pain (36:54)
They turned around the very next year and they did submit that legislation to get rid of that protection. ⁓ Yeah, so on that front, know, another protection we've seen sort of come under attack in several legal states, and I can't help but think that it's not on the proverbial chopping block in Oklahoma with OBN recently claiming it's...
JED GREEN (36:59)
Mm-hmm.
Mason Pain (37:19)
…untrackable in their memo is home grow. So how does home grow play into state question 837 or how does state question 837 protect the existing home grow rights, and why is that so central to a just and equitable cannabis policy?
JED GREEN (37:43)
There's a couple of things going on here. Number one, number one, we have to keep in mind that, and we've seen this in other states where they've come after home grow. And typically those are going to be your states that only have a limited number of license holders. And at the end of the day, taking away a home grow right is forcing people to then go deal with a select number of suppliers to be able to access this. ⁓ fundamentally here, 837 opening up recreational access, opening up 21 and over access, that in and of itself, it brings it into kind of the same field, I wouldn't say parity, but in the same field with alcohol. And with alcohol, there is no purchase limit on alcohol. I can go and buy the whole damn liquor store if I want to and share it with whoever, drink it all myself, whatever I want to do.
So the thing is with Home Grow is that again, this is simply just a God given plant that anyone can grow and you know, it's not as easy as some folks think, know, not everyone's got a green thumb, you know, but there will be a push against it. One thing I've heard recently said is, well, you we got to do something about HomeGrow. We've got a problem with it in the apartment complexes. Well, that's just like anything else going on in an apartment complex or in a tenant landlord situation. You know, is it a homegrown marijuana plant or is it a, you know, what else are you doing to the property? You're either abusing in the property or you're not. You're already required to have a note from a landlord to be able to grow at home. I doubt apartment complexes are getting it at or doing that. So all it does is just become, you know, the bad tenant behavior, which could be any range of things that folks are already bad tenants for and can get evicted for. ⁓ At the end of the day, prohibition of home grow is what it all amounts to is just trying to force folks that otherwise wouldn't have to or can make their own medicine requiring you to go purchase it from someone.
Mason Pain (40:19)
Yeah. And, you know, like you said, I think it's a, may be more important and markets like Illinois, where you've got a little bit more corporate curtailed control over the market. Taxes are crazy high and, homegrown becomes important to access itself for people who may be, maybe in a lower economic threshold and they can't pay up crazy tax on a recreational product. And so I think that it's that too, you know, this is also another ⁓ aspect of access. Somebody can get a seed and grow a plant and have, you know, a lot more medicine that lasts them a longer duration of time for less investment than they can go make those repeated purchases. And so to me, it's also an additional access protection, you know, of if times become hard and you cannot afford this anymore in the way that you have or in the way that is participatory in this market, then you can grow your tomatoes, you know. And I think that that's something that should resonate with self-sufficient…
JED GREEN (41:28)
We can't do it well.
Mason Pain (41:34)
…independent Oklahomans, you know, like you said, it's a God given plant and should be able to provide for yourself like you do anything else. Whether you're growing your food or catching your water or growing a cannabis plant or six.
JED GREEN (41:49)
Right. when you talk about tomatoes, we've got to regulate cannabis a little bit more than tomatoes, but that doesn't... But that does not include coming after home-grow. I don't eat tomatoes year-round until I grow them. I don't like store-bought. They're gross.
Mason Pain (41:59)
for sure.
JED GREEN (42:13)
I don't like store bought tomatoes. a snob, you know, but I know that these Cherokee purple that I got coming on in the backyard are going to be fantastic, you know? And, you know, the same thing, you know, for myself personally, you know, um, when, when, when you, when when you're able to grow your own crops, create your own food, you know, there is that certain self-sufficiency, but then there's also the benefit of, you know, exactly what went into that plant without a doubt.
Mason Pain (42:23)
Okay.
JED GREEN (42:44)
I don't need to run consumer safety testing on it. I know exactly what's in that thing. And if there's a little yeast, it's fine.
Mason Pain (42:49)
Exactly.
For sure. ⁓ Moving on a little deeper into these protections here, just a couple more that I wanted to touch on quickly. ⁓ Due process. Due process has been kind of murky. There's been conflicting rulings on whether the smell of cannabis constitutes probable cause and routine traffic stops.
How does state question 837 strengthen search and seizure protections in those cases?
JED GREEN (43:24)
Well, again, that's what we work to do is we work to prohibit the smell of marijuana from being probable cause. And there's just a lot of problems with that. I mean, there's been more than enough times that people have been pulled over on a traffic stop and may had a joint in the car, hadn't smoked anything in it in five days. And the local Yokel sheriff just stuck his head in the car and said, well, I think I smell marijuana. What? We weren't even smoking or people that don't even start. I smell marijuana and then just literally start searching you. You know, that's part of our history here. So, there's a, there's, you know, that's something that's got to get dealt with because I mean, let's say you're just coming home from working at the grow. Yeah. You're going to reek. You may not have any marijuana in the car. Does that mean you should be searched? No, it doesn't.
Mason Pain (44:10)
Yeah, absolutely not. Yeah. And then eventually criminalized when there's no real active impairment testing. you know, that's kind of the full circle to that earlier point as well.
JED GREEN (44:22)
Mm-hmm, that's right.
Mason Pain (44:25)
Yeah. This is another big one that sometimes coincides with these traffic stops just because of the nature of Oklahoma and how people exercise their rights, is licensure rights, gun rights specifically. There's been long tension around cannabis use and gun rights and access to professional licenses. What does this initiative do to clarify and protect the landscape of licensure rights from guns to professional licensing?
JED GREEN (45:00)
Yeah, be it guns, professional licenses, driver's license, any sort of, know, again, occupational licenses. What we basically do is we just kind of run through, you know, the list of things that you may need to have to be a model citizen. And we simply say, cannabis does not affect your access to these. cannot be denied or persecuted access to any of the everyday things, you know, from licensure access to anything because solely because of cannabis.
Mason Pain (45:37)
That's amazing, that, again, leaps back to those earlier protections, just proving the robust nature, the layered effect, essentially, of, what you've considered as you've gone through this, trying to create these. If something makes it through the sift up at the top, you know, maybe it falls into this other protection that can capture the issue in a meaningful way. So, you know, for example, the protections of doctor recommendations, how that would tie into this protection for professional licensure, you know people who've sounded off and had opinions that are new to their fields couldn't be shut out, essentially. So just because of a peer opinion of those folks, I think that that's incredibly important, especially as we have more…
JED GREEN (46:25)
Hmm.
Mason Pain (46:28)
…people enter those fields, doctors, specifically therapists, people who, you know, as alternative medicine really comes onto the scene, whether it's cannabis or psilocybin, MDMA, things that are being used in therapeutic contexts now, and changing the minds of the people who are recommending and administering those things. There's a cascade effect here that is very important, and I appreciate the ability to kind of lay it all out with you.
JED GREEN (46:56)
Yeah, definitely. mean, that's a, you know, it's important what you just laid out. And mean, that's kind of like this, it's this fundamental principle, you know, everyone's going to have an opinion that they're going to have about anything. Right. But what we're doing here is we are taking the stigma and throwing it through the wood chipper when it comes to legal basis for persecution in any way, or form. I mean, you can't change the fact that some prospective employer just hates weed, you know, or that, you know, the, the, the, the, the five folks, you know, the, the, the, the higher ups, the higher powers at your local medical association hate weed, but they can, but now they have zero legal basis to persecute you for their shit opinion. So, I mean, that's, and then fundamentally, when you look at what the knock on effects are…
Mason Pain (47:46)
for sure
JED GREEN (47:51)
You know, from being pulled over, from having, you know, kids taken, so on and so forth. I mean, we are truly, this is, we're going after the root of the problem across the board. You know, we just, you know, yank this thing out by the root and it's really important. You know, that's one of the things that in our processes with the 818 and 819.
In 819, we had some retroactive justice reforms to kind of clean up some of the rotten fruit of this. And those were actually severed by the Supreme Court. They told us we were on too many topics with the way they did it. It was interesting that they left 820s intact under the same challenge, but I digress. The point is this, is that, you know, for ourselves now, you know, sometimes you can't always make things that happened in the past disappear.
But moving forward for ourselves and for our children, we want the root of this out of there. And that's what we're doing with it. And that's where it is, it's transformational. It really is.
Mason Pain (48:58)
Absolutely. Yeah, it lays a new foundation in a state that has historically been horrible for cannabis criminalization, one of the worst in the country. we've already seen a massive shift. And I think that this really sets the foundation for the future
JED GREEN (49:11)
Absolutely.
Mm-hmm, absolutely.
Taxation and financial implications of sq 837
Mason Pain (49:20)
So let's talk money a little bit, because I think that that is what piques the interests to the powers that be with these types of efforts.
What's the proposed retail tax rate for adult use? You touched on this a little bit earlier, but I know there's a timeline for maybe how it's implemented. So what happens to existing medical marijuana tax rates under state question 837 as well? Can you describe that landscape for us?
JED GREEN (49:51)
Yeah, so what we do here is we remove the 7 % excise tax on medical marijuana sales and we impose a 10 % excise tax on retail recreational marijuana sales. Now, for both the local ⁓ and state sales tax that is in effect in your county or municipality, that stays in effect, but this should cut the overall tax rate for medical in half, generally speaking, Right now, Oklahoma functionally has the third highest tax rate on medical marijuana in the nation. And so by chopping this 7 % out, it gets us kind of more into that overall 8 % range that we see kind of with the majority of states. I mean, you've got some folks that are up there. think Washington state's at 37 % or some shit like that. anyway, so what that does is that knocks that down there. Again, just like implementation at the 60 day mark from passage, that's when this kicks in. So with that 10 % excise tax, one thing that we also do, and this is something that, you know, I've been able to follow it fairly well. It's kind of nuanced, but a big question is where'd the money go from the 788 tax? It was supposed to be for education and mental health. And I mean, I can say that a number of those dollars have found their way that direction through the Redbud Fund or grants to OSDH. But, you know, of course the premise was that first, license fees taxes covers the cost of enforcement and the excess goes to education and mental health well One reality with earmarks is is that if we earmark the state government to do education and mental health with the excess funds like we did before They'll do like they have done historically, which is to basically say at the beginning of every budget, when they're in the budget negotiations, they say, we're going to put X amount of dollars to education. And we have five or six different pots, including a massive pile of federal funds that we use to fund this operation. so some of those funds, some of those accounts that those funds come from, can be directed elsewhere. So what they do is they just come up with a number that they're willing to spend on education and then our pile of money, that designation goes into that funding formula. So what we are not accomplishing is any additional funding for education or mental health substance abuse. It's just all kind of lumped in there. And so what we've done here is we have decided to change this up a little bit.
So first thing we do is we now take that 10%, all licensing revenues goes to the state. We did adjust that back to the 788 original totals, eliminating the tiered licensing debacle of 2179. So we do revert those fees back down to earth.
And I'll talk about the broader scheme of what we're doing here in just a second. But the 10%, what that does is that divides a 40, 30, 30 between state, county, and municipal governments. So the state can do whatever they need to with their 40%, okay? And then by taking the splits for the county…
Mason Pain (53:22)
Awesome.
JED GREEN (53:44)
…and the municipalities, we put that back into a fund that they designate, which generally most days county and municipal governments are largely more efficient in delivering services directly to your door or on that road than the state government is. And so what we want to do is we want to put some of those dollars back into the counties and back into the municipalities to help those local budgets out. And so not make them hope for a state appropriation, but get those dollars there. So the way this works is that counties and municipalities get 30 % of what occurs within their political subdivision. So if you have a county or municipality that doesn't have any dispensaries because they ran them all off, well, then they get no money from marijuana.
Pretty simple. We also, we've had counties and municipalities that have gotten out of line to charge folks additional fees, additional random licensure fees. know, Lawton hit folks for 2,500 bucks, pot counties, the absolute worst on this. You know, they're always looking for ways to juice businesses on the front end through fees, property tax valuations based on a mother plant being worth 15 grand…
Mason Pain (54:55)
yeah.
JED GREEN (55:06)
…or a seed being worth $5. I mean, shit, I saw that. I'm a millionaire. So the general construct, what I'm describing here is just take it from the top. Here's the principle. The government doesn't get to bleed us dry on the front end. Revenue to the government to support public safety and other good things gets to the government at the same time that it does our businesses at the point of sale.
Mason Pain (55:10)
We have.
JED GREEN (55:35)
There are license fees upfront that we've demonstrated are reasonable. There's dollars to the state to make up any shortfall that might occur there. But from there, we prohibit again, constitutionally, any additional fees. I believe we did put in a $100 fee that a municipality or a county can charge to register. So there's your hundred bucks you know, if you want to have us on file, that comes admin cost, but we're not here to make up for your budget on this. So it's real simple once sales happen and there's revenue to be shared, then the state gets their and local governments get their cut. Until that time, you know, they're not going to bleed us dry on the front end. And if we die, we die. They got their money. And therefore these fees will not be used to bleed people out of business. If cannabis is successful, the political subdivisions are successful. If it is not, then they are.
That's the bar.
Mason Pain (56:38)
That's an amazing setup as well, because this almost re-incentivizes the narrative in those counties that have been sort of in opposition to growers, et cetera, coming in. There's a give and take, I think, that becomes more obvious with this distribution system, that re-incentivizes these places that maybe have looked at the… the cost perspective of like, am I getting for allowing a hundred grows in my county?
Addressing community concerns and misconceptions
JED GREEN (57:12)
Well, I think that one thing that we're going to have to that, you know, we've and we've been talking with folks and we're going to have a lot to address is that I'll tell you right now, if I was some of the folks, especially in some very specific counties across Oklahoma, I'd I'd be pissed too. If I were them, given what they've seen, and I mean, especially when we look at areas like, ⁓ I think Garvin County is probably one of them. And when you were a county within a, you know, a county cluster of an area that was literally ground zero for the shenanigans of unethical attorney types here in the state. Those are the areas where they imported outsiders in mass to those areas. know, and I mean, so, so I get it, but I mean, that's the conversation that, you know, we're having with folks across the state now is like, Hey, number one, don't lay that on our state question.
We all know damn well how that happened. Now moving forward, you know, here's what we're doing. And we're even trying to work with some of those folks to help clean some of that crap up, you know? So, I mean, you know, we can't, I don't want to, when we're talking with folks in rural Oklahoma that have been affected by this, you know, I don't want to minimize what their concern is, but you know, that's how we're looking to address it. Now there are, that being said, being fair here as well is to say that there are definitely some folks that, you know, the perception is greater than the reality out there, you know, and that has really been driven by a lot of the media narrative out there that we've seen the last, you know, and we've, and we're even seeing recently. So, you know, that's, it just kind of brings up a case in point where be it the, HIDTA report other, you know, supply and demand study, you know, things that are just basically presented as being fact that are, you know, anything but they're fallacy. You know, we're going to, we're going to have to keep on those conversations and, you know, keep, you know, keep talking about that with folks and, know, let them know that there's, you know, for example, there's not an oversupply. There's an undersupply that's being filled in by, a quasi market that's being filled in by imported...
Mason Pain (59:14)
Yeah.
JED GREEN (59:34)
… you know, hemp derivatives and all that type of stuff. So there's some complexity to it.
Mason Pain (59:39)
Yeah, for sure.
Absolutely. And I mean, at the end of the day, think that there's a specifically, you know, with groups that have taken very strong lines, the Cattlemen's Association, etc. You know, like you said, those that the best way to create bridges is to really take in in a genuine way those concerns and then speak directly to them, you know, as opposed to like you're saying, minimize them because it's all valid. you know, one reality or perspective, in this case, doesn't invalidate another. We just need to understand the sides better and... bring it to an agreeable neutral middle ground essentially. At the end of the day, it's agriculture. So it's like, this is a way that many states with many different commodities, with hops and tobacco, how they infused rural communities with cash that transformed those communities via these post-prohibition commodities that they have their own shadows and whatnot as well, but it was accepted as sort of an economic launching point that.. we can establish in an evidence-based way does not do the harm that's been projected onto it for decades. Which is a good segue to this narrative and cultural context. Probably a big challenge for you in particular is just transforming those minds and those ideas about what cannabis is, what comes along with cannabis, because for so long it's been associated with crime. And as you've said, the perceptions in those rural communities, a lot of them are have been sort of shaped by what's what's come along with the activities that you discussed, you know, just like mass fraudulent application. So there is a… some truth there, but I think that that expansion of criminality onto the cannabis plant as a whole, the cannabis industry as a whole, et cetera, if we do XYZ to legalize or increase access, XYZ is gonna happen to our kids and our communities, et cetera, which we all know from looking at other states that legalized years ago, it's not true in an evidence-based way.
JED GREEN (1:02:15)
Right.
Mason Pain (1:02:17)
That to me is like the elephant in the room. The people who are on board are on board and we're, it's not gonna convince us anymore to vote yes for cannabis. But it's the reefer madness propaganda, the people who have been sort of informed about cannabis through that historically, and who also have these personal touch points, reference points now that they're using to solidify that position.
JED GREEN (1:02:31)
Mm-hmm.
Mason Pain (1:02:43)
So we know that the scare ads are coming eventually. What's your message to those voters specifically who are about to be bombarded with those? about the kids and the crime wave arguments and the noxious odor and all those things that are sort of used and weaponized to discredit the legitimacy of a legal market?
JED GREEN (1:03:08)
Well, you know, that's definitely a concern, although, you know, I'm encouraged to see that when local media runs those reports that there is almost universal rejection of reefer madness claims. mean, they have, bureau of narcotics has really damaged their own credibility in a lot of ways with that recently. Lankford never had credibility, but you know, that's what they'll say. But, ⁓ until the state actually gets off their ass and does something, we are actually doing more to advance protection of vulnerable people from the perceived harms of marijuana by requiring that all THC be sold in the gas stations. They can't seem to enforce that.
You know, this is a responsible measure that, you know, is geared to get in that direction.
You know, again, that's what they're gonna hit us with. And you know, when it comes down to it, when it comes down to it, whatever is set against us, which we've seen it said a couple of times, we know it'll get said again, they're just gonna run off a poll testing, you know, and they're just gonna say whatever in the hell. I mean, on 788, they said if we pass that, that colleges, people would have 10 pounds of marijuana in their – they'd be growing 10 plants in their dorm room or some shit like that. It was just, they discredited themselves. Oklahomans are smarter than that. You know, the real question just comes down to is this, you know, for most Oklahomans is, is this a reasonable proposal? You know, does, is it going to create a whole new, you know, is it going to create a flood of licenses 2.0, which it's not. Um, and otherwise, I mean, you know, our point to them is like, well, I mean, again, the marijuana is here. It's been here. It's going to be here. So we're already there. Let's, you know, let's clean this up a little bit. And I think one of the biggest things for us in this is that if we're able to just basically settle for good and all that we're going to have access to this plant in Oklahoma.
At that point, I think it will allow state leaders to focus a lot more on, well, okay, this is here. We're not getting rid of it. You know, let's start looking at opportunities. You know, it will also create a sound enough regulatory base for businesses that they will be able to, with more certainty, start making those opportunities happen whether there's assistance from the state or interest from the state.
Mason Pain (1:06:05)
Absolutely. Yeah, yeah, I think, I think that there's a misconception about access, increasing risk for certain populations, especially like minor populations, We all know growing up in…
JED GREEN (1:06:18)
That's the thing is in
Oklahoma, we're already there. We've been there.
Mason Pain (1:06:22)
Yeah, we all know growing up in Oklahoma, you could have your gas station clerk who you know would sell you the six pack when you were an 18 year old. And that was just the spot that you went, even though you didn't, you weren't old enough to get that product. there are regulatory guard rails set up in dispensaries for that specific thing. And…
JED GREEN (1:06:36)
This is
Mason Pain (1:06:49)
…That's another point I feel like can be driven home. And I appreciate your harping on that so much, because it's important of where the focus is. We have the AG just post about cutting the amount of legally licensed operators in half yesterday, when we still have... this sort of gray market that you could go into and potentially just shoot your shot. I'll give it a try as a 17 year old to go in and buy my pre-roll, see how it goes. it doesn't, the worst that happens is I'm told no and I go try another gas station.
JED GREEN (1:07:24)
Yeah. Good job. Good job. Good job. general of focusing on getting rid of the guys that are trying to do it right and ignoring this. yeah. That was so bad. Sorry. That was just so.
Mason Pain (1:07:34)
Yeah. Yeah. And I saw your comment on that post and I appreciated the mention of the shelf licensing of people who thousands of those licenses were just extra licenses that licensees bought to position themselves, perhaps to be able to expand their business operations in the future in a time where they wouldn't be able to buy the licenses needed to do that.
JED GREEN (1:07:47)
⁓ uh huh.
and hopefully hopefully General Drummond got the, maybe got the message that that wasn't the flex that he thought it was. you know, I'm constantly hazing, you know, hazing him and Bureau of Narcotics over the gas station weed issue. And I mean, that one right there, you want to talk about watching a post light up and…
Mason Pain (1:08:23)
Yeah.
JED GREEN (1:08:23)
…99 % yeah, you're wrong for that. You know, and it was just such a bold as if it was so bad. That was really, really ill-advised post.
Mason Pain (1:08:35)
Yeah, yeah. One thing I will say I've noticed about A.G. Drummond is he is very aligned with constitutional rights and protections. And he's taken lines that have been surprising, for lack of a better word, in that regard. So A37, full circle, again, being if it was a constitutional protection for this potential future governor to ⁓ digest in that way. What we know about how Drummond approaches constitutional rights and protections is ⁓ a very good thing. I would think even with how it conflicts with his general position on cannabis as it exists today, I think...
JED GREEN (1:09:08)
You what I'm…
Yeah.
Mason Pain (1:09:29)
I've witnessed a general respect for those enshrined protections from his actions that that alone perhaps could transform the approach. I would be hopeful for that at least.
JED GREEN (1:09:42)
Well, and I, yeah, and I think that, yeah, yeah. And in my, in my opinion, I mean, right now my number one problem with, general Drummond's performance is simply the gas station weed stuff outside of that. I'm seeing kind of the same things that you are. And I mean, again, that's, you know, I think he'd, and I know that there is a lot, mean, again, think about the folks that we talked about who, you know, have got a legitimate concern about what they saw out in rural Oklahoma. I mean, again, the man's running for governor. He's targeting, you know, where a base vote is. And I think a lot of those folks, you know, that are likely primary voters, you know, that's where you've got a real intensity and a concentration of folks that do.
You know, have concerns and that might look at what his post was and think like, oh, great job. But I mean, there is, there's way too much nuance and there's way too many folks in cannabis, uh, in this state, you know, just to go out there and make flippant random claims without that getting called out on the map, you know, on the map. That's all. That's all. I mean, we got to just hold that line there, you know?
Mason Pain (1:10:37)
Right.
Yeah, yeah, for sure. ⁓
Absolutely. And I appreciate so much the tact that I'm starting to see more. I feel like there's real momentum for an emerging narrative that's much more aligned with the reality as we know it, because the communication is being approached with a much more effective candor. Whereas we all know in the past…
JED GREEN (1:11:12)
You
Mason Pain (1:11:25)
When shit would get thrown at the wall by some of these agencies, it would be like a riot led by the loudest man in the room. And I don't think that that really put us in a good position overall as an industry to be able to affect the change that we need within the industry with the avenues that we have to do that. And I am seeing now, even when we're disagreeing and brunting up against these systems and the people who are in control, that we're doing it in a much more slowed down, detailed, nuanced way that is void of the emotionality that I think was supercharged and heightened when the rug was being pulled out from everyone, like understandably, you know, people were losing their livelihoods in mass. So, you know, it was harder, I think, for us to have a concentrated effort in addressing this in a way that wasn't like you're screaming to save your life, essentially, because many people were. But that's one thing I think is crucial, critical to continue to maintain, when we do brunt up against these folks or these ideas to do it in a way that's evidence-based This is the actual nature of things. This is how we get to this place, as opposed to like full on lambasting, othering and name calling, the type of just crazy scene making that's happened in the past. And I feel like that's really happened organically over the past at least year. I've kind of been seeing this build up to 837 where a lot more people are aligned.
Obviously, we're all facing similar things even from Gies Law Firm's perspective.
I'm managing 100 pending licenses right now that have been pending for over a year. And every now and then I'll get a blanket wave of approvals that makes absolutely no sense as it's compared to the previous rejections that those applications have gotten and how unchanged those exact applications have been and then been approved. ⁓ But now I'm even at a point from that internal perspective….
JED GREEN (1:13:25)
you…
Mason Pain (1:13:44)
…I'm finding a much more openness to direct engagement from OMMA, from OBN. that's definitely... causing me to walk a little bit more gently on this path that we're trying to pave. Push hard when we need to push hard and pick our battles essentially and choose our words wisely. Because getting those people who aren't on our side on our side, we're almost gonna have to change their minds about what type of people are in the cannabis industry and, you know, ground it all. It's not like this isn't like a cattle call for all the nation's criminals to come in and buy legal weed and do crime.
JED GREEN (1:14:31)
Right.
Mason Pain (1:14:34)
I think the more we can put that message on the ground, the more everyone starts to pay attention that is in positions of power that have historically wielded that power to shrink this market.
JED GREEN (1:14:49)
Yeah. Yeah. I think that, uh, the key thing for those folks to know, and I think that, I think they get it, have hell admitting it or that a petition by the people is a good idea. But at the end of the day, everyone gets at what we're doing here with 837 is we're not, we're not blowing anything up. We're settling it down. You know, we've already been through the explosive growth and then the backlash.
You know, a regulatory and we're, you know, this looks to push us into kind of the next era, you know, which is like, all right, we're at where we're at. Everyone's by that point will have had, you know, you know, eight, nine years of this going on. You know, we adopt something that doesn't require a big lift out of, you know, the lawmakers. So, you know, just the more we can settle it down, you know, and again, getting those…
Mason Pain (1:15:39)
Absolutely.
JED GREEN (1:15:44)
…individual rights and freedoms locked in. I think that does so much for everyone because generally what I've seen is that it's, you know, when they do stuff that pertains to industry, industry generally, especially the last, you know, last, last year, starting last year and this year, you know, it's generally been a fairly good response, even more so this year, you know, Hey, we've got these concerns. I may or may not agree with this, but if nothing else, you know, change that enactment date and you will spare us all a gruesome train wreck. If you could just do that, we can adapt to what you're wanting to do. That's fine. And so it's been able to get things sorted out a lot more efficiently. And again, as long as they're not attacking, again, just take our individual rights and freedoms, capital focuses on industry policy, so on and so forth. We can generally sort that out and everything's a whole lot more sedate for everyone. mean, they don't like getting accosted. We like even less having to actually accost them because they failed to listen when we were talking to them. know, so it'll just be good. I mean, I think that hopefully we are getting into where everything just, everything is relatively more straightforward.
Mason Pain (1:17:04)
For sure. Yeah. Directness, collaboration.
JED GREEN (1:17:06)
I mean, yeah,
anytime you simplify what's going on, just eliminates possibility for confusion. You know, what's the intent? What's this, that, and the other, you know? Help everyone.
Future vision for Oklahoma’s cannabis industry
Mason Pain (1:17:15)
For sure.
Yeah. That's, know, wrapping up here a little bit. That's a good segue, I think, into like, what are you, what's your hope for the future of this industry and what do you envision post the potential of state question 837 passing?
JED GREEN (1:17:41)
Well, mean, my hope is that for everyone, we get it settled for good and all what our rights are for the industry, that you'll be afforded an opportunity to kind of heal up, recoup. Folks that make it through, we're going to streamline licensing, we're going to open up, we're going to fully shift – make sure that market share that's currently lost to open illegal competition comes back to folks. And then we'll just kind of see what happens in states around us that influences regional demand. And then I hope that as that happens that the state again will be able to continue to work with them and use this also as economic development, environmental healing, mean, just all the good that comes from getting this plant back into society. That's again, the scheme is that everyone does well if the, will do well, the state will do well if they will work with us. yeah, that's it. Just dial it all in and simplify it.
Mason Pain (1:18:41)
Thanks
Absolutely. Yeah. And I don't know. You reminded me of something when you were just speaking just now. I don't know if we touched on when you said give people an opportunity to recoup. I don't know if we touched on the head start essentially that those existing licensees will have before any other licensing system is opened up for this. So if you want to speak to that briefly as well.
JED GREEN (1:19:18)
Yeah, Yeah, no, thanks for, thanks for bringing that up. The, it's kind of what I alluded to when I said that, you know, this, this state question doesn't blow it wide open again. You know, it brings it down to earth. And what we want to do, are two things, you know, we want to make sure that there is never a closed loop on license availability. Like if it's permanently shut off for all time, if it's capped.
That simply creates an environment for big pharma to come in and take over. Long, extrapolation short, but that's the net result and drives up cost to consumers, so on and so forth. And you never know who those people are gonna be. It's gonna be government picking winners and losers, which they're gonna pick their friends. So we wanna make sure that there is some availability of licenses over time. However, given what we've been through and given everything that folks have gone through, we want to make sure that there is not, you know, when this opens up, there's not an immediate new glut of licenses as well. That could be very disruptive just to implementation of this, even as simple as it is. And then again, everyone that has been here that has made it through to this point, it would be good for them to know that they've got three to four years to… you know, exist and prosper in this market before any new licenses, come in to bring any additional, competition. Again, we, we look down the road given, you know, you know, given the state's efforts, it's reasonable to believe that, you know, we'll still, we're going to lose, you know, be it what the state's doing or changing regulatory like, you know, laws that we've gotten taken care of like final form testing while not perfect. It needs a little tweak. Maybe we'll get that done next year, you know, to kind of clarify a couple of things, think we'll be okay. But one of the things that we've done here is by allowing processors to transfer back to grows, then we've got growers that are not having to buy an additional processor license to be able to bring those products back to be able to, you know, sell the dispensary. So you know, we're gonna see these license numbers continue to drop and by the time we hit three years from now, we could have a lot of folks in this state that are existing operations that might wanna pick up a few more licenses in order to be able to expand their brand, finally vertically integrate, know, do some things like that, you know, but the one thing we're doing is making sure that everyone gets a good three year run, you know, to... hopefully again make back up for a little bit of the time that was taken from him by the state.
Mason Pain (1:22:00)
That's really, ⁓ really well thought out. It seems like, you know, just kind of going back to that point all the way through, really, seem like you were thorough on how you layered this, amendment to speak to everything that could become a point of contention, whether it be with operators who've endured that or the regulatory side that doesn't want to endure another, you know, blow up…
JED GREEN (1:22:24)
Yeah, well it's
Mason Pain (1:22:26)
…reigning in….
JED GREEN (1:22:28)
There's always a balance that can be found.
How to get involved in the campaign
Mason Pain (1:22:31)
Absolutely, that's what it's all about. Jed, this has been really great, super informative. I really appreciate your time this morning. I want to ask to close here for listeners who have been inspired by the conversation and want to support your initiative. And stay questioning 837, what steps can they take now to get involved in the campaign?
JED GREEN (1:22:59)
Well, we're still a few months out from being able to gather signatures. So the immediate thing that we are doing is we're asking everyone to get over to the website orca4ok.com. Get over to the website and hop in there and sign up to be a sponsor, to volunteer. All of those options are available. ⁓ There's a lot of good information there as well. ⁓ just added another bell and whistle. End of last week, we put an interactive map up that shows where as folks sign up to help sponsor, whatever, you know, we're populating the map with some of that now. Ultimately, this map will be used to and we'll have a series of maps showing different things that will be real time reporting from the field on what we're doing, what our progress is. But we're also folks are going to be able to, you can go in and say, hey, I've got my dispenser, I've sponsored and I've got my dispensary on the map as being a signature gathering location. So this website is going to be, a really, really important organizational tool. The thing to keep in mind is that, you know, that's our platform. You know, we can put whatever we want to out there and I'm not getting banned restricted, us cut off from communication inopportune time by a social media platform. So, this is, and we're going to continue to add to this. I don't want to get out ahead of myself, but there will be constant updates. This is, ⁓ this will be likely the best, the best website for a political campaign in Oklahoma and potentially any state question related to marijuana that's been done. We've got a lot of capacity over there. We're going to build on it. So that's the ask right now, short term sign up on the website, you know, that way we can kind of get everyone, start getting everyone tracked. If you sponsor, we'll be in touch. We'll be in touch regardless.
And that's just, and then encourage everyone you know to be registered to vote, check on their voter registration. The state election board has a voter portal. You can check on yourself, make sure that your registration's up to date for folks that are not registered to vote. You can now register to vote 100 % online without having to do it by paper. So that's a big promo thing for us between now and when we gather signatures, you have to be a registered vote in order to sign and have your signature count. So that's the big push right now. And just help raise awareness, know, talk it up, let everyone know what's going on. If folks have got questions, get them back to folks like us that can get them answered. know, we've got, the time's gonna pass quick and we need to be as prepared as possible and be communicating as much as possible. So help spread the word, get folks to the website, get folks signed up, and we'll go from there.
Mason Pain (1:25:52)
What is that timeline for you? When does signature gathering start? When could this be on the ballot in front of people? What are the potentials there?
JED GREEN (1:26:01)
So the current hard date in the process that we are working off right now, ⁓ off of right now is July 7th. July 7th is the date that the 90-day open challenge period for someone who has an issue with the language itself of the petition can file a challenge with the Supreme Court. If we do not have a legal challenge, then within 45 days of that date, we would be allowed to start gathering signatures. What that looks like is, so if we do have a court challenge, those have typically taken three to four months for a state question, and that would basically push our signature gathering back by that three to four month time period. our first hard date, it's again, it's a flexible process, you know if then that type of a deal. So, but right now if we do not, what we are preparing for is we have to be prepared and ready to go August 1st to August 15th. If we catch a delay, we catch a delay, but we need to be ready to go in collecting signatures statewide at a clip of about 3,500 a day by that time.
So that's kind of where we're at July 7th is really the first date that we're really watching by which we'll know if we've got a challenge or not. If so, that'll adjust the timeline. If not, then we know roughly mid-August is when we're going to start collecting signatures.
Mason Pain (1:27:37)
Beautiful. It'll be here before we know it.
JED GREEN (1:27:41)
Yep, it'll happen quick.
Mason Pain (1:27:42)
Well, yeah, well, it sounds like you've got a really good runway foundation built to launch into that portion of getting this off the ground and getting it in front of people. So again, really appreciate you coming on here. First episode of the Green Brief and sharing more about this petition and why it's so meaningful and the impact it could make in the industry and state. We will include the links for Orca and Orca's website, their social media platforms, in the the caption below, everything we share from this conversation so it's easily accessible. People can jump out of this conversation and straight into action. So, Jed, thanks again for joining me.
JED GREEN (1:28:28)
awesome
Alright, alright, I appreciate you Mason. I'll talk to you soon.
Mason Pain (1:28:35)
It sounds good, brother. Take care.
JED GREEN (1:28:37)
Thank you.
