Oklahomans will have a decision to make next week: Should recreational marijuana be legalized?
State Question 820 would make it legal for people to have up to one ounce of weed for adult use, grow up to six cannabis plants and create a pathway to expunge some prior marijuana offenses.
It’s unclear what voters will do. When Oklahomans narrowly voted to approve State Question 788, which legalized medical marijuana, regulators were caught flat-footed. But there’s been a boom in business and with it a boom in tax revenues for the state that has paid for things like school facilities. Pot businesses have also become a central part of the state: There are more here than anywhere else in the country.
Oklahoma is a conservative state, and some Republican leaders, like Gov. Kevin Stitt, have come out in opposition to the state question.
“The big reason for me is, No. 1, it’s illegal federally,” he said at a recent press conference. “There shouldn’t be a patchwork of states doing different things. We need to let the feds tell us if it’s legal or illegal, we shouldn’t let the states tell us that.”
In November, Oklahoma’s neighbors Missouri and Arkansas had similar state questions on the ballot. But the results in both of those states were different. Voters in Missouri legalized recreational cannabis, while voters in Arkansas did not.
Those two elections – and how they played out – could be an indicator of…
