— Shortly after sunrise on July 22, a dozen or so police officers from across Oklahoma descended on a property about 15 miles north of the Texas border.
Two men — Zhimou Chen and Chong Chen — were taken into custody and officials charged Zhimou with cultivation of an illegal controlled substance.
They also discovered about 45 workers living on the property, in what Carter County Sheriff Chris Bryant described as “horrible conditions.” Altogether, the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics estimates that there have been at least five dozen raids of illegal marijuana cultivation operations since the crackdown began in April, a phenomenon that was largely nonexistent up until that point.
Oklahoma’s medical marijuana program has seen such staggering growth since it launched three years ago after voters overwhelmingly backed a ballot referendum that it has earned the wry nickname “Tokelahoma.” More than 380,000 Oklahomans — or nearly 10 percent of the state’s population — have enrolled in the program, making it by far the largest in the country on a per capita basis.
One of the biggest selling points for legalization, and one that proponents made during the referendum three years ago, is that it eliminates the need for an illicit market — and the violence and crime that often comes along with it.
“It’s like paradise,” said Lawrence Pasternack, a philosophy professor at Oklahoma State University and marijuana legalization advocate, pointing out that Oklahoma has some of the cheapest land in the country.
The weakness in the system turned out to be the one significant restriction on obtaining a business license: To qualify, applicants with at least a 75 percent ownership stake have to show that they had lived in Oklahoma for at least the last two years .
Recent raids have targeted allegedly illegal marijuana grow operations in Marietta and Gene Autry, Oklahoma.
These foreign ties to the ghost owners have not been conclusively established in court, but the scope of the ghost-owner scandal has given Oklahomans plenty to speculate about.
“It’s overwhelming.
Tax revenues are on pace to exceed $150 million this year and whole sectors of the economy — from real estate to building contractors to advertising agencies — now depend on legal marijuana income.
But lawyers who represent business owners who have lost their licenses, or are at risk of being shut down, say many of them are simply struggling entrepreneurs who thought they were doing everything right to operate legally.
“They should allow the people who are legitimate, honest actors to fix the situation,” said Ron Durbin, a Tulsa attorney with dozens of cannabis clients.
“The lack of enforcement on the medical program has put the marijuana program in a negative light in the eyes of average Oklahoma citizens,” said Republican state Rep.
There are more than 13,000 licensed medical marijuana businesses in Oklahoma, an increase of roughly 50 percent compared to a year ago.
Some people think illegal weed has been part of Oklahoma’s medical marijuana market from the moment the first dispensaries opened for business in November 2018.
But Moore quickly came to appreciate the potential therapeutic benefits of medical marijuana, whether in helping people reduce their dependence on opioids or in treating ailments like insomnia or anxiety.
10, there were 47 licensed medical marijuana shops in Ardmore, a town of about 25,000 residents.
Property prices have skyrocketed by about 40 percent in the area this year, Thompson says, and anything priced below $500,000 typically sells within 30 days.
The homeowners don’t have a chance,” Thompson said, seated in the lobby of the real estate firm, which is furnished with pink chairs, pink couches and pink throw rugs, as well as various slogans testifying to the power of Jesus.
Thompson says that some clients, particularly older people, will tell her that they don’t want to sell to them.
Those tensions have been exacerbated by the series of raids that have taken place in the area in recent months, since many of the people facing criminal charges are Asian.
Rocky Atencio, the owner of Rocktop Wellness in Lone Grove, says the company produces cannabis products that are available in about 1,000 dispensaries statewide.
When I spent time in Oklahoma a year ago reporting on the state’s booming cannabis industry, weed entrepreneurs frequently assailed efforts by the state to create more stringent guardrails around the program, particularly its plan to install a statewide seed-to-sale tracking system.
Rocky Atencio, 49, is best known around Ardmore as the owner of the Chrysler and Hyundai dealerships and as the long-time high school wrestling coach.
Atencio is in the process of opening his first dispensary in Chickasha and hopes to have 10 more pot shops operating by the end of next year.
“I just don’t like competition when they’re not abiding by the same rules I have to abide by.
One of the strangest wrinkles in Oklahoma’s runaway weed market is told in lawsuits that have been filed in courthouses all over the state.
In January 2020, Zai Fu Xiang sold his belongings, borrowed funds from his family and headed to Weleetka, Oklahoma to grow weed.
They suggested he contact Jones Brown, a small Tulsa law firm that historically has focused on personal injury and labor law but has increasingly specialized in marijuana licensing.
Instead, Xiang says in his lawsuit, he was told by the firm’s attorneys that he could hire Kathleen Windler — a secretary at the law firm — as a consultant and she could stand in as the lawful Oklahoma resident needed to qualify for a license.
Xiang leased 22 acres in Okfuskee County and invested approximately $120,000 in setting up a marijuana grow operation on the site, including a dozen greenhouses.
“Hundreds” of other prospective Oklahoma cannabis entrepreneurs followed a path similar to Xiang’s, according to court records.
They further allege that many have ties to international criminal gangs, taking advantage of Oklahoma’s loose rules to establish quasi-legal businesses with the intent of growing marijuana for the illicit market.
“Nobody forced these people to put their names on these licenses.
But cannabis lawyers say the residency rules are legally murky, and that there are perfectly legitimate ways to obtain a license even if a business owner doesn’t meet the requirements.
In a lawsuit filed in Cleveland County District Court in September, Windler claims that she, too, was victimized by improper legal advice from Jones Brown attorneys, and that it has put her in grave legal peril.
“I have no comment other then what is in the public record,” David Cheek, who is representing Jones Brown in Windler’s lawsuit, wrote in an email to POLITICO.
In August, Xiang and dozens of other licensees received notifications that their licenses had been surrendered by Windler, essentially putting them out of business.
9, Okfuskee County District Court Judge Lawrence Parish issued a temporary restraining order blocking state officials from forcing Professor Weed to cease business operations or destroying the company’s property.
Oklahoma Gov.
Kevin Stitt has made reducing the state’s already notoriously lax business regulations a hallmark of his administration — vowing to cut red tape by at least 25 percent by the end of his current term.
Berry, the fourth leader of the OMMA since it was created three years ago, is an unlikely choice for the post.
In addition, OMMA has hired six investigators to work in partnership with the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics on criminal investigations.
Many businesses — even some that were initially wary of being forced to spend money to adopt the Metrc system — have grown frustrated at the delay in implementing it.
So far, Berry is largely receiving cautious accolades from lawyers, lawmakers, advocates and business owners involved in the medical marijuana industry.
Advocates hope to begin collecting signatures early next year for a pair of referendums they would like to place on the ballot.
But even supporters of full legalization acknowledge that the rash of raids on illegal grow operations and allegations of international drug smuggling have sparked a backlash, particularly in rural parts of the state.
Jed Green, who is leading the effort to get the legalization referendums on the 2022 ballot, acknowledges that full legalization will be a difficult sell.
Like many of the people he serves, Grisham has struggled philosophically with how to respond to changes that have transformed Oklahoma from one of the most punitive states when it comes to drug use to one of the most liberal.
Grisham didn’t support the medical marijuana legalization referendum in 2018, but he seems more bewildered than angry about the dramatic change in the state’s approach to the drug.
“To me that has hurt us about as bad as anything,” said Grisham, an avowed supporter of former President Donald Trump.