Free the weed, free the people

Oklahoma should make cannabis reform retroactive

Oklahoma’s drug laws took a sharp left turn in June 2018 when a strong majority of voters chose to legalize medical cannabis.

Seen as one of the most liberal medical marijuana policies in the U.S., State Question 788 reduced penalties for possession of less than an ounce of cannabis to no more than a $400 fine with no jail time, if a person could state a medical condition.

Becoming the 30th state in the nation to say yes to medical cannabis shouldn’t have been a shock when you consider the fact that SoonerPoll showed widespread support for the measure as far back as 2013. The measure’s passage followed successful efforts at the ballot box to reduce penalties for low-level drug and property crimes in 2016.

But while recent efforts by lawmakers to retroactively apply the 2016 measures (State Questions 780 and 781) have gained bipartisan support, so far the state has been silent on whether to forgive all marijuana convictions before medical marijuana was passed.

Ryan Gentzler, policy director for Open Justice Oklahoma, believes that retroactivity for at least some criminal justice measures is bound to pass within the next year or two.

“State question 780 and 781 passed with very strong majorities across the state,” Gentzler said. “And more recent polling in the last few months tells us that support for 780 and 781 has only grown since it was implemented. So, the scare tactics from law enforcement and district attor-neys has really not worked on the whole.”

State question 780 reduced some drug penalties from felonies to misdemeanors, while 781 did the same for felony property crimes.

Nationally, California, which legalized recreational marijuana in 2016, has announced it will expunge the records of marijuana convictions. Baltimore’s State Attorney Marilyn Mosby said her office would no longer prosecute marijuana possession crimes. And with New York set to legalize recreational use, black NY lawmakers are pushing the state to go further by ensuring communities that were disproportionately harmed by the failed War on Drugs are given reparative justice in the form of funds for job training and business licenses in the new industry.

African Americans are four times as likely to be arrested for possession of the herb, despite using it at similar rates to white Americans, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

Not only has Oklahoma surpassed Colorado in the rate of new dispensaries opening, but the number of patient and business licenses of more than 100,000 have already doubled expectations, indicating at least 150,000 licenses will be issued by the end of the first year, according to the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority.

“As of April 8, 96,808 patient, 1,124 caregiver and 4,662 business applications received, 102,594 total,” an OMMA representative tweeted. “88,574 [approved] total.”

These numbers reveal that nearly three percent of Oklahomans are already seeking to actively invest in the new medical cannabis industry less than one year after the passage of the law.

Intentional actions should be taken to ensure that the pattern of legalized states doesn’t continue to reveal a picture of wealthy, white men benefitting in the new industry while low-income and especially black Oklahomans continue to be prosecuted and fined for cannabis use at higher rates across the state. The most direct way to offer reparative justice is to change police priorities on the local level away from simple possession and offering expungement for past convictions.

Gentzler said the main reason SQ 780 and 781 have gained so much support in the state legislature is because of Oklahoma’s unique role as the largest per-capita incarcerator in the world.

“We don’t have the money to incarcerate all the people we currently have in there,” Gentzler said. “This is a pretty quick and palatable way to take a pretty sizeable chunk of people and get them out on supervision.”

While retroactively applying reduced drug sentences to people currently incarcerated is an important step in the right direction, continuing to allow Oklahomans to live with the stigma of a marijuana conviction when other Oklahomans are gaining capital from the budding industry represents a hypocritical stain on our Constitution, a gross transfer of wealth from poor communities to district attorneys offices, and a denial of the racist implementation of this nation’s failed War on Drugs.