The Oklahoma Senate on Monday permitted a invoice to extend penalties for medical hashish sufferers who divert merchandise to non-cardholders, transferring the laws to Gov. Kevin Stitt (R) for remaining approval.
The laws will increase the effective for an individual who deliberately or improperly diverts medical hashish from $200 to $400 for the primary offense, and from $500 to $1,000 for the second offense. People might lose their medical hashish license for the third offense. The invoice additionally will increase fines for gross sales or transfers of medical hashish to unauthorized individuals to $5,000 for the primary violation and $15,000 for subsequent violations.
Republican state Sen. Lonnie Paxton, the invoice’s creator, mentioned the invoice fixes a loophole that solely imposed an administrative effective for diverting medical hashish merchandise.
“As many Oklahomans know, when State Query 788 was handed to legalize medical marijuana, we had been shortly thrown right into a state of affairs the place we wanted to create the framework and pointers for this business. Sadly, this led to the inadvertent mixing of medical marijuana laws and legal justice reform laws, ensuing within the potential for somebody to purchase marijuana product legally, however then re-sell it to a toddler or somebody who doesn’t have their card, with solely an administrative effective. Finally, that is drug dealing, however solely with the equal offense of a site visitors ticket. [The bill] fixes this loophole and makes this follow a legal offense.” – Paxton in a press release
Paxton clarified that the laws’s intent is to not goal “faculty buddies who’re sharing marijuana product with no cash exchanged” however quite “the black-market medical marijuana business and drug sellers.”
“These black-market sellers are concentrating on and promoting marijuana to our children and others who don’t have a medical card,” Paxton mentioned in an announcement, “and we’re giving our legislation enforcement officers the power to do their jobs and prosecute these offenders underneath legal violation of the legislation.”
If signed by the governor, the invoice will take impact on November 1.
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