DURANT, Okla — Oklahomans are reacting after Governor Stitt called for the re-regulation of medical marijuana in his State of the State address.
Oklahomans passed legislation legalizing medical marijuana in 2018, with over 56 percent of people voting yes.
2 News Oklahoma highlighted Stitt's comments after the speech:
Oklahomans shared their perspectives on medical marijuana.
Shelley Dunnam said her 13-year-old daughter started using medical marijuana for her seizures when she was six.
"The shortest seizure we have on record for Marleigh is 43 minutes long, causing extensive brain damage," said Dunnam. “We never knew which seizure was going to be the last one, and when we have neurologists telling us to prepare for her death, those were real things we had to look at."
She said her family resorted to medical marijuana after everything else they tried wouldn’t work.
"She is not an applicant for surgery, stints, shunts," said Dunnam. "There's not an operation we can do short of paralyzing her entire body, which is more harmful for her than good."
FLORES: "If there were actions taken in terms of eliminating medical marijuana, how would that affect your family?"
DUNNAM: “If we don't have access to her medicine anymore, we will have to go to where we have access to her medicine. At this point, I'm not prepared to go backwards.”
John Koumbis owns an edible processing facility in the Oklahoma City area. While he said this issue takes more of a toll on patients, from a business standpoint, he would have to shut down.
Koumbis said this would have an obvious effect on the local and national economy.
“I have 22 employees that will be out of work," he said. "They'll have to find something else to do. My company would just be totally abolished.”
He said Stitt's bold statements caused panic.
"It kind of put the industry in a little bit of a tailspin, because we don't know what's going to happen moving forward with Governor Stitt's proposal," he said. "I don't believe we need to abolish the program. I think what we need to do is we need to sit down at a round table with the legislators and find out how we're going to reel this in a little bit more."
Rogers County Sheriff Scott Walton said he's been against medical marijuana since before the 2018 vote.
“When we look at indentured servant-type labor and dirty money that comes in from outside, we see every county affected by this," he said. “The money’s all dirty.”
He said there needs to be reform.
FLORES: "What do you think could be done to make sure that, again, like you said, clean operators can keep operating and producing?"
WALTON: "I think we would have to mirror other states that had a successful structured statutes that covered that. We'd have to mirror other states that have clearly outlined statutes."
Stay in touch with us anytime, anywhere --
- 2 News Oklahoma on your schedule | Download on your TV, watch for free. How to watch on your streaming device
- Download our free app for Apple, Android and Kindle devices.
- Like us on Facebook
- Follow us on Instagram
- Watch LIVE 24/7 on YouTube
