Oklahoma adopts new guidelines: Imagine you're a woman sitting in your physician's clinic, about to be prescribed medical marijuana. Fine.
Now imagine being made by law to take a pregnancy test before being given the prescription simply because you are of "childbearing age." Not fine—verging on weird actually.
A rule such as this had been adopted by Oklahoma City after it had voted to legalize medical marijuana in July of this year. But thankfully, city health officials have decided to adopt new guidelines for marijuana use in the state, after the previous rules came under harsh criticism from the Attorney General and medical marijuana advocates.
One can see why.
Oklahoma Adopts New Guidelines, What Happened?
Yesterday, Aug 2nd, the state Board of Health voted unanimously to adopt new rules that will amend or entirely revoke the previous guidelines. The voters chose to eliminate:
- a ban on the sale of smokable cannabis. (Because how limiting would that have been!);
- requirements that a pharmacist is present in every dispensary. (No comment.);
- that women of "childbearing age" undergo a pregnancy test. (Seriously?);
- limitations on levels of THC—the psychoactive ingredient in marijuana—in products and plants.
Aside from some of the rules being incredibly limiting, there was another reason for the guidelines change, according to Oklahoma Attorney General, Mike Hunter; none of those regulations were actually authorized under the proposal to legalize medical marijuana, which Oklahomans approved in June.
>> New York Legislation Drafted for Marijuana Legalization, Read it Here!
The original rules were signed into law by Governor Mary Fallin on July 11th, after the people voted and after a scrappy, emergency meeting between health officials to decide on rules.
She and her legal staff will now review the new guidelines and will have 45 days to accept or reject them.
Here's hoping she will accept them.
Outrage
As you'd expect, the original rules were met with outrage from medical marijuana supporters who said they were far too restrictive. What was the point in approving medical marijuana to then ban the selling of it in smokable forms? Almost 85% of marijuana is made in a smokable variant.
Two marijuana advocacy groups filed lawsuits challenging the rules, and even Attorney General Hunter agreed that the board had "overstepped its authority."
Will Fallin approve the new guidelines? What do you think?
Update: As of August 8th, Governor Mary Fallin has signed and approved the amended guidelines.
Featured Image: Deposit Photos/NiroDesign
