Oklahoma’s medical marijuana ‘secret shopper’ program shouldn’t be totally opaque

It’s outrageous that we have a state agency that believes the word “secret” in “secret shoppers” means it can apparently operate a covert program with no public transparency or accountability.

Yet, the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority appears to be doing just that.

Somehow the state agency tasked with regulating our medical marijuana industry believes it can run a state program that has high stakes for consumers, communities and businesses akin to how The U.S. Treasury operates Fort Knox.

For nearly seven months, Oklahoma Voice reporters have been periodically asking the agency to explain how it plans to implement a state law, which took effect in January, that requires the creation of a secret shoppers program.

The agency has repeatedly refused to tell us.

About a month ago, at our wit’s end, we reached out to the lawmaker who crafted the 2022 legislation.

After all, the program on its face is laudable. Lawmakers wanted to ensure that medicinal marijuana products being grown in our fields and growhouses, then processed by processors and finally sold in dispensaries contain the proper potency levels along with accurate information about pesticides and other potentially harmful chemicals. 

To his credit, Republican Rep. Ty Burns, R-Pawnee, immediately reached out to the OMMA to try to obtain answers.

The agency apparently stiff-armed him, too. 

He said he was provided with a written response that basically said the OMMA planned to keep the operation of this program secret from the public for a year to protect “the integrity” of it. They did say they would provide some sort of update in a few months to lawmakers.

What integrity? There is no “integrity” with any state program that operates clandestinely.

Our OMMA is not the CIA. It cannot function with impunity. 

The OMMA won’t say how many sites secret shoppers have already investigated in 2024 or release the outcomes of those inspections. It’s also not clear who is doing the secret shopping. We don’t know what labs they’ve selected to analyze the products the secret shoppers purchase and what the expected turnaround will be to get those results. And, we don’t know if they’ll also attempt to confirm that businesses are following the law by selling cannabis only to consumers with medical marijuana cards.

We know what we know only because of the framework of the legislation and because Burns, again to his credit, shared his email exchange with Oklahoma Voice. 

I applaud his transparency.

At least someone is trying to be accountable to the public.

It’s really scary when any state agency thinks it doesn’t owe the public — or our legislators — any accountability for up to a year.

This is a high-stakes program both for businesses and consumers. Burns’ legislation gives the agency considerable latitude to strip licenses from businesses and impose fines and other punitive measures on entities that fail to comply. 

It also requires the OMMA to promptly notify consumers when products fail a lab analysis. It has seven days to recall a product.

If a lab takes days to analyze a product, it will probably be too late for consumers by the time the OMMA begins the recall process.

Our marijuana industry has had a lot of problems. Lawmakers allowed it to launch with few rules and guidelines. Illegal grows have been a blight on some of our communities and lawmakers have struggled to balance the needs of traditional agricultural producers with marijuana growers.

But this program is designed to deal only with legally licensed dispensaries. These are the ones we know exist, and they’re typically mom-and-pop businesses. They’re owned by Oklahomans and provide revenue and jobs in our communities.

We’re not asking to see the names and faces of the “secret shoppers,” but the agency should be prepared to answer some basic operational questions.

And the OMMA stiff-arming the public and the lawmakers we’ve elected fails to do that.