Tightening up of Oklahoma’s medical cannabis program has not only resulted in fewer cultivators and dispensaries, but patients too.
Oklahoma’s legal medical cannabis arrangements were hugely popular, but back in March 2023, Governor Kevin Stitt said that things were “way out of control” in Oklahoma; signalling a further tightening up of guidelines and monitoring. At that point, there were 6,975 growers and 2,893 dispensaries across the state. The number of registered patients was just north of 368,000 according to Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority (OMMA) Licensing and Tax Data.
A moratorium on new licenses for any dispensary, grower, or processor was established August 26, 2022, and is set to expire on August 1, 2026. A related crackdown also followed, with thousands of legal, and as it turn out, illegal businesses scrutinised. OMMA is also required by state law to inspect businesses once a year.
Fast forward to today and as at August 1, 2025, the number of growers had dropped dramatically to 2,680, the number of dispensaries to 1,615 and registered patients to 318,578.
State coffers are also taking a hit, with $51 million raked in with the state’s excise tax in FY24, dropping to $47.5 million in FY25. In terms of state and local sales tax, the figures were $67.5 million in FY24 and $60.8 million in FY25. Excise revenue goes towards supporting OMMA and any excess is appropriated at the Legislature’s discretion. State and local sales tax money goes straight to the state government and city/county – OMMA never touches it.
A report released earlier this year indicated that Oklahoma still had 12 times as many licensed medical marijuana growers than Colorado; even though the number of cultivation licenses in Oklahoma dropped from a record high of 9,178 in 2021 to nearly a third of that figure in 2024 – 3,138. As for medical marijuana dispensaries, the state has 5 times as many as Colorado and nearly double the number of that state’s medical and recreational dispensaries combined.
While the drop in business licenses is easily explained, the reduction in registered patient numbers is a little murkier. While it’s not unusual for states that introduce marijuana legalization for adult use to see participation in their medical cannabis programs plummet, in Oklahoma recreational marijuana is still illegal.
