The Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority has received nearly 7,330 applications for patients and 600 applications for dispensary licenses, further evidence that the number of patients will be far too low to support all the state’s MMJ entrepreneurs.
Here’s what the situation looks like right now:
- The ratio of medical marijuana patients to dispensaries would be a staggeringly low 12-to-1 if all current applications were approved, the Tulsa World reported Monday.
- The state, however, expects patient registrations to climb to as many as 80,000 in the program’s first year. That would be despite two major health-care systems in the state – Saint Francis and Oklahoma State University Medical Center – prohibiting doctors in their systems from recommending MMJ.
- The number of MMJ business applications and approvals are likely to increase as well.
Regardless of how all those numbers play out, the industry is expected to be fiercely competitive.
Bud Scott, executive director of cannabis trade group New Health Solutions Oklahoma, recently described the situation to Marijuana Business Daily as a “free-for-all” that requires successful businesses to be able to carve out niche markets and possibly partner with others.
Although many in the state want mom-and-pop businesses to be involved in the industry, Scott said, “when you have a free-for-all, it’s the well-financed and larger guys who survive.”
– Associated Press and Marijuana Business Daily
