A sign announces that a new medical marijuana dispensary will open soon. The Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority is not currently releasing details about its new secret shoppers program to the public. (Photo by Kyle Phillips/For Oklahoma Voice)
OKLAHOMA CITY – A new medical marijuana secret shopper program, which has the power to revoke dispensary licenses, is keeping details about its operations top secret.
The Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority told a lawmaker who authored the legislation that it plans to withhold specific details about how its new secret shopper program will operate until the program hits its one-year anniversary in an effort to protect the “integrity of the program,” according to an email shared with Oklahoma Voice.
However, the agency also said a report to the Legislature will be available “later this year.” The OMMA said it is on track to comply with the law by the end of the year.
Porsha Riley, OMMA’s spokeswoman, said in an email to Oklahoma Voice that details about the program are not currently being released to the public.
Despite the law taking effect in January, the agency refused to say how many sites secret shoppers have inspected so far in 2024 or publicly release the outcomes of those inspections. It’s also not clear how many secret shoppers the agency is employing.
Rep. Ty Burns, R-Pawnee, who released a copy of his email exchange with the OMMA, made repeated requests for information about the program. A brief statement was provided to him by the agency after about four weeks, which did not contain specifics. Burns was the House author of the legislation creating the program.
House Bill 3971 requires secret shoppers to inspect at least 50 licensed dispensaries by the end of year. Beginning in 2025, the agency must inspect at least 10% of all licensed dispensaries in the state.
Lawmakers in May 2022 passed the legislation, tasking the OMMA, which regulates the medical marijuana industry, to create and operate a “secret shoppers” program. The program is supposed to ensure licensed dispensaries have product labels that accurately reflect levels of potency, pesticides, heavy metals, microbials and residual solvents for extracted products.
The law requires the OMMA to implement rules to employ secret shoppers who will then buy enough marijuana products sufficient for five compliance tests. Four samples must be tested by four different laboratories and the fifth will be kept in reserve in the event of a discrepancy. Secret shoppers must ask for a certificate of analysis for each purchased product.
If a product fails a lab analysis, OMMA must recall the product within seven days. The agency may use the results to take punitive actions against the licensed dispensary, growers or processors.
Jed Green, who pushed to pass State Question 788 to legalize medical marijuana in 2016, said the last time he remembers hearing anything about the program was anecdotal reports during its first week. Since then, Green said he hasn’t heard any reports from dispensaries about suspected secret shoppers.
“So it appears that the program itself, by all outward appearances, has just been mothballed at this point in time,” Green said.
Green said the Legislature had to go back after the bill became law to give the agency authority to purchase medical marijuana products and to send samples to a state quality control laboratory instead of an OMMA laboratory, which still does not exist.
Green said OMMA received $37 million, which was less than it asked for to help finance their own quality control lab last year.
Without the lab, Green said there isn’t a way to follow through on testing products.
In mid July, the OMMA laid off about 10% of its staff, a move made to reflect decreasing commercial licenses and a limited budget.
Although Green said he finds it concerning that OMMA will not disclose information about the program, he said they have other priorities, including clearing a backlog of license renewals and ownership license transfer requests.
Mason Pain, operations and marketing director for Gies Law Firm, which specializes in cannabis law, said the OMMA has historically lagged on program implementations, which could also explain the lack of available information.
“So I also kind of see that almost as a potential for there to not really be a whole lot of data or a whole lot to share, just because of the really sort of small sample set and and not even knowing, like, how many out of 50 they’ve even accomplished this far into the year,” Pain said.
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