$13M Brought In From Medical Marijuana Application Fees, Authority Says

Wednesday, February 13th 2019, 6:42 pm

By: News On 6

The Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority said its already made millions of dollars on the patient and business application fees, and there are so many applications, they're struggling to keep up.

The OMMA had to shut down their call center recently so they could devote every single employee to processing and approving applications.

East Village Dispensary Manager Arnie Maggard said he's not surprised how quickly the industry has taken off.

"A lot of people benefit from cannabis in a lot of different ways," he said.

The Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority's latest numbers show applications are on the rise.

In the beginning, the OMMA was receiving around 1,200 applications per week. Now, they're receiving around 4,000.

"I was kind of surprised it didn't happen sooner," Maggard said. "I was surprised Oklahomans didn't just flood it."

Melissa Miller with the OMMA said they've closed down the call center to deal with the influx of applications.

"I will say, we have seen some increases in volume week by week," Miller said.

So far, Miller said application fees have raked in about $13.2 million, but with a total of 60,000 applications, Miller said they're right on track for year one.

"We thought, within the first year of the program, we were expecting between 40- and 80,000 applications," she said.

Miller asks people to be patient; she said they're working as quickly as possible to get all the applications finished.