Echols, in his remarks Thursday, acknowledged that he has been “publicly not pleased” with previous actions of the Oklahoma State Department of Health’s board before the Legislature went into regular session. The board passed controversial emergency rules in July that, among other restrictions, banned smokable marijuana product sales.

It later rescinded those limitations and approved a pared-down set of emergency rules that did not detail protocols for product testing, which prompted the working group to create its own set of testing recommendations for evaluation.

Attorney General Mike Hunter issued a letter in December indicating his doubts that the health board had authority under SQ 788 to implement the testing recommendations.

Echols said Thursday that the OMMA — currently under the Health Department umbrella — should have rule-making powers with regard to hazardous materials testing.

A Rules Committee member asked Echols on Thursday about provisions in the bill for inventory tracking of medical marijuana products. Echols said that of the 33 states with some form of cannabis legalization, 21 have implemented some version of what he said is known as “seed-to-sale” tracking.