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Medical Marijuana Authority outlines lab standards, licensing improvements and plans for patient services unit
Summary
The Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority told the health appropriations subcommittee it has completed implementation of 25 legislative mandates since 2022, will open a QA reference lab in early 2025, and expects its new licensing/inspection software to shorten turnaround times for commercial and patient credentials
Director Gentner Berry told the Appropriations and Budget Subcommittee on Health that the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority (OMMA) is consolidating operations, building a QA reference laboratory and upgrading licensing systems to improve turnaround times and oversight of the medical cannabis program.
Berry, joined by senior OMMA staff, said the agency became independent about two years ago and finished a rapid operational build-out in 2024. OMMA plans to open its first quality-assurance reference lab in the first quarter of the calendar year to help ensure lab-to-lab test standardization across commercial licensees; staff said the lab will support agency inspections and sample verification.
Licensing and inspections: OMMA is replacing manual licensing processes with a new licensing and inspection software platform and plans robotic process automation (RPA) to speed credentialing. In FY-24 the authority reported roughly 8,000 touchpoints in the field (inspections and site visits). The agency said it is aiming to reduce commercial license turnaround toward an internal goal of 55 days (current median was cited around the low-60s at the hearing) and said patient credentialing had single-digit turnaround times.
Secret shopper program and testing: The agency is operationalizing a secret-shopper program to buy retail product and compare laboratory results across commercial labs. OMMA said every product in seed-to-sale tracking is identified in the system; the secret-shopper process is designed to ensure lab results are consistent across vendors rather than to audit seed-to-sale traceability.
Budget and license trends: Berry said total license counts have declined (roughly a 50 percent drop over two years, 32 percent in the prior year) as the market has contracted and enforcement has intensified. He told lawmakers OMMA reduced its workforce in 2024 through a targeted reduction of 29 positions that were not field-facing, reallocating resources to patient services, inspections, and compliance. The agency’s FY-26 request showed a modest decline from the prior appropriation, reflecting both lower licensing volumes and a focus on automation.
What’s next: OMMA asked the committee to sustain funding for the QA reference lab, finish the licensing software implementation and support the agency’s new patient services unit, which will centralize customer service, patient licensing, and public-health outreach. The director said a working group on youth use, involving psychiatrists, poison-control representatives and public-health officials, will inform the agency’s prevention and public-health messaging.
