Tulsa Police have not yet returned a request seeking comment about the court ruling. Sarah Stewart, a spokeswoman with the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety, said Friday the agency would not comment but that an Oklahoma Highway Patrol leader indicated the ruling “affirms exactly what we do today.”
For those without a patient card who can cite a medical condition, state law indicates the penalty for cannabis possession consists of a fine but no jail time. Others can still be subject to jail time because of laws created following the passage of State Question 780, Fetgatter said.
“(My adult use bill) is still eligible to be heard next session, but there is no appetite in my opinion in the Legislature to run an adult use bill until we can rein in the nefarious activity going on within our rural communities with the medical program,” he said, referencing a series of recent Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics raids.
“To be clear, an adult use program does not fix the issue of people being pulled over with the smell of burned or unburned marijuana in their car. That’s going to have to be something that’s addressed in DUI laws, which is something I’ve tried to work on in the past and I actually received a lot of pushback on from industry activists.”
In a brief concurrence in Roberson’s case, Judge Robert Hudson said the “admitted presence or odor” of cannabis “must remain a factor indicating criminal activity” despite state law allowing medical use. But Tulsa-based attorney Ron Durbin, who has multiple clients in the cannabis industry, said he worries the opinion is written broadly enough that it can be used to argue the smell or presence of cannabis is, on its own, a sign of a crime occurring.
