Okla. Cannabis Co. Sues State Over Pot Tracking System
Sarah Jarvis, 16 April 2021
An Oklahoma medical marijuana business has filed a proposed class action against the state’s medical marijuana regulators, alleging they created a monopoly through their contract with a seed-to-sale tracking system and improperly required businesses to pay for its services.
Dr Z Leaf LLC said in a complaint filed Thursday in Oklahoma state court that while the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority and the Oklahoma State Department of Health are responsible for auditing grower and processor reports, the state has outsourced that responsibility to the company Metrc LLC.
The state’s contract with Metrc allows the company to directly charge the more than 10,000 licensed medical marijuana businesses in the state a reporting fee of $40 per month per license, $0.45 for each RFID plant tag and $0.25 for each RFID package tag, according to the complaint. All told, Metrc estimates it will receive roughly $12.5 million in tag and reporting fees each year from Oklahoma licensees, the complaint said.
“Nothing in Oklahoma statute requires any medical marijuana business to use the seed-to-sale system selected by the state to carry out its auditing responsibilities, and certainly nothing in Oklahoma statute requires those companies to purchase RFID tags and pay monthly service fees to a company selected by OSDH/OMMA to carry out its auditing responsibility,” Dr Z argued in the complaint.
