Hey, Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Business Owners. Are you curious about industrial hemp? Are you wanting to add that to your crop rotation or as an option to your business and need to know what the rules are for you? I’m Katrina Lucas, and I’m a Tulsa medical marijuana attorney with Wirth Law Office.
Let’s talk about ODAFF and the requirements for growing hemp. There is a requirement that it has to be less than 1% THC on a dry weight basis for a negligent violation threshold, and less than 0.3% if it’s going to be compliant.
The license application deadline for outdoor cultivation is July 1st. Applications must be submitted at least 30 days prior to planting. For subsequent licenses for late harvest, you have to apply by December 1st. Material change notifications—if location changes or crop data changes because of rain or other issues—must be submitted within 10 days of that change. Harvest report submissions are due at least 30 days before harvest. Your final yield report is due by December 1st, unless it’s a late harvest.
Remember that you do have to pay the grower license application fee, which is $500 and non-refundable. Then there’s a site inspection fee for every harvest, which is $5 per acre for an outdoor grow or 33 cents per square foot for an indoor grow. The hourly inspection fee is $35 an hour, which includes travel time, so this is not going to be free or cheap.
The process handler fees depend on your sales. For less than $50,000 in sales, the fee is $1,000. For $50,000 to $250,000 in sales, the fee is $2,500. If you have more than $250,000 in sales, it will be $5,000.
If you were to have a fine because your plant ended up having too much THC, it’s a violation of $10,000 per day per occurrence. So if you believe you may have THC crops, you need to pare them down as quickly as possible. This fine will add up quickly. If you get a higher yield for some reason, that’s a negligent violation threshold. An intentional violation will get you reported to the U.S. and Oklahoma authorities and could possibly lead to criminal prosecution.
You can transfer a maximum of one pound to a lab to be tested, and your storage requirement is that crops must be locked and secured.
Once you get your ODAFF license for hemp and you proceed through that crop, if you need any information on how to apply, what information they’re looking for, or what an inspection entails, contact us at Wirth Law Office and we would be happy to help you. Give us a call and stay tuned for updates on Oklahoma medical marijuana and hemp.