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Posted: Mar 08, 2019 12:01 PMUpdated: Mar 08, 2019 12:04 PM

Unity Bill to Hit Senate Floor on Monday

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Garrett Giles

The Senate Rules Committee voted unanimously this week to send legislation known as the Unity Bill to the full Senate for approval. Senator Julie Daniels said Friday that the bill creates the safety and regulatory framework necessary for Oklahoma's medical marijuana industry after voters approved State Question 788 last June.

 

Questions were asked by employers about its impact on the workplace at the Chamber of Commerece's Eggs & Issues event held at Tri County Tech Friday. Daniels wanted to remind everyone that tight timelines were put into place when State Question 788 was written. She said the bill went into affect immediately after it passed.

 

That meant people had to have applications, websites and more up and running. The Unity Bill, if it passes the full Senate and is signed into law by Governor Kevin Stitt, would provide provisions for like testing, labeling, and workplace safety for the medical marijuana industry.

 

Now people are questioning why they have to be told how to label packages and Daniels said that the advocates for the bill wrote the State Question 788 in such a way that they had to play catch up with bills like the Unity Bill. She said they have been operating under the time constraints of SQ788.

 

While it has already passed the House, District 11 Representative Derrel Fincher was one of very few people to vote no on the Unity Bill. He said Friday that we would have preferred to have waited a year so he could collect evidence and research from other states on the medical marijuana topic. Fincher said the lesson that needs to be taken away from the matter is that if the legislature had passed medical marijuana with everything already attributed to it, it would not be discussed currently as it ought it be.

 

According to Sen. Daniels, the Unity Bill or House Bill 2612 will go before the full Senate on Monday.


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