Recently, Oklahoma Watch released a map illustrating the medical marijuana tax distribution among the counties of our great state, and the per capita revenue statistics say some truly incredible things about the number of pipes, papers and paraphernalia some of our residents in the border counties must be purchasing.
See those counties that are bluer than a Sooners fan thinking about the times OU lost the Red River Rivalry? Those counties are bringing in roughly $14 bucks per resident in tax revenue from medical marijuana, where the average across all 77 counties is about $9.
Given that things like pipes and other accessories sold in a dispensary are counted in the tax revenue with cannabis, I can only presume these counties must have entire storage facilities dedicated to the bong collections of their residents. That, or southernmost counties in Oklahoma smoke more than their Texas neighbors preparing for a brisket cookoff…ya know, because cannabis is still illegal down there.
Maybe living that close to Texas counts as a qualifying medical condition in the eyes of some of our physicians? I’d listen to that argument at the very least.
I’m not going to make the mistake of projecting our particularly profitable southern counties’ affinity for smoking accessories onto our particularly profitable counties in the East. That mystery is easy to solve; people from Arkansas are crossing the border and buying our weed! Legally.
See, Arkansas passed medical marijuana like 27 years ago or something absurd like that, but they still don’t have any dispensaries open. Luckily, The State of Oklahoma allows out-of-state patients to apply for temporary licenses, so they don’t have to go without their meds. What they can’t do is take their meds back home, which would require transporting cannabis across state lines, and our pesky federal government doesn’t seem to approve. They literally approve of cocaine more.
So again, I’m sure nothing strange is happening here, either. All of these legitimately sick people are just crossing state lines, when their pesky epilepsy has flares-up — dealing with it here, to avoid the risk of becoming felons, because neither Arkansas nor the federal government can get their shit together.
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The amount of profit that Oklahoma has made is a very clear indication that medical cannabis is a net positive in a vast amount of areas. The sky hasn’t fallen, and people seem happier. I shouldn’t have to write articles like this. I never wanted to think about the dispersion of tax revenue at all. However, until the federal government and the last half of the states catch face to the future America is clearly headed for, I’ll be here, writing about how the clear answer to this mystery is people buying pipes. Nothing more.
