Oklahoma, now becoming known as “Tokelahoma,” is one of the easier places to grow and sell marijuana since the substance became legal. Oklahoma has more retail marijuana stores than Colorado, Oregon and Washington combined, and more licensed farms than California. With more than 30 times more regulated medical cannabis than is needed to meet the demands of licensed patients in Oklahoma, it is easier for illicit businesses to go unnoticed by law enforcement. The Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics (OBN) reports that 75% of Oklahoma’s marijuana farms are owned by Chinese nationals who are buying up more than a million acres to grow black-market weed. Referring to one of these farms, Muskogee Sheriff Andy Simmons said, “It looked like a third-world country, the living conditions, they had shanties built out of plywood, no running water, actually pumping out of a creek to bathe.” Notably, with the introduction of medical marijuana came a rise in crime, homelessness, and child neglect cases.
