By Simon Romero | The New York Times
Across Oklahoma, a staunchly conservative state with a history of drawing people in search of wealth from the land, a new kind of crop is taking over old chicken coops, trailer parks and fields where cattle used to graze.
Next door to a Pentecostal church in the tiny town of Keota, the smell of marijuana drifts through the air at the G & C Dispensary. Strains with names like OG Kush and Maui Waui go for $3 a gram, about a quarter of the price in other states.
Down the road, an indoor-farming operation is situated in a residential area near mobile homes, one of about 40 in the town of just 500 residents. “It might look strange, but this is where the action is,” said Logan Pederson, 32, who moved this year from Seattle to Oklahoma to manage the small farm for a company called Cosmos Cultivation.
“Oklahoma is the only state in the union to take a truly capitalist approach to legalizing cannabis. Without a statutory limitation on cultivation and dispensary licenses the market is able to determine what is best rather than the “state” picking winners and losers based on arbitrary rules or political connections. It is a phenomenal environment for entrepreneurs in the marijuana industry to establish themselves.”
–Adam Trenk, Rose Law Group Partner and Co-Chair of the Cannabis Dept.
