Fellow Attorneys: As City Attorney, I prosecute the Municipal tickets. I have the following questions: Do you require a driver to carry a CURRENT MMJ card? If the driver does not have the current MMJ card with him at the time of the stop, and marijuana is found on his person or in his vehicle, is he guilty of the Municipal offense? Or do you allow him to produce his card later? Is there a way that I can go online to determine whether or not his MMJ card was current at the time of the traffic stop? If so, please advise.  Thank you for your assistance in this matter,  Kay Wall

Kay, I think the answer to your question is found in 63 O.S. 420. Sub-A allows a person "in possession" of a MM patient license to possess certain amounts of marijuana. Sub-B creates a lower level (really punishment) offense for a person possessing up to 1.5 ounces of weed who is "not in possession" of a MM patient license but can "state a medical condition" (or what I've jokingly called *stoner bingo*) then that person is guilty of a misdemeanor that cannot result in imprisonment and has a reduced $400 fine in District Court. I read the statute as saying that the person has to have their card with them - i.e. in their possession. But I suppose a question would be whether this provision is only applicable to a person who has been issued a MM patient license but does not have it in their possession. I don't read it that way - I read it as applying to anyone possessing up to 1.5 oz who can state a condition but has no card in their possession regardless of whether they claim they have one but not on them. I do believe that a person who is a patient licensee must have their license in their physical possession if they are purchasing and/or possessing marijuana. I think that's the logical reading of 420(A). It's also more clearly stated in OAC 442:10-2-8 ("A patient who has been issued *and is in possession of* an OMMA medical marijuana licenses is legally authorized to..."). Since it's a misdemeanor, then Municipalities can pursue charges as well. And since it does not expressly limit OUR fine level, you'd be back to the general rule that you can have up to $800 in fines for drug ordinance violations but that your max penalty cannot exceed the max in District Court for the same offense. So in District Court, you'd have the $400 fine but you'd also have a host of fees and costs. We only have $30 in Court costs, another $30 in the normal State fees and I believe the extra $5 OBNDD fee would apply to a citation like this. So if we had a $800 fine, that would be a max penalty of $865. So the question would be whether a $400 fine in District Court, once you include the fees and costs, would have a max penalty that was greater or less than $865. As for the question about online verification, there is an online patient license verification system ( https://omma.us.thentiacloud.net/webs/omma/register/#/) but you can only search by license number (not by name or any other identifiers). I do not know what you get back as a response when you type in a license number (i.e. whether it just says it's valid or not valid, or whether it gives you a name or other identifying information). 63 O.S. 427.7(B)(2) provides that there is a medical marijuana use registry of patients that is accessible to "any court in this state." So presumably our Municipal Courts would have access to their registry. I honestly have not heard of anyone seeking access to the registry. And I'm not sure why we would need or want such access - if the person is coming in with the defense *hey, I had a license I just didn't have it with me*, then my response would be *it's still illegal since you can't possess unless you have a valid license in your possession at the time*. But maybe the question of whether they had a valid license *at the time* might be relevant in working out a plea. But the patient licenses I've seen people present in Municipal Court I'm pretty sure have an issue date on them. So you should be able to tell just on the face of the license itself. On Wed, Jul 12, 2023 at 3:53 PM Kay Robbins Wall via Oama < oama@lists.imla.org> wrote: > Fellow Attorneys: > > > As City Attorney, I prosecute the Municipal tickets. I have the following > questions: > > Do you require a driver to carry a CURRENT MMJ card? If the driver does > not have the current MMJ card with him at the time of the stop, and > marijuana is found on his person or in his vehicle, is he guilty of the > Municipal offense? Or do you allow him to produce his card later? Is there > a way that I can go online to determine whether or not his MMJ card was > current at the time of the traffic stop? If so, please advise. > > > Thank you for your assistance in this matter, > > > Kay Wall > -- > Oama mailing list -- oama@lists.imla.org > To unsubscribe send an email to oama-leave@lists.imla.org >