The Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority (OMMA) has appointed a new director as former director Travis Kirkpatrick was recently named deputy commissioner of prevention and preparedness at the Oklahoma State Department of Health, according to an AP News report.

Kirkpatrick, who will oversee the OMMA from his new position, chose Kelly Williams as the OMMA’s new director, the news outlet reported.

“This is a young agency and we have seen massive growth over the past two years,” Williams said in a public statement. “I look forward to the challenges and the rewards of growing the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority into an agency that will make Oklahomans proud."

Maricopa County Superior Court Judge James Smith has rejected claims that the 100-word summary on an initiative to place an adult-use cannabis legalization measure on Arizona’s 2020 ballot was misleading, meaning the issue can be placed before voters this November, according to a Tucson.com report.

Arizonans for Responsible Drug Policy filed a lawsuit last month to keep the measure off the state’s ballot, claiming that the initiative’s description misled people into signing the petition to put the issue before voters this fall through its definition of “marijuana” and how the law might impact impaired driving in the state.

In a 15-page ruling on Aug. 7, Smith said, “At 100 words, the summary also cannot include everything. That is why the full initiative must accompany the petition.”

Smith also shot down opponents’ suggestions that voters might not understand all the implications of the measure, such as changing laws on advertising and driving under the influence of drugs, Tucson.com reported.

The Michigan Regulatory Agency issued a recall Aug. 6 for nearly 3,200 pre-rolls processed in a Bay City facility after a processing plant employee was accused of licking the product, according to an MLive.com report.

Although it’s unclear how regulators learned of the allegations, the Michigan Regulatory Agency told the news outlet that the processing plant employee “licked a pre-roll marijuana product while making the product.”

The owners of the processing facility also operate Dispo, a medical and adult-use dispensary located in Bay City, according to MLive.com, and the processing license has been suspended for 14 days due to the incident.

The recall includes various brands, and the affected pre-rolls were sold through medical and adult-use retailers in Bay City, Hazel Park, Detroit, Traverse City, Ann Arbor, Lansing, River Rouge, Ferndale, Quincy, Lowell, Negaunee and Lapeer, the news outlet reported. Sales of the recalled product took place between June and Aug. 3.

The Michigan Regulatory Agency has indicated that consumers should return affected products to the retailer where they were purchased so they can be disposed of, and dispensaries must notify customers who purchased recalled products, MLive.com reported.

State officials told the news outlet that an ongoing investigation began July 31, and the processor has agreed to halt its operations until it receives further instructions from regulators.

When brothers James and Giono Barrett transformed a former coffee shop in Juneau, Alaska, into a cannabis dispensary, they aspired to one day create an on-site consumption space for its customers, once Alaska finalized its regulations.

Now, their dream is becoming reality as their dispensary, Rainforest Farms, is the first to apply for an on-site consumption license at the local level.

James and Giono advocated for adult-use legalization in Alaska in 2014 and 2015, when James worked in state government and Giono was a licensed medical cannabis grower. When the state legalized in 2015, the brothers were the first to launch a cultivation operation and retail store in Juneau.

“It’s been a fun ride,” James Barrett said. “We’re at the point right now where Alaska is about to kick off … on-site consumption, … so that’s our next step.”

It’s a two-tier licensing process, he added, and Rainforest Farms must first get local approval before pursuing an on-site consumption license at the state level. The company has a hearing on Aug. 18 with the local planning commission, which will decide whether to alter Rainforest Farms’ conditional-use permit to add on-site consumption.

Photos courtesy of Rainforest Farms

Juneau has strict ordinances on smoking, Barrett said, so the company’s on-site consumption plan includes only edibles.

“They kind of threw cannabis into tobacco, so it falls into the smoking ban,” he said. “If you wanted to do smoking on-site consumption in Juneau, you’d have to have a standalone building and be pretty far away from other people. … We’re going to do more European café-style. You can get some edibles, coffee, espresso [and] maybe a sandwich or something like that.”

Alaska’s regulations stipulate that a dispensary’s on-site consumption space must be separate from the retail store, so if the company’s plans are approved, the Barretts will split Rainforest Farms’ retail space in half, with one side dedicated to the retail store and the other transformed into the consumption area.

State rules also require dispensaries to serve their products to customers in specific doses, Barrett added, so if a Rainforest Farms customer purchases a 50-mg package of cannabis edibles, for example, staff will serve 5 mg of it and hold on to the rest until the customer leaves.

“That’s a way to show the state and the city that we’re not going to overserve someone,” Barrett said. “10 mg is the most that they can consume [on-site], which seems pretty low, but we deal with a lot of tourists, a lot of people who are not familiar with cannabis. … It’s a lot of … first-timers or people who haven’t done it since the ’70s, … [so] it’s kind of a starting point.”

Eventually, the Barretts would like to add a bar to Rainforest Farms’ on-site consumption space, where the dispensary can use cannabis oil or THC syrups to make cocktails.

If their application for on-site consumption is approved, the Barretts plan to split Rainforest Farms' retail space in half, with one side dedicated to the retail store and the other transformed into the consumption area.

Overall, Barrett is just excited to provide a safe and legal space for cannabis consumers to enjoy Rainforest Farms’ products.

“We serve thousands and thousands of tourists every summer, and we sell a lot of edibles,” he said. “They don’t bring it back on the [cruise] ship. They probably consume it outside in public. Our industry wants to be responsible, so we just think on-site consumption would be a place to do that.”

An on-site consumption space would be a nice addition to the city block that Rainforest Farms calls home, Barrett added, which already houses three dispensaries, two breweries, a distillery and more than a dozen restaurants.

“It’s cool because if you were to take a flight into Juneau and you landed and took a walk to one of the local hotels, you could go to dinner, check out the distillery, have a beer, then get some fish or some seafood, [and] stop at the dispensary and have an edible,” he said.