“I’m a firm believer in individual freedoms, and for the government to say a plant that is not harmful can’t be consumed is like waving a red flag in front of a bull for me,” she says. “I’m a real states rights person, and I do feel like the Feds need to stay out of things and let the states handle it as much as possible. But I also think it is really nonsensical and irrational for the Feds to continue to list marijuana in the Controlled Substances Act as a harmful drug with heroin. It’s crazy. That still motivates me to try to help the industry.”
Parrish was one of the first attorneys in Oklahoma to focus on the legal cannabis industry, following the state’s passage of Question 788 in 2018, which legalized medical marijuana, established guidelines for a regulated market and opened the floodgates.
“Nobody appreciated the gold rush atmosphere that would ensue,” she says. “I don’t think anybody understood how big it was going to be and how many applicants there would be and the manpower that would be required to process and implement everything.”
Shifting her attention to cannabis was a natural fit for Parrish, who has won numerous awards in her 36-year legal career. She had previously handled a variety of real estate, compliance, mergers and acquisitions, business formation and insurance-related issues — all skills that dovetailed well with the nascent cannabis space.
Although the Oklahoma market is slowly settling into a normalized industry, there are still nearly 2,000 dispensaries with active licenses and more than 3,400 growers in a state with only 4 million residents.
Many people joke that there’s now a dispensary on every corner in Oklahoma — and they might be right — but Parrish believes one of the best things Oklahoma did was start with a low barrier to entry, giving businesses of all sizes the opportunity to get into the game, with a license fee of only $2,500. It’s really the only free-enterprise medical cannabis system in the country. And the laws of supply and demand and basic economics will ultimately determine which businesses survive and which ones go under.
“I know there are people who disagree with me on that, but when you start limiting licenses, you’re starting to put roadblocks in the way of people who want to enter the industry, and I am just a big believer in the free enterprise system.”
Another thing Oklahoma did right, in Parrish’s eyes, is not having a list of qualifying conditions required for people to get a medical card. As long as patients receive a recommendation from a doctor, they are eligible for the state’s medical cannabis program.
“I feel like our system is imperfect, but I’d sure take it over a lot of the other states that are out there,” she says.
That’s not to say the industry as a whole has seen smooth sailing.
“Here in Oklahoma, it continues to be the Wild, Wild West,” Parrish says. “You just never know what’s coming around the corner, but I really enjoy working with my clients and I’m very protective of them. God sends me the best clients on the planet. They’re great people, and I have a passion for helping them survive as courageous entrepreneurs in this industry.”