‘It is exploding our docket:’ Colorado pot takes toll on Oklahoma courts
OKLAHOMA CITY Law enforcement officials say arrests for marijuana possession in the Oklahoma Panhandle have risen sharply since Colorado legalized the drug in 2014.
Mark Woodward, spokesman for the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drug Control, said Colorados market is still young, and he expects to see the numbers rise as people interested in illegally distributing marijuana to other states continue to make inroads with drug traffickers.
You tend to see 200 pounds in duffel bags going to the East Coast from California because they have a black market, he said. Those connections in Colorado are still being established.
In 2013, Colorado interdiction teams seized marijuana headed out of state 288 times, a nearly 400 percent increase compared to 2008, according to a Rocky Mountain High-Density Drug Trafficking Area study. The study found that Oklahoma was one of the top five destinations for Colorados marijuana.
As arrests increase, the workload on county court systems also rises, according to prosecutors.
It is exploding our docket, said District Attorney Mike Boring, who oversees four counties including Cimarron, Texas and Beaver counties in the Oklahoma Panhandle.
Its just massive, Boring said. Cimarron County has been averaging 37 felony cases per year. Thats what theyve averaged for the last 11 years. As of today, weve already filed 23 cases, and were not even to the end of April. Most of those were drug offenses, he said.
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