Tulsa city councilor pushes medical marijuana policy changes while quietly operating his own cultivation business

Councilor Grant Miller never mentioned his involvement in the business when he proposed the idea to his fellow councilors and the mayor at a planning retreat last week.

He argued that the city is endangering employees and contributing to the opioid crisis by not giving its workers the option of using medical marijuana.

“We have got doctors handing out prescriptions to city staff and to firefighters for the very same thing we are allegedly trying to combat,” Miller said. “It’s a big problem.”

Miller also was tight-lipped about his cannabis business during his successful 2022 campaign to unseat incumbent District 5 Councilor Mykey Arthrell.

His campaign website mentions his insurance business but makes no mention of his cultivation business. A Tulsa World review of other Miller campaign literature found no mention of the subject.

Miller said this week that he hasn’t raised the issue publicly to ensure the safety of his employees and customers but that when asked about it he’s acknowledged being in the business.

“The word was going around, I mean, … at least the people who were against me seemed to think that I was trying to hide it,” Miller said. “Anytime anyone asks about it, I just give them an honest answer about it.”

Miller declined to provide the name of his cultivation business but said it opened in Tulsa County in 2021.

“It is really as simple as I don’t want to make myself a target of crime,” he said.

Miller said his colleagues on the City Council know that he is in the cannabis business and that he assumes Mayor G.T. Bynum does, as well.

“I think most people do; it’s been pretty widely reported across social media and during the election cycle,” Miller said. “It’s not like it was not out there.”

Tulsa’s city ordinances do not prohibit a city councilor from owning or operating a cannabis business, and while Miller is the first councilor to own such a business while in office, he is not the first councilor to work in the industry.

Former Councilor Ben Kimbro was employed by a national cannabis company while in office, though the firm did not do business in Oklahoma at the time.

While a councilor but prior to joining the cannabis company, Kimbro was part of a working group put together by Bynum to come up with land-use policies for the emerging medical marijuana industry.

After going to work for the cannabis company, Kimbro recused himself from all medical marijuana issues that came before the City Council.

The city’s ethics code states in part that public office holders and public employees “shall not use their public positions for personal gain nor should they act in such a way as to give an appearance of any impropriety.”

Miller scoffed at the suggestion that his role in advocating for changes to the city’s medical marijuana policies could be seen as benefiting him personally.

“It would be pretty absurd to say that a few hundred people being allowed to choose medical cannabis instead of prescription opioids is going to benefit me,” Miller said. “I guess you can somehow try to make some attenuated connection there, but that would be, honestly, a massive stretch to say that.”

Miller noted that he was told this week by the city Legal Department that he has no conflict of interest under the city’s ethics code and that he can participate in discussions regarding city personnel policies. The Tulsa World confirmed Miller’s statement with the city.

The focus of the public discussion, Miller said, should be on the problem his proposal is trying to address — decreasing the risk of opioid addiction and possible job loss among city employees by having the city treat medical marijuana as it would any other prescription medicine.

“We have an opioid crisis that is killing tens of thousands of people across this country every year and continues to get worse — this problem hasn’t even crested yet — and it is contributing to the homelessness problem; it is contributing to kids losing their parents,” he said.

“And as a city, we are telling people, ‘Yeah, it’s OK to use those kinds of drugs that have massively damaging effects on your life, but it is not OK to use cannabis.’”

Moving forward, Miller plans to put together a City Council working group to explore the issue further.

“I am proud to be in the industry,” he said. “I am proud to help people and give them alternatives to the horrible medications that our city is now pushing on its employees. We are perpetuating the opioid epidemic as a city, and that is a real shame.”

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