Mississippi’s fledgling medical hashish program is slowly however certainly coming collectively, with state officers focusing on early subsequent yr for the opening of the primary dispensaries.
Local news station WLBT reports that “900 Mississippians have already utilized and been licensed for his or her medical marijuana playing cards,” and that there’s hope for the primary dispensaries to open their doorways early subsequent yr.
The state started accepting functions for medical hashish playing cards in June.
Mississippi legalized a medical hashish program earlier this yr after the state’s Republican governor, Tate Reeves, signed a invoice into legislation.
“The ‘medical marijuana invoice’ has consumed an infinite quantity of area on the entrance pages of the legacy media shops throughout Mississippi during the last three-plus years,” Reeves stated in an announcement following the invoice signing. “There isn’t any doubt that there are people in our state who may do considerably higher if they’d entry to medically prescribed doses of hashish. There are additionally those that actually need a leisure marijuana program that might result in extra folks smoking and fewer folks working, with the entire societal and household ills that that brings.”
The governor’s signature marked the end result of a multi-year legislative course of after voters within the state accredited a poll measure in 2020 to legalize medical marijuana therapy there.
The state Supreme Courtroom struck down the voter-approved measure, deeming it unconstitutional on a technicality, prompting lawmakers in Mississippi to draft their very own medical hashish proposal.
Reeves, who was against the 2020 poll measure, engaged with the legislature on the invoice, at one level insisting that lawmakers impose a restrict for sufferers to obtain 2.7 grams per day.
The laws that arrived on his desk earlier this yr, nonetheless, allowed sufferers to buy as much as 3.5 grams as many as six occasions per week. It handed the legislature with a veto-proof majority.
“I’ve made it clear that the invoice on my desk isn’t the one which I might have written,” Reeves stated in his assertion on the time. “However it’s a proven fact that the legislators who wrote the ultimate model of the invoice (the forty fifth or forty sixth draft) made vital enhancements to get us in the direction of conducting the last word objective.”
The governor did, nonetheless, applaud quite a lot of provisions within the new legislation.
“1. Reduces the overall quantity that anybody particular person can obtain to three oz. per 30 days. This one change will cut back the overall quantity by 40 p.c from the unique model (I requested for 50 p.c). Stated otherwise, there might be tons of of thousands and thousands of fewer joints on the streets due to this enchancment,” Reeves stated on the time. “2. The medical skilled can solely prescribe throughout the scope of his/her observe. They usually should have a relationship with the affected person. And it requires an in-person go to by the affected person to the medical skilled. 3. Solely an MD or DO can prescribe for youths underneath 18 and solely with the consent of a father or mother/authorized guardian. 4. An MD or DO should prescribe for younger adults between the ages of 18-25. 5. The MSDH will promulgate guidelines relating to packaging and promoting, and I’ve confidence they’ll achieve this in a approach that limits the impression on our younger folks. 6. Prohibits any incentives for the Business from the Mississippi Improvement Authority. 7. Protects our church buildings and faculties from having a marijuana dispensary inside fewer than 1,000 ft of their location.”
Reeves thanked the lawmakers for his or her efforts, and expressed hope that “we are able to put this difficulty behind us and transfer on to different urgent issues going through our state.”