Authorized Missouri 2022 has raised almost $700,000 in giant donations since October 1.
By Jason Hancock, Missouri Unbiased
With lower than a month to go earlier than voters head to the polls, the Missouri marketing campaign to legalize leisure marijuana is getting a monetary enhance from the medical marijuana trade.
Authorized Missouri 2022—the political motion committee supporting a marijuana proposal that can seem on the November 8 poll as Modification 3—has raised almost $700,000 in giant donations since October 1.
The cash got here from firms within the medical marijuana trade, which beneath Modification 3 would get first dibs on the extra profitable leisure licenses issued by the state to develop, manufacture and promote marijuana.
The most important contribution was a $200,000 test from Springfield-based BD Well being Ventures LLC, which beneath the medical marijuana program was awarded two dispensary and three cultivation licenses.
A $100,000 test got here from Grassroots OpCo LLC, which was awarded 5 dispensary licenses however is related to a series of at the least 16 dispensaries throughout Missouri.
In response to its July quarterly disclosure report with the Missouri Ethics Fee, Authorized Missouri 2022 spent almost $6 million getting Modification 3 on the poll.
On the opposite aspect of the problem is a PAC referred to as Save Our State. Run by former lawmaker and longtime GOP political strategist Scott Dieckhaus, the PAC was created in early September to oppose Modification 3.
Save Our State has not reported any contributions because it launched.
Modification 3 asks voters whether or not to amend the Missouri Structure to take away bans on marijuana gross sales, consumption and manufacturing for adults over 21 years previous, with some caveats.
The modification contains automated expungement for sure individuals who have nonviolent marijuana-related offenses on their file. People who find themselves nonetheless incarcerated must petition the courts to be launched and have their information expunged.
It might create a regulated market the place, identical to for medical marijuana, the state would have the authority to cap the variety of licenses it points to develop and promote hashish. These with a present medical marijuana enterprise license can be first in line to get leisure licenses.
After voters accepted medical marijuana in 2018, state regulators determined to solely concern the minimal variety of licenses allowed—60 cultivation licenses, 192 dispensary licenses and 86 manufacturing licenses.
The choice has stirred controversy ever since.
The Missouri Home launched an investigation into the licensing course of in early 2020, fueled by widespread reviews of irregularities in how license functions have been scored and allegations that conflicts of curiosity inside the state well being division and a personal firm employed to attain functions might have tainted the method.
Denied candidates filed lots of of appeals, and rumblings of FBI scrutiny of the trade have been persistent
Each state regulators and trade leaders have lengthy denied any wrongdoing within the marijuana licensing course of. And so they defend the license caps by noting Missouri issued excess of most states and arguing that by capping licenses the state ensures oversupply doesn’t gas a black market.
However that’s carried out little to quell critics, who say the caps have benefited related insiders within the medical marijuana trade who now stand to reap many of the monetary rewards if Missourians vote to legalize leisure use.