{"id":49023,"date":"2021-07-22T04:58:11","date_gmt":"2021-07-22T12:58:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2021\/07\/22\/mississippi-lawmakers-aim-to-pass-medical-marijuana-bill-in-august-special-session-after-ballot-measure-blocked-by-court\/"},"modified":"2021-07-22T13:45:55","modified_gmt":"2021-07-22T21:45:55","slug":"mississippi-lawmakers-aim-to-pass-medical-marijuana-bill-in-august-special-session-after-ballot-measure-blocked-by-court","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2021\/07\/22\/mississippi-lawmakers-aim-to-pass-medical-marijuana-bill-in-august-special-session-after-ballot-measure-blocked-by-court\/","title":{"rendered":"Mississippi Lawmakers Aim To Pass Medical Marijuana Bill In August Special Session After Ballot Measure Blocked By Court"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

The plan is to reach a deal and then hold an August special session to pass the legislation.<\/em><\/p>\n

By Geoff Pender, Mississippi Today<\/strong><\/p>\n

House and Senate negotiators are expected to begin meeting next week to try to draft a medical marijuana compromise bill, and both sides say they believe the governor could call a special session<\/a> in August for lawmakers to pass such a measure.<\/p>\n

Sen. Kevin Blackwell (R), who is leading the Senate\u2019s efforts, on Wednesday repeated his expectation that an agreement can be reached soon, and that a special session could be called by mid-August.<\/p>\n

Rep. Lee Yancey (R), who is drafting a House bill, said, \u201cI don\u2019t see why not, as long as we come to an agreement soon,\u201d on an August session. Both Yancey and Blackwell said they\u2019ve had informal discussions, but plan to start getting down to brass tacks next week.<\/p>\n

The Senate Public Health Committee on Wednesday held its third\u2014and likely final\u2014hearing<\/a> on medical marijuana as the Senate drafts a bill. The panel has heard from medical experts, cannabis business associations and officials from several other states with medical and-or recreational marijuana programs.<\/p>\n

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But it appears lawmakers still have many issues to come to terms on with a medical marijuana program. Some lawmakers in both the House and Senate continue to question issues such as how strict regulations should be, whether smoking of cannabis should be allowed, whether to allow outdoor growing or only indoor and whether to allow cities to \u201copt out\u201d of allowing dispensaries or other cannabis businesses.<\/p>\n

Mississippi lawmakers are trying to reach consensus on a medical marijuana program after the state Supreme Court shot down one overwhelmingly passed by voters<\/a> last year with ballot Initiative 65. The state Supreme Court ruled in May that the medical marijuana initiative and the entire ballot initiative process is invalid.<\/p>\n

Gov. Tate Reeves (R) holds sole authority to call a special session of the Legislature. He has said he would do so only when he\u2019s assured the House and Senate have at least a rough agreement on a medical marijuana measure. He said he doesn\u2019t want taxpayers to foot the bill for a drawn out session if the two chambers can\u2019t agree on particulars and quickly pass a bill.<\/p>\n

\u201cOur position is different from the Senate position, but there are similarities,\u201d Yancey said. \u201cI think the House position is much closer to Initiative 65, that voters passed<\/a>, than the Senate position.\u201d<\/p>\n

Blackwell said the Senate\u2019s goal also is to honor the spirit of Initiative 65, but he said his starting point is the last measure the Senate passed last session that died in the House. Some Initiative 65 proponents decried that measure as too strict and feared it would not allow Mississippi entrepreneurs to get into the business because of relatively high licensing fees and regulations.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe are focused on the business end of this being a free-market approach,\u201d Yancey said. \u201cWe don\u2019t want to limit the number of licenses or anything like that. I believe we would probably have too many businesses in the first year, but the free market\u2014supply and demand\u2014would take care of that pretty quickly. As Jerry Clower used to say, everybody deserves a fighting chance.\u201d<\/p>\n

Yancey said his plan is to cleave as closely to Initiative 65 as possible, but he conceded that many House members share differing views on regulation, taxation and other issues and outside groups and lobbies are putting on pressure. He said his goal for the House position is to have doctors decide whether patients can smoke cannabis or use some other delivery, noting people with some conditions could not use edibles or other oral forms and might need to smoke it\u2014but some lawmakers have called for not allowing smoking of cannabis.<\/p>\n

\u201cOn one end of the spectrum you\u2019ve got prohibition, and on the other Cheech and Chong, and they\u2019re all throwing slings and arrows,\u201d Yancey said. \u201cPeople have got to remember, this is about alleviating the pain of suffering people. That\u2019s what we\u2019re trying to do here.\u201d<\/p>\n

Senate Public Health on Wednesday heard via online conference from a doctor in Colorado about issues that state has faced from both medical marijuana and recreational use, as 18 states now allow. They also heard from the director of Michigan\u2019s marijuana regulatory agency and from representatives of the Mississippi Cannabis Trade Association and the Mississippi Minority Cannabis Association.<\/p>\n

Cedric Anderson with the Mississippi Minority Cannabis Association told lawmakers that nationwide, people of color have not been able to adequately participate in business opportunities from legalized cannabis largely from \u201cthe shadow of discriminatory drug policies\u201d and law enforcement of the past.<\/p>\n

Anderson said MMCA\u2019s goal is that any programs the state stands up \u201creinvest in communities disproportionately affected by the war on drugs,\u201d and that they not bring unintended consequences to these communities such as increased illicit drug trafficking as some states have seen caused by policies and prices in their legal programs.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere are some of the best farmers in the U.S. in this state,\u201d said Roderick Woullard, also with the MMCA. \u201cLet\u2019s find a way to get them to the table.\u201d<\/p>\n

During this summer\u2019s Senate hearings, particularly in discussions with leaders from other states<\/a>, adult-use recreational marijuana has frequently come up.<\/p>\n

Sen. Brice Wiggins (R) said he doesn\u2019t advocate legalizing recreational use, but he says lawmakers should be transparent with Mississippians that a push for it is an inevitable next step from medical legalization.<\/p>\n

Andrew Brisbo, director of the marijuana regulatory agency in Michigan, which has legal medical and recreational use, told Mississippi lawmakers, \u201cIt\u2019s reasonable to assume it will morph into adult use at some point. That\u2019s inevitable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Before Wednesday\u2019s hearing, a few cannabis advocates held a sparsely attended press conference to, among other things, advocate for legalized recreational marijuana use in Mississippi.<\/p>\n

This story was first published by Mississippi Today.<\/em><\/a><\/p>\n

\n

Another North Carolina Senate Committee Approves Medical Marijuana Legalization Bill<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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The post Mississippi Lawmakers Aim To Pass Medical Marijuana Bill In August Special Session After Ballot Measure Blocked By Court<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n


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The plan is to reach a deal and then hold an August special session to pass the legislation. By Geoff Pender, Mississippi Today House and Senate negotiators are expected to begin meeting next week to try to draft a medical marijuana compromise bill, and both sides say they believe theContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":457,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49023"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/457"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=49023"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49023\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49024,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49023\/revisions\/49024"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=49023"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=49023"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=49023"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}