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A Missouri House committee on Tuesday approved a GOP-led joint resolution seeking to place the issue of marijuana legalization before voters on the November ballot.<\/p>\n
The Special Committee on Criminal Justice passed an amended version of the legislation, sponsored by the panel\u2019s chairman Rep. Shamed Dogan (R), in a 7-2 vote.<\/p>\n
The development comes amid a push for separate measure to enact legalization legislatively that\u2019s also advanced through committee but ran up against procedural hurdles on the House floor this week.<\/p>\n
While Dogan\u2019s measure has now moved through his committee, an activist-and industry-led campaign is still pursuing its own separate initiative to put legalization on the ballot this November.<\/p>\n
Certain advocates and stakeholders have expressed concerns about that campaign\u2019s initiative, voicing preference for a reform bill sponsored by Rep. Ron Hicks (R)<\/a>. It\u2019s unclear when that measure might be taken up on the floor, as the sponsor was recently told by leadership that it wasn\u2019t ready to move.<\/p>\n Dogan, for his part, pre-filed his joint resolution to place a constitutional amendment on legalization<\/a> on the 2022 ballot late last year. He\u00a0introduced a similar proposal last year<\/a>, but it did not advance.<\/p>\n Under the lawmaker\u2019s plan as amended by the panel on Tuesday, cannabis offenses would be removed from the state\u2019s criminal statute, allowing adults to possess, use and sell marijuana for personal use without facing penalties, pending future regulations that could be enacted by the legislature.<\/p>\n The committee substitute that the panel adopted changes the original proposal by omitting provisions that would have eliminated the state\u2019s existing separate medical cannabis program and set policies related to taxation in the adult-use market.<\/p>\n Dogan said that the substitute \u201cstreamlines the original resolution,\u201d proposing a simple policy change that voters would decide on while leaving further regulations on the legal market for the legislature to decide at a later point.<\/p>\n Originally, his measure included language on taxing marijuana sales, distributing tax revenue, employer rights and more. The chairman said that he wanted the body to pass the amended version as a \u201cstraightforward\u201d alternative to the initial resolution.<\/p>\n \u2014 If enacted as drafted, no police or state funds could have been used to assist in the enforcement of federal cannabis prohibition. And the state couldn\u2019t have allowed asset or civil forfeiture for citizens of age who conducted marijuana activities made lawful under the measure.<\/p>\n The intent of the committee substitute, Dogan said, is to empower the legislature to craft regulations if voters decide to approve a legalization question on the ballot.<\/p>\n The measure no longer includes \u201ccaps and [licensing policies] and all that stuff,\u201d he said. \u201cThe legislature could say, \u2018you know, we\u2019re going to have people operate [a marijuana business] within 20 feet of a school zone or not,\u2019 or the legislature can say, \u2018you can have 10 licenses or you can have 20. That\u2019s left up to future legislatures.\u201d<\/p>\n The effective date of the resolution<\/a> is January 31, 2024, giving lawmakers more than a year to craft regulations if the proposal makes it to the ballot and is then approved by voters.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, if advocates want to get legalization enacted through the legislature this session, there\u2019s little time left to spare. The Hicks bill is expected to reach the floor imminently, but the session ends on May 13.<\/p>\n Hicks\u00a0recently said that the timeline remains feasible<\/a>\u00a0and he\u2019s \u201cseen bills sail through the process in a week.\u201d The lawmaker said that it \u201creally comes down to whether we have the will to tackle it.\u201d<\/p>\n The bill he\u2019s proposing would legalize the possession and sale of cannabis for adults 21 or older, provide opportunities for expungements, authorize social consumption facilities and permit cannabis businesses to claim tax deductions with the state.<\/p>\n Advocates wanted to see the bill move through the committee process without revisions to the introduced legislation, but members\u00a0did end up adopting several amendments<\/a>\u00a0in the first committee stop.<\/p>\n Another Republican lawmaker in the state, Rep. Jason Chipman (R),\u00a0filed a joint resolution<\/a>\u00a0this session\u00a0that would let voters require additional oversight over how medical cannabis tax revenue is distributed to veterans.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the group New Approach Missouri, which successfully got a\u00a0medical cannabis initiative passed by voters in 2018<\/a>, announced last summer its plans to\u00a0put the reform proposal on the ballot<\/a> through its new campaign committee Legal Missouri 2022. The signature turn-in deadline for ballot initiatives this year is May 8.<\/p>\n The organization tried to\u00a0place the issue of legalization before voters<\/a>\u00a0in 2020, but the COVID-19 pandemic derailed that effort.<\/p>\n Despite the health crisis, activists managed to\u00a0collect tens of thousands of raw signatures within months<\/a>, though they needed 160,199 valid signatures to qualify.<\/p>\n A different campaign, Fair Access Missouri,\u00a0separately explored multiple citizen initiatives<\/a>\u00a0this year with the hopes of getting at least one on the ballot.<\/p>\n Another state lawmaker filed a bill late in February\u00a0to decriminalize a range of drugs<\/a>\u00a0including marijuana, psilocybin, LSD, MDMA and cocaine.<\/p>\n The measure\u2019s introduction came after a Republican Missouri legislator filed a separate bill to give residents with serious illnesses\u00a0legal access to a range of psychedelic drugs<\/a>\u00a0like psilocybin, ibogaine and LSD through an expanded version of the state\u2019s existing right-to-try law.<\/p>\n Additionally, a Missouri House committee\u00a0held a hearing in March on a GOP-led bill<\/a>\u00a0to\u00a0legalize a wide range of psychedelics for therapeutic use<\/a>\u00a0at designated care facilities while further decriminalizing low-level possession in general.<\/p>\n Nearly one out of every 10 jobs that were created in Missouri last year\u00a0came from the state\u2019s medical marijuana industry<\/a>, according to an analysis of state labor data that was released by a trade group last month.<\/p>\n Separately, there\u2019s some\u00a0legislative drama playing out in the state<\/a>\u00a0over a proposal that advocates say would restrict their ability to place Constitutional amendments on the ballot.<\/p>\n Connecticut House Approves Psychedelic Treatment Program As Part Of Budget Bill<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n The post Missouri House Committee Approves Joint Resolution To Put Marijuana Legalization On The Ballot<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
A Missouri House committee on Tuesday approved a GOP-led joint resolution seeking to place the issue of marijuana legalization before voters on the November ballot. The Special Committee on Criminal Justice passed an amended version of the legislation, sponsored by the panel\u2019s chairman Rep. Shamed Dogan (R), in a 7-2Continue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":54588,"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\/54587"}],"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\/458"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=54587"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54587\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54589,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54587\/revisions\/54589"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/54588"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=54587"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=54587"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=54587"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: Missouri House Committee Approves Joint Resolution To Put Marijuana Legalization On The Ballot<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"