Mississippi Marijuana bill appears on track/UPDATED

UPDATED at 11:00 pm 10-12-2021: About two hours after NEMiss.News posted this story, Tate Reeves, governor of Mississippi, finally announced that he does plan to call a special session of the Mississippi Legislature to deal with the issue of legalizing medical marijuana. However, he will not do so until certain “final details” are worked out between him and the legislature. In his usual round about manner, he says he wants to “get the specifics of a couple of items that are left outstanding.”

There is still no word on plans to deal with the state’s flawed initiative process, which caused the public referendum results to be declared unconstitutional.

Original Post:

It appears the state legislature may be on track to produce a workable medical marijuana bill for Mississippi.

Republican State Representative Sam Creekmore IV (Dist. 14) has provided NEMiss.News with extensive information about a medical marijuana bill he believes has a good chance of becoming law.

House Speaker Phillip Gunn and Mississippi Lieutenant Governor Delbert Hosemann have worked to develop the bill during recent months. According to Gunn, Governor Tate Reeves has signaled support for the new law and has hinted he might call a special session of the legislature to consider it.

However, as of this date (Oct. 12), Reeves has not said whether he will call a special session, and it is unclear whether he will do so.

Thus, the bill may not receive formal legislative consideration until the bicameral legislature meets for its regular session early in 2022.

Whether medical marijuana would become legally available to Mississippians has been unresolved for several years. Last year, a ballot initiative put the issue on the state election ballot as “Proposition 65.”

Voters overwhelmingly approved Proposition 65 in the Nov. 3, 2021, Mississippi elections.

However, in May of this year, the state’s supreme court overruled the vote on obscure technical grounds and legislative leaders started working on the law currently under consideration.

Following are PDF files giving full details of the proposed new law:

Complete PDF copy of the proposed Marijuana law as DRAFTED (144 pages): r34.1 draft of marijuana law

PDF copy of proposed Marijuana law SUMMARY (13 pages): Summary_Medical Cannabis Act_ 9.24.21