Friday, September 24, 2021

It’s the end of the week and the weather’s really nice out. With that in mind, let’s write about something positive. It was a pleasant surprise, anyway.

Against all odds, the Mississippi Legislature got its shit sufficiently together and put together the Mississippi Medical Cannabis Act. House Speaker Phillip Gunn presented it yesterday, with the final draft done by Rep. Lee Yancey of House District 74 and Sen. Kevin Blackwell of Senate District 19. Yancey’s area is the Jackson-Pearl area while Blackwell is up there around Memphis. Both are Republicans, for what that’s worth, but the bill enjoys strong bipartisan support.

I bring that up mainly to note the party system in Mississippi is, for the most part, completely irrelevant. Both those guys are first-term legislators and fairly ranch-standard modern state-level GOP. My state senator, on the other hand, is a Democrat who’s been in office since 1984 and is against any legalization at all. There really is no left here and apart from a few holdouts like Hob Bryan, most Democrats represent the Black parts of the state like the Delta and parts of the Pine Belt.

Anyhow. To freshen everyone’s memory, we passed a ballot initiative last November to implement medical marijuana here in the Magnolia State. The vote was overwhelmingly for Initiative 65, which would have allowed counties to set up dispensaries and growers but would keep the money basically in-house. However, three days before the vote, the four-decade mayor of Madison, a white flight town outside of Jackson, filed suit with the state Supreme Court.

Her argument was that the initiative process was null and void. It was set up to account for five U.S. House districts and after the 2000 Census, we only had four. Apparently, this had all of the sudden become an issue. What was really at the heart of it, however, was said mayor wouldn’t have any control over where the businesses went and, especially, where the money went.

Back in May, the Supreme Court decided 6-3 to null and void the wishes of two-thirds of Mississippi voters based on this, killing both medical marijuana and the entire initiative process. It should be noted that an expansion of Medicaid was being put together as an initiative process for the next election. I’m sure that’s just coincidental. I was severely put out by this. The whole deal was kicked back to Congress and needed a special session to get it done. Only Gov. Tate Reeves can call a special session and that greasy little bastard is against any sort of legalization.

I ain’t going to lie, I figured the Legislature would dick around and let the prospect crash and burn. I am pleased to announce I was wrong on that. During the last legislative session, Congress tried to get an alternative to Initiative 65 that would give local municipalities more power over the business side of it and the state would get more money. Plus, there were some hang-ups about churches and schools the initiative didn’t address. In any event, it failed before the vote came down.

After the Supreme Court went full Karen for that mayor, Reeves said he wouldn’t even fool with a special session until the Legislature had something solid. A special session costs over a grand a day in taxpayer money, which is a good enough reason for Reeves can keep it from getting out of hand. But he’s got a full bill now, so the ball’s in his court.

And it’s a pretty decent bill overall. It addresses a lot of the issues Congress had with Initiative 65 with regards to where the money went and how close businesses could get to schools and churches. I don’t understand why they’re so hung up about churches. They do the same thing with liquor stores, and that ain’t fooling nobody.

But I digress. The way things are laid out, the Department of Agriculture and Commerce will be responsible for licensing and oversight of cultivation facilities, transportation, and disposal. They can hook up with third parties, private and public, but the responsibility is ultimately theirs. The Department of Health, on the other hand, will be responsible for the whole ID process and who can get as well as keeping a registry of users. The Department of Revenue would be responsible for licensing and oversight of dispensaries.

Now, local municipalities can enact any ordinances or regulations they want so long as they don’t clash with the state rules. Dispensaries can be in any commercial area and growers can be in any zones marked for agriculture. They can’t be too close together or too close to schools. Sales would be taxed to hell and gone, with both an excise tax and a sales tax.

Interestingly, local municipalities can opt out of the whole deal or just parts of it via a board of supervisors’ vote, but only within ninety days after the effective start of the act. That means, for example, it might be legal to grow here in Itawamba County but has to be shipped to Lee County for sale. However, if the municipalities vote it in or fail to opt-out within ninety days, it’s a done deal. They can’t pass any local ordinances to make any of it illegal. And if the board initially opts out, the local citizens can start the process of making it legal, and no backsies.

The only thing that smells is the establishment of a Medical Cannabis Advisory Committee. The nine-member group would be made up of equal members from the Governor, Lt. Governor, and Speaker of the House. No one from the cannabis industry, selling or growing, nor anyone from the medical world. I imagine, though, that this is a sop to Reeves because he’ll be the biggest roadblock to passing.

So where does that leave us? Well, until Reeves calls a special session, this is all pissing in the wind. The Legislature and Lt. Gov. Delbert Hossman are big into this and are calling for an October 1 date, but Reeves has spoken out against legalization. He’s been asked if he’ll do anything but so far hasn’t said anything. He’s too busy trying to score brownie points with Trumpists and completely ignoring the COVID pandemic wrecking the state. The Legislature wants to do some COVID work for that special session, such as 2,000 more nurses, and given he’s more interested in throwing pebbles at President Joe Biden, it may be a flat-out negative.

But for the most part, this is a positive sign. The people want this, the Legislature wants this, and businesses are straining at the bit to make money on this. I’ve said it before, but Tate Reeves is a sleazy little bastard who’s widely loathed in Jackson, particularly by his Speaker and Lt. Governor. It doesn’t matter they’re all in the same party. His whole candidacy was a deal between different factions in the party to keep out a real fruitcake, Chris McDaniel. On a state level, the Democratic Party is pretty toothless. While they do have some pull on a local level – especially in the Delta – they have no choice but to work with their Republican colleagues.

So, as with all things, time will tell. Reeves doesn’t give a shit about Mississippians and is acting like he is so he might could snag a VP nod or a Cabinet post come 2024. But this might – might – be out of his hands, politically. It would probably hurt him if he dicked around too much on this, but he is a shit so anything’s possible.

Have a nice weekend and smoke ’em if you got ’em.