These are the 12 people who will help write Mississippi’s medical marijuana rules
The group that will develop regulations for Mississippi’s medical marijuana program met for the first time Wednesday morning.
The state’s new Medical Marijuana Advisory Committee is comprised of 12 leaders of other state agencies, including the departments of public safety and agriculture, as well as State Health Officer Dr. Thomas Dobbs.
Under Initiative 65, the constitutional amendment voters overwhelmingly approved in November, the committee must finalize regulations by July 1. Business licenses and patient identification cards must be issued starting Aug. 15.
Whether that ends up happening will depend on the outcome of a lawsuit challenging the way Initiative 65 ended up on the ballot. The state Supreme Court could overturn the initiative and scuttle the medical marijuana program before it gets off the ground.
Oral arguments are set for April 14. The state Senate has approved a bill to create a more restrictive medical marijuana program if the court ends up overturning Initiative 65.
Kris Jones, the health department official spearheading the medical marijuana program, led Wednesday’s meeting. Committee members introduced themselves and reviewed the program objectives the state board of health approved earlier this month.
Who will write Mississippi marijuana rules?
Here are the members of the advisory committee:
- Dr. Thomas Dobbs, MSDH
- Sean Tindell, Department of Public Safety
- Wendy Bailey, Department of Mental Health
- Chris Graham Department of Revenue
- Andy Gipson, Department of Agriculture
- Dr. Claude Brunson, Mississippi State Medical Association
- Dr. Kenneth Cleveland, Board of Medical Licensure
- Susan McCoy, Board of Pharmacy
- Liz Welch, Department of Finance and Administration
- Michael Watson, Secretary of State
- Dr. Larry Walker, National Center for Natural Products Research, University of Mississippi
- Dr. Thomas Hudson, Jackson State University
Jessica Rice, executive director at the Mississippi Cannabis Trade Association, said she felt the meeting showed the health department’s commitment to meeting its deadlines under Initiative 65. Like other medical marijuana supporters, Rice hopes the committee will be expanded to include people working in cannabis in Mississippi.
“The voice of people who are actually boots on the ground in the industry is going to be so vital for the success of this industry,” she said.
What could the marijuana rules look like?
Initiative 65 lays out the basic framework of a medical marijuana program: no caps on licenses for treatment centers and growing facilities, a prohibition on restrictive local zoning regulations against cannabis businesses, and revenue directed back to running the program, and not the general fund or other state programs. It’s a model that critics and supporters alike have compared to Oklahoma, where one in 13 adults has a medical cannabis patient card.
But the decisions the advisory committee makes will determine what Mississippi’s program actually looks like. Their decisions will determine how easy or difficult it is to open a business in the new industry, what kind of packaging will be permitted for cannabis products, and what kinds of specifications growing, distribution, and sales facilities will have to meet.
Questions raised by committee members during Wednesday’s brief meeting gave a sense of the scope of the issues they’ll have to address.
Sean Tindell, Mississippi Public Safety Commissioner and Gulfport native, wanted to know whether the state would be able to restrict packaging to ensure kids don’t mistake cannabis products for marijuana-free candy gummy bears, for example. Dobbs said Initiative 65 gives the department a great deal of leeway to regulate advertising and marketing.
Larry Walker, director emeritus of the National Center for Natural Products Research (the University of Mississippi center that produces the country’s only federally approved cannabis) raised the question of evaluating medical outcomes as a result of cannabis use. Researchers and medical cannabis advocates have long been frustrated that federal law prevents them from studying the products patients and recreational consumers actually use.
“I know the department is going to have their hands full trying to prevent all these negative outcomes,” he said. “We could also think about ways to at least capture data that might relate to outcomes or potential benefits.”
The ‘curious history’ of how cannabis will get to Mississippi
Dr. Kenneth Cleveland, executive director of the medical licensure board, raised a question many would-be patients have been wondering: Given that cannabis is federally illegal, how will Mississippi import the first batch of seeds to begin growing the crop?
“We have talked to other states about that,” Dobbs replied. “It has its own sort of curious history. It’s hard to describe.”
Essentially, state governments allow registered businesses to get cannabis seeds from all over the world for a brief period (often 90 days) after receiving their license.
“Any product obtained within a newly legal state couldn’t be obtained legally, because the only source of products in a state would have to come from the illicit market,” Kris Krane, president of cannabis company 4Front Ventures, explained to the cannabis website Leafly in 2019. “Because of this, states have no choice but to look the other way as to where the companies obtain their first batch of seeds or cuttings, even though from that point forward everything is tracked from seed to sale.”
The term for the process, Dobbs told the committee, is “immaculate conception.”
This story was originally published February 18, 2021 at 5:50 AM.
