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Mississippi marijuana sign
Mississippi legalized medical marijuana through a ballot initiative last year, before the state Supreme Court resorted to foul play to shoot it down. The court killed not only legal weed but the state’s entire referendum process. Now, Mississippi lawmakers are fighting back, choosing to legalize medical marijuana through an act of the legislature in open defiance of the state Supreme Court and of the Republican governor Tate Reeves.
The legal fight currently ongoing in Mississippi seems like a fracture that cut through the Republican Party on this one issue. Gov. Tate Reeves has been clear: He intends to veto any bill that upholds the terms that the population agreed to at the ballot box. Republican lawmakers have already come to the press to assert that they will go forward with the bill, even if it means forcefully overriding their governor’s veto. In Mississippi, a two-thirds majority is required to override a gubernatorial veto, and, against all odds, they do have the votes.
When the bill reached the state Senate’s floor, it was approved 47-5, despite a large majority of Republicans among the lawmakers. When it reached the House a few days later, it passed with a 104-14 vote, far more than the two-thirds needed to tell Gov. Reeves to pound sand. Unfortunately, the version of the bill approved by the House is different from the one approved in the Senate, requiring another back and forth between the two chambers to agree on a single version.
Gov. Reeves’ primary issue with the bill is an absurd fear that medical marijuana means flooding the streets with drugs. “The bill allows any individual to get 3.5 grams of marijuana per day. A simple google search shows that the average joint has 0.32 grams of marijuana. Therefore, any one individual can get enough weed to smoke 11 joints a day. Every day,” Tate Reeves argued. “As the dad of three daughters that I love dearly—I cannot put my name on a bill that puts that much marijuana on the streets of Mississippi.”
Wrong Calculation
Several points can be made in opposition to this. For instance, 11 joints a day is not nearly enough to traffic it, and medical marijuana patients consuming the amount purchased by themselves, for themselves, would never end up “on the streets of Mississippi.” Additionally, the bill comes with a monthly purchasing limit, meaning that it would be impossible to buy the maximum allowed daily amount every single day, thus making the governor’s calculation completely inaccurate. But this also led to a comical scene on the Senate floor, when Republican Sen. Kevin Blackwell, the bill’s chief sponsor, organized an unexpected show and tell for his peers by bringing baggies of cannabis flower and passing them around the room. Yes, several Republican senators tried to sniff them. Blackwell also reportedly criticized the “paranoid, Reefer Madness, Chicken Little belief expressed by a few skeptics that, if we pass a medical cannabis bill, the streets of Mississippi will be flooded by pot-smoking zombies.”
The bill initially determined a maximum legal amount of medical marijuana of 3.5 grams per day and up to four ounces a month. That is significantly less than in comparable states that introduced medical marijuana programs. Despite that, Gov. Reeves demanded that this amount be cut in half. Although lawmakers stood up to that demand, they granted concessions to the governor, reducing the monthly maximum to three ounces of weed. On the other hand, the House introduced another amendment to allow cannabis processors to establish themselves in commercial areas, as opposed to the draft bill requiring them to be in zones dedicated to agriculture and industries.
Unfair Court Ruling
While the bravado shown by Mississippi lawmakers is appreciable, it would not have been necessary in the first place without the unfair intervention of the Mississippi Supreme Court following the victory of cannabis reform in November 2020. Alongside a ballot for president, Mississippi voters were invited to weigh in on the question of marijuana legalization. The ballot initiative had been poisoned by the GOP in the first place by introducing two options: While Initiative 65 offered to legalize medical marijuana, it was accompanied by the Alternative 65A, the Republicans’ favored option, that would technically legalize it but in a very limited manner and only for terminally ill patients. The minimal Alternative 65A was shunned by voters, and Initiative 65 won with nearly 70% of the votes, a supermajority that should have led to the swift reform of cannabis laws.
That is when the state Supreme Court stepped in the way. In May 2021, Mississippi justices overturned the ballot measure and put an end to all citizen initiatives in the state in one fell swoop. When the concept of citizen initiatives was instituted in Mississippi, the state had five districts, and the state constitution requires that signatures must come from all five of the districts. What was initially a mean of ensuring that every part of the state was represented was turned into a weapon to destroy the referendum process instead.
In 2000, Mississippi reduced its districts from five to four but did not amend the constitution to reflect that change. The state now only has four districts, but the constitution still requires that signatures come from five different districts—which is mathematically impossible. For 20 years, citizen initiatives passed without issue, despite the fact they technically did not meet the five-district requirement, and the Supreme Court had no problem with that. But, when legal cannabis was approved by referendum, the justices took the power of self-determination away from the people under the pretense that Initiative 65 did not meet the five-district requirement.
Justice Kitchens, one of three justices who opposed this decision, wrote in the minority decision, “the right of the people to amend the constitution through initiative [was] eviscerated [on a] whim.” In July 2021, the court doubled down on this decision by refusing to hear arguments in favor of Initiative 65’s constitutionality. Thankfully for the supporters of legal cannabis, which represent nearly three-quarters of Mississippi, lawmakers are picking up the ball that their Supreme Court dropped.
