If Initiative 65 survives a Mississippi Supreme Court challenge today, it will remain in affect as part of the state constitution.� Agriculture Commissioner Andy Gipson serves on the Medical Marijuana Advisory Board.� He told SuperTalk MS there’s still a lot of work ahead for those tasked with making it happen.
Good Regulations are Key:
“There are regulations that are posted now about licensing of the testing facilities to make sure this is a good product.� And there’s a whole host of regulations that the Dept. of Health is helping to craft on the assumption that Initiative 65 is going to remain intact,” Gipson stated.� “One of the issues that comes up is should we allow just indoor cultivation or outdoor cultivation?� Or should we allow some kind of hybrid of that?”
Gipson admits he’s no fan of the initiative, which he felt would have a lot of unintended consequences and put medical marijuana factories all over our state.� He worries there are very few restrictions that can be placed on it.� But he did say if we’re going to have it, we need good regulations in place.
Concerns about a possible criminal element:��
“Security is a key concern of mine,” he told us.� But that isn’t all.� “One of my concerns from an Agriculture standpoint, what we’ve seen in Colorado for example, are these out-of-state conglomerates and some believe cartels owning and running these marijuana shops.� And we don’t want that in Mississippi.”
The lawsuit:
The city of Madison and its mayor, Mary Hawkins Butler, filed a lawsuit opposing the medical marijuana constitutional amendment just days before voters overwhelmingly endorsed medical marijuana in November.� Butler argues that the way the question reached the ballot was improper.� She�opposed Initiative 65 because it limits a city�s ability to regulate the location of medical marijuana businesses.
Attorney General Lynn Fitch will argue that they’re defending the rights of all Mississippians:�
Attorney General Lynn Fitch says voters went to the polls with the expectation that their vote would be counted.� And she�s concerned about what could happen if the court rules the other way.� �It would void a number of issues that are important to all Mississippians.� Eminent domain.� Voter I.D.�
As the legal battle rages, the Mississippi State Department of Health is working toward an August deadline to set up the program.
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