With medical cannabis now officially live in Mississippi, a local newspaper is spotlighting a family that brought the newly legal crop to their county––and their farm. 

The Daily Leader of Brookhaven, Mississippi has the story out of Lincoln County, where local officials initially opted out of the state’s newly enshrined medical marijuana law. 

Mississippi finally legalized medical cannabis treatment last year after extended legislative debate, but local governments were given the option to opt out of the program. 

The decision in Lincoln County spurred a couple, Jason McDonald and Timothy Gibson, to take action. Per the Daily Leader, the two “spearheaded efforts to legalize medical marijuana in Lincoln County after the Board of Supervisors voted to initially opt out of medical marijuana,” ultimately bringing the matter to a vote in August, when voters in the county reversed the decision by local officials. 

Following that vote, McDonald and Gibson “started work on opening their own Medical Marijuana Cultivation facility,” according to the Daily Leader, founding a business “called SADUJA [that] is separate from their tea farm but on the same property in East Lincoln.”

That business, per the Daily Leader, “was first licensed to grow Hemp in 2021 and as of December 22, was licensed to grow medical marijuana in Lincoln County.”

“Crime rates haven’t gone up, property values haven’t gone down like people thought,” McDonald told the Daily Leader. “We have been growing hemp since 2021. We sold hemp to local shops around Mississippi. I don’t think people have realized the cannabis plant was growing here legally well before medical marijuana passed here. It was here and it was growing on the farm.”  

“I think with anything new people are generally afraid of it,’ McDonald added. “It is more of what we have done just doing it on a bigger scale and we switched over to medical cannabis instead of hemp. It is the same plant. Growing any plant is the same really.”   

Medical cannabis sales launched on January 25, a little less than a year after Republican Gov. Tate Reeves signed a measure into law. 

The medical cannabis bill was a source of intense disagreement within the Mississippi legislature, and between lawmakers and Reeves, who was adamant about imposing tight restrictions on any law that emerged.

“The ‘medical marijuana bill’ has consumed an enormous amount of space on the front pages of the legacy media outlets across Mississippi over the last three-plus years,” Reeves said last year after signing the compromise bill.

“There is no doubt that there are individuals in our state who could do significantly better if they had access to medically prescribed doses of cannabis. There are also those who really want a recreational marijuana program that could lead to more people smoking and less people working, with all of the societal and family ills that that brings,” the governor added.

One of Reeves’ chief concerns was with the amount of cannabis a patient could obtain. The governor preferred a limit of 2.7 grams per day; the bill that landed on his desk, which was approved with a veto-proof majority, allows patients to purchase up to 3.5 grams as many as six times per week.

“I have made it clear that the bill on my desk is not the one that I would have written,” Reeves said after he signed the measure. “But it is a fact that the legislators who wrote the final version of the bill (the 45th or 46th draft) made significant improvements to get us towards accomplishing the ultimate goal.”

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A few Mississippi dispensaries were ready to open to customers on Jan. 25. Mississippi Trade Association Executive Director Melvin C. Robinson stood outside one of the state’s licensed dispensaries, The Cannabis Company, to welcome customers. “It’s a very exciting day today. History has been made in Brookhaven,” Robinson said.

The first customer at Brookhaven-based The Cannabis Company was Debbie McDermott. “I do suffer from chronic pain and I have some other issues,” she said about why she became a medical cannabis cardholder. The dispensary experienced a setback due to issues with the METRC point-of-sale system, which caused a two-and-a-half-hour delay before McDermott could purchase her medicine.

The Cannabis Company co-owner Le Anne Penn told The Daily Leader that she changed her career to enter the cannabis industry. “It has been a fun journey. I have enjoyed it. The business will be different from what I was doing before,” Penn said. “I was a body technician for 40 years. I decided to pursue this because I saw the potential in the industry and the need in people. Hopefully this will help people who need it or can’t take opioids or other medicines.”

Other news outlets reported dispensaries selling on Jan. 25 as well, with more expecting to receive their shipments over the weekend.

According to Mississippi Medical Marijuana Association Executive Director Ken Newburger, the launch of this program has been a long time coming. “We have been working since 2018 to get medical marijuana in the hands of patients in Mississippi, and it’s surreal to see it finally come to fruition,” said Newburger. “This is only the beginning. More and more businesses will be harvesting, testing, and getting their products on the shelves in the coming months; therefore, more patients will have access to this medicine at certified businesses all across the state.”

Medical cannabis cardholders may purchase up to 3.5 grams per day, six days a week, or a total of 3 ounces every month. Currently, the state allows patients to use medical cannabis if they suffer from one of the approved qualifying conditions. This includes a total of 20 conditions,  such as cancer, Parkinson’s disease, glaucoma, Crohn’s disease, autism, and muscular dystrophy. In addition to that, six more conditions and symptoms qualify as well, including wasting syndrome, severe or intractable nausea, seizures, and severe and persistent muscle spasms, such as those experienced with multiple sclerosis.

Voters originally approved medical cannabis during the election in November 2020 with Initiative 65. In April 2021, the Mississippi Supreme Court allowed opponents of medical cannabis legalization to challenge the vote results, which led to the court striking down Initiative 65 in May, stating that it was constitutionally flawed. Legislators continued to discuss medical cannabis throughout the year, and by September they made a move to re-implement a plan to legalize medical cannabis.

Mississippi Gov. Tate Reeves stalled the progress of a new medical cannabis bill in November 2021, but he finally agreed to the details of a new law in January 2022, and signed it in February. “There is no doubt that there are individuals in our state who could do significantly better if they had access to medically prescribed doses of cannabis,” Reeves said in a press statement. “There are also those who really want a recreational marijuana program that could lead to more people smoking and less people working, with all of the societal and family ills that that brings.”

In October 2022, the state has issued provisional licenses to 491 work permits, 138 dispensaries, 47 cultivators, eight processors, four transportation businesses, three “disposal companies,” and two testing facilities. 

As of December 2022, more than 2,311 applications were submitted, with 1,321 approved, and 990 still being processed. As of Jan. 23, more than 1,700 patients have been approved.

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