Mississippi is now accepting applications for medicinal weed cards

Mississippi’s new medicinal cannabis program opened to applicants last week, four months after the state’s Republican governor signed the measure into law.

As of last Wednesday, eligible patients in the state have been able to submit applications to obtain a medical cannabis card.

According to local TV station WLOX, “Dispensary-only licensing for medicinal cannabis will begin on July 1 through the state Treasury Department.”

Through the State Department of Health, the following conditions may qualify a patient for participation in the program: cancer; Parkinson’s disease; Huntington’s disease; muscular dystrophy; Glaucoma; spastic tetraplegia; positive human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) status; acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS); Hepatitis; amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS); Crohn’s disease; ulcerative colitis; Sickle cell anemia; Alzheimer’s disease; arousal of dementia; post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD); Autism; pain unresponsive to appropriate opioid treatment; diabetic/peripheral neuropathy; and spinal cord disease or serious injury.

In addition, a patient may qualify if they have “a chronic incurable or debilitating illness or medical condition or its treatment that produces one or more of the following causes”: cachexia or wasting syndrome; chronic pain; severe or persistent nausea; seizures; and severe and persistent muscle spasms, including but not limited to those characteristic of multiple sclerosis.

The law is the result of a 2020 ballot initiative passed by Mississippi voters, but that vote proved to be just the prelude to a messy path to implementation. Last year, the state Supreme Court struck down the ballot initiative, saying it violated the state constitution.

This gave Mississippi lawmakers the opportunity to write their own medicinal cannabis program.

In late January, after more than a year of disagreements over the finer points of the law, members of the state’s Senate and House of Representatives finally presented a compromise bill that was sent to the desk of GOP Gov. Tate Reeves.

Throughout the process, Reeves had expressed his preference for patient purchase limits of medical cannabis to be set at 2.7 grams per day. But the bill, approved by lawmakers in January, allows patients to buy up to 3.5 grams up to six days a week.

It passed with a veto-proof majority and compelled Reeves, who signed the law into law in February.

“The ‘Medical Marijuana Act’ has taken a tremendous amount of front page coverage across Mississippi for the past three-plus years,” Reeves said in a statement after signing the 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 fewer people working, with all the societal and family ills that entails,” he continued.

Reeves added that he “made it clear that the bill on my desk is not the one I would have written.”

“But the fact is that the legislators who wrote the final version of the bill (the 45th or 46th draft) made significant improvements to bring us to the ultimate goal,” the governor said.

However, Reeves noted certain aspects of the bill that he endorsed, including a rule that a “medical professional may only prescribe within the framework of his/her practice,” that the physician “must have a relationship with the patient,” and that a prescription “must have a personal visit of the patient to the doctor’.

“I thank all lawmakers for their efforts in making these improvements and for all their hard work. I am very grateful to all of you: Mississippi, for making your voice heard,” Reeves said at the time. “Hopefully we can now put this issue behind us and turn to other pressing issues our state is facing.”