Marijuana reform in Missouri has been a hotly contested topic since at least 2016, as thousands of entrepreneurs and commercial entities have competed for access to commercial licensing. In 2018, the New Approach Missouri campaign won the support of 66% of Missouri voters to put a medical marijuana program into the state’s Constitution. In 2020, controversy erupted as roughly 85% of 2,200 medical marijuana commercial licenses applications were denied. Some applicants lost tens of thousands of dollars in application fees to the state and hundreds of thousands of dollars to consulting firms promising top-tier application writing services. To me, this whole system seems irredeemably inefficient and corrupt. Worse, the New Approach Missouri campaign — now calling itself Legal Missouri 2022 — is proposing a similar approach to recreational marijuana licensing. While others have discussed the licensing issues at length, I have a unique perspective on why these approaches are nonsensical — I’m licensed to legally grow cannabis in Missouri under the agricultural hemp law passed in 2018. Under federal law, hemp is cannabis with less than 0.3% delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol (aka delta-9 THC), and marijuana is cannabis with more than 0.3% delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol.
420 Intel – Marijuana Industry News, 01/02/2022 19:00:00