Gov. Reeves will not sign marijuana legislation unless legal amount is greatly reduced

JACKSON, Miss. (WLBT) - Mississippi Governor Tate Reeves says the amount of marijuana that would be allowed is holding up legislation on making medical marijuana legal in the state.

Reeves says he’s willing to sign a bill but not as currently structured.

“Unlike any other drug, this program allows virtually unlimited access to marijuana once you qualify. There is no pharmacist involved and no doctor setting the amount,” Reeves wrote in a social media post Tuesday.

Reeves says his concern is that the legislation would allow more than a billion legal joints sold in Mississippi each year.

“Call me crazy, but I just think that’s too broad of a starting point,” he wrote.

He says a simple fix would be to cut the amount allowed in half.

“I cannot put my name on a bill that puts that much marijuana on the streets of Mississippi,” Reeves wrote.

In 2020, more than 74 percent of Mississippi voters approved Initiative 65, which allowed patients to purchase up to five ounces of medical marijuana every month.

The Mississippi Supreme Court overturned it months later. 

In September, a program was approved by both the House and Senate--a bill the governor never had any intention of signing. 

Since then, there’s been little progress in getting a revised plan to legalize medical marijuana in the state.

Medical marijuana advocates have been calling on the governor to enact a special session to pass medical marijuana in the state.

“This program was supposed to have been up and running already,” Citizens Alliance of Mississippi founder Shea Dobson said in November. “I mean, we were supposed to have had medical marijuana in place right now as we speak. And every day that goes by every day, the Governor moves the goalposts, we continue to see patients suffer more.”

You can read the governor’s post here:

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