Anti-marijuana groups lobby as Gov. Reeves contemplates special session
As legislative leaders wait to see if Gov. Tate Reeves will call lawmakers into special session to vote on a medical marijuana proposal, groups opposed to legalized cannabis — who typically have the governor’s ear — are making a push against it.
The Mississippi-based Christian fundamentalist nonprofit American Family Association has issued a Q&A memo on the medical marijuana proposal with a headline claiming it’s “Worse Than You Could Imagine.”
The eight-page memo, which contains some inaccurate claims about what lawmakers have agreed to, says the proposed medical marijuana program would harm state employers, property owners, churches and religious organizations, and would allow medical marijuana users “to just sit on the couch and collect welfare.” It also says using marijuana “is immoral,” it “significantly compromises a person’s ability to act rationally (unlike a glass of wine, for instance),” and “THC fosters drug dependency and addiction.”
On Thursday, First United Pentecostal Church of Brandon is hosting an event for state law enforcement officers sponsored by the Mississippi Sheriffs’ Association and Mississippi Association of Chiefs of Police to cover “Policing in a State with a Medical Marijuana Program.” The director of the Oklahoma Bureau of Narcotics and an assistant district attorney from Oklahoma will keynote the event.
Read more: https://mississippitoday.org/2021/10/20/anti-marijuana-groups-lobby-special-session-hangs-in-balance/