Reeves won’t sign medical marijuana bill until amount is cut in half. Here’s how much is allowed in other states.

JACKSON, Miss. (WLOX) - Mississippi lawmakers head back to Jackson next week. One of the first orders of businesses for the 2022 legislative session is expected to be hammering out how the sale of medical marijuana will be implemented in Mississippi.

Tuesday, Gov. Tate Reeves indicated the legislators will have some work to do. Taking to social media, Gov. Tate Reeves explained his hesitancy for signing a medical marijuana bill.

“The bill allows any individual to get 3.5 grams of marijuana per day. A simple Google search shows that the average joint has 0.32 grams of marijuana. Therefore, any one individual can get enough weed to smoke 11 joints a day. Every day.... That would be 1.2 billion legal joints sold in Mississippi per year. Call me crazy, but I just think that’s too broad of a starting point,” said Reeves in on Facebook.

As the bill is currently written, it would allow 3.5 grams per day, or 105 grams per month, which is 3.75 ounces. If it is cut in half like the governor is requesting, that amount would be reduced to 1.75 grams per day, or 52.5 grams in a 30-day period, which would be 1.875 ounces per month.

Most of the 37 states that have medical marijuana programs allow upwards of two ounces a month.

Despite pushback from lawmakers and proponents of the medical marijuana bill, Reeves refused to call a special session this year, saying he wouldn’t agree to a bill that allows for 3.5 grams of marijuana per person per day.

“I hope that legislative leaders will see fit to consider reducing the tremendous amount of weed they seek to make legally accessible so that I can sign their bill and we can put this issue to rest,” said Reeves in his post.

State Rep. Lee Yancey has worked to negotiate the bill in the House. He said the 3.5 grams is comparable to the maximum amount in 37 other states where medical marijuana is legal and said the governor is arguing over how that amount is divided.

Yancy believes as the bill stands now it would pass in both chambers and he’s ready to resolve the issue that 74% of Mississippians voted in favor of 2020, saying, “It is compassion to give doctors another tool other than opioids to deal with these severe conditions.”

According to Yancey, the bill needs 60% approval to pass both chambers and if necessary 67% would override a governor’s veto.

The governor raised another concern in his post, saying the bill as it stands now would theoretically allow more than a billion legal joints to be sold in Mississippi each year.

Lawmakers are set to return to Jackson on Jan. 4 to vote on the medical marijuana bill.

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