Mississippi becomes 37th US state to legalise marijuana

Mississippi has become the 37th US state to legalise marijuana.

• READ MORE: It’s time for Britain to legalise marijuana 

Yesterday (February 2), Republican Governor of Mississippi Tate Reeves signed new legislation to make cannabis legal in the state for medical reasons.

It’s legalised the drug to treat people with conditions such a cancer, AIDS and sickle cell disease (via MixMag).

In a statement posted to Twitter, Reeves said: “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 that brings.”

Ken Newburger, executive director of the Mississippi Medical Marijuana Association added: “For all the people who are touched in some way by a loved one or someone they know who benefits from medical cannabis, this brings their quality of life back.”

My statement on the medical marijuana bill: pic.twitter.com/VTpXbfMv6C

— Tate Reeves (@tatereeves) February 2, 2022

Here in the UK, cannabis campaigners last week launched a new report which called on the government to consider “sensible” reforms of the UK’s drug legislation.

Release, a UK charity which is “the national centre of expertise on drugs and drugs law”, has now published a new report which is proposing “14 guiding social equity principles which should be integrated in the UK’s future legal cannabis market”.

Among the 14 principles set out by Release in the report were “removing criminal or civil sanctions for use or possession of cannabis, regardless of its legal or illegal origin”, the automatic expungement of past cannabis-related convictions, and permitting home cultivation of cannabis “in the same way that individuals are currently allowed to brew their own beer”.

Dr Laura Garius, the policy lead at Release, said that the UK is trailing behind many other countries in terms of progressing its drug reform.

“Despite unprecedented restrictions to movement and border closures as a result of the pandemic, the drug market remained remarkably stable and indications are that drug use is increasing, not decreasing,” she said.

“The UK Government’s new drug strategy regurgitated a ‘tough on drugs’ rhetoric, despite the Home Office’s own research concluding that the estimated £1.6bn spend per year on drug law enforcement is not impacting levels of drug use. Change is inevitable.”

The report followed on from London Mayor Sadiq Khan’s recent plans to decriminalise some Class B drug offences for under-25s as part of a new scheme in the capital.

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