Alabama And Louisiana Are Enacting Or Extending Medical Marijuana Programs. What About Mississippi?
Last November, 74% of Mississippi voters approved adopting a medical marijuana program. For some, like 25-year-old Austin Calhoun, the decision felt like a ticket back home.
Calhoun spent most of his senior year of high school bedridden due to Lyme disease. He met with 20 local doctors to try and find relief for his symptoms but eventually made the decision to move to Colorado in 2015 so he could get a medical marijuana prescription to help keep his ailments — like seizures, chronic nausea and vomiting, and arthritis — under control.
Photo Courtesy Of Austin Calhoun
(L-R) Brad Calhoun, Austin Calhoun and Angie Calhoun of Puckett, Mississippi.
“I started making arrangements to sell my house,” Calhoun said after hearing about the voters’ decision. “Around May, I decided it was time for me to just come back home and be with my family.”
In May, however, Mississippi’s State Supreme Court struck down the voter-approved medical marijuana initiative, ruling the program void due to the state’s initiative process being outdated.
Alabama and Louisiana have both implemented or extended their own medical marijuana programs recently. But while some in Mississippi feel both states got the momentum to pass their legislation due to their efforts, Mississippi is now back at square one.
Lawmakers are hopeful to have a new bill drafted by the end of summer.
Read the full story from our partners at Mississippi Public Broadcasting here.
This story was produced by the Gulf States Newsroom, a collaboration between Mississippi Public Broadcasting, WBHM in Birmingham, Ala., WWNO in New Orleans and NPR.
Trump administration sues all of Maryland’s federal judges over deportation order
The action lays bare the administration's attempt to exert its will over immigration enforcement, and a growing anger at federal judges who have blocked executive branch actions they see as lawless.
In a first-of-its-kind decision, an AI company wins a copyright infringement lawsuit brought by authors
U.S. District Judge William Alsup's ruling this week, in a case brought by authors Andrea Bartz, Charles Graeber and Kirk Wallace Johnson last year, opens a potential pathway for AI companies to train their large language models on copyrighted works without authors' consent — but only if copies of the works were obtained legally.
RFK Jr. says U.S. will stop funding global vaccine group over ‘vaccine safety’ issues
The secretary of health and human services said that funding will be curtailed until Gavi, the Vaccine Alliance, takes into account the science of vaccine safety in its campaigns.
Senators question Trump plan to kill federal funds for PBS, NPR and some foreign aid
Democrats and Republicans on the Senate Appropriations Committee pushed back against the Trump administration's bid to rescind federal funding for public broadcasting and international aid programs.
Judge orders Trump administration to resume distributing money for EV chargers
Congress designated money for building new EV chargers, but the Trump administration put a freeze on those funds. A federal judge issued a preliminary injunction ordering the program to resume.
Judge sees no reason to keep holding Abrego Garcia pending criminal trial
Despite the court order, if released from prison, Kilmar Abrego Garcia is likely to be immediately taken into custody by U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
