SMC Newsletter: May 5, 2014 John Payne May 5, 2014 | John Payne

State Senate Unanimously Passes CBD Bill

By John Payne

The Missouri Senate voted unanimously to pass HB 2238 — which authorizes the creation, distribution, and use of CBD oil extracted from cannabis by patients with “intractable epilepsy” — this past Thursday. The vote came after a very personal appeal for support from Senator Eric Schmitt (R – Glendale).

Senator Schmitt’s son suffers from seizures, and he hopes that he may benefit from the bill. “The hardest part is the fear. The fear that you live with that the next one could be that four-hour one — or worse,” Schmitt said in his speech.

The bill now goes to Governor Nixon’s desk, and it seems very likely that he will sign. Presuming that is the case, the bill will go into effect as soon as he signs it, because it contains an emergency clause.

Although we certainly would have preferred that the bill include allowance for strains with higher levels of THC and covered more conditions than just intractable epilepsy, it now appears almost certain that, in the near future, cannabis will be grown legally in Missouri for medical purposes.

The idea that the legislature would take such a step seemed implausible at the beginning of the legislative session and downright outlandish a year ago. And regardless of what else might happen in these last two weeks of the session, this will provide a solid starting point for our efforts on medical cannabis in subsequent sessions.

Almost every Missouri legislator has now publicly taken the position that there is at least one accepted medical use for cannabis, which is a better position than that of the entire federal government. Furthermore, now that they have admitted the principle that cannabis possesses medical utility, I believe they will be more likely to see the multitude of other medical uses for the plant.

Please help us continue our efforts to advance medical cannabis by contributing now!

Settlement Reached with Springfield

By John Payne

Longtime readers of this newsletter will remember that we sued the city of Springfield last year after the City Council used legislative chicanery to prevent an initiative to reduce penalties on possession of small amounts of cannabis from reaching the city’s voters. We supported the petition by helping to pay for signatures and publicizing it, and it was certified to be considered by the Council in August 2012.

According to the City Charter, the Council was supposed to either pass the initiative into law or reject it and send it to voters in November. Instead, several members of the Council crafted a ruse in which they passed the proposal with the express intent of repealing it at the earliest possible opportunity.

We believed they violated the City Charter, as well as both the Missouri and the United States constitutions, so we sued the city in federal court. A trial was scheduled for this summer, but that will now be unnecessary as we have reached a settlement with the city in which they will pay $225,000 to end the suit.

Most of that will go towards attorney fees for the lawsuit, but we intend to use the rest as seed money for our 2016 campaign to legalize and regulate cannabis statewide. There is a delicious irony to the fact that the city government that worked so hard to attack and disrespect our efforts will now be one of our largest contributors.

Most importantly, I believe the Council will not attempt to subvert the democratic process like that again. Moreover, it also appears that the law we were pushing for in Springfield will largely be implemented statewide soon.

As Dan Viets wrote about last week, the long-awaited revision to the Missouri criminal code was passed by both houses of the legislature two weeks ago. That bill reduces first-time charges for possession of ten grams or less to a non-arrestable offense with no possibility of jail time.

The settlement with the city of Springfield was a true compromise in that nobody left totally happy with it. However, we are quite happy that the Council now understands that they cannot pull a fast one and expect to get away with it, and that we can now turn the page on this incident and concentrate more fully on our efforts to reform cannabis laws at the state level.