Missourians almost had a voice on legal marijuana. Then a lobbyist got in the way
I’m the founder of the grassroots Missouri Marijuana Legalization Movement, which has been advocating for marijuana legalization in Missouri for more than 10 years. In coordination with other similar groups, we reach over 100,000 Missourians on a weekly basis. We don’t pay a lobbyist and we have largely stayed out of politics aside from organizing our own ballot initiatives.
This February, when Republican state Rep. Ron Hicks filed House Bill 2704, the Cannabis Freedom Act, for the first time we saw a politician deliver something the people of Missouri truly want. The bill attracted two dozen co-sponsors, and I personally worked to ensure hundreds of Missourians emailed and called their representatives. I helped lead hundreds more up to the Capitol for in-person visits to lawmakers. More than 150 people showed up with me to testify and witness H.B. 2704 being heard by the House public safety committee. During this hearing, we saw opposition from members of the Missouri Cannabis Trade Association or MoCannTrade, who are funding the Legal Missouri 2022 ballot initiative campaign that preserves their existing monopoly on the marijuana market.
After holding the bill for 22 days, state Rep. Shane Roden, chair of the public safety committee, allowed an executive session and introduced a 19-page amendment dictated by MoCannTrade lobbyist Thomas Robbins. No member or affiliate of our groups, nor state Rep. Hicks, saw or had input on the amendment before it was introduced. The amendment essentially implemented existing license caps in the state and stripped out many of the features that we believed were vital to creating a fair playing field in the legal marijuana industry. Only thanks to the vigilance of state Rep. Ashley Bland Manlove from Kansas City was this caught before a vote. We are grateful that she was able to strip out the worst parts of the license cap proposal.
Following that, state Rep. Nick Schroer proceeded to put an anti-transgender amendment on Bland Manlove’s proposal for a state loan program to aid women and minority operators. Following the adoption of this amendment, Schroer voted no on the bill and left the hearing in the company of MoCannTrade lobbyist Robbins. In an interview with the St. Louis Post-Dispatch afterward, Schroer said he’d be willing to remove the anti-transgender language if the larger loan program was removed. We do not take a position on transgender issues and see this scheme as designed to eat up valuable time on the legislative calendar as the session moves to its close in mid-May.
The MoCannTrade/Legal Missouri 2022 campaign argues that license caps are necessary to prevent increasing the prevalence of marijuana sold on the black market. We know this is a self-serving, rent-seeking, protectionist lie designed to concentrate wealth in the hands of the existing license holders who designed the medical marijuana program and control the market.
Where you concentrate wealth, you concentrate power. In this case, the Missourians we represent are being forced to pay for political action that they don’t agree with at gunpoint. Either Missourians buy marijuana from an isolated industry working against the people’s political interests, or they risk prosecution and incarceration for getting their marijuana illegally. If this situation continues, it will irredeemably harm the rule of law and ensure the perpetuity of the black market because many Missourians will refuse to buy legal marijuana from an industry that opposes the will of the people.
If the Legal Missouri 2022 campaign were so sure that they’d qualify their ballot initiative for the November election, and that the people of Missouri truly support them, why would they be working so hard to sway the votes and actions of our elected officials? I believe they know that the only way they can keep their monopoly is by disrupting the function of our General Assembly and convincing people such as Roden and Schroer (who are both running for state Senate) that they need the industry’s help to sustain their political careers.
Both Republicans and Democrats should be concerned about this because the Legal Missouri 2022 is attempting to fundamentally and radically change the system of checks and balances of our government, as well as empower radical groups whose values are poison to our state. I urge lawmakers to reject these poisonous and corrupt influences and fight to pass Rep. Hicks’ H.B. 2704 as it was initially filed.