Mississippi Medical Cannabis Sales on Track to Begin in January

Even though just 400 patients currently have access approval, state health experts predict that medical marijuana is due to hit Mississippi dispensary shelves in January 2023.

138 dispensaries, 4 transportation businesses, 8 processors, 47 growers, 3 state-mandated disposal firms, 2 testing labs, and 491 work permits (persons authorized by law to operate in the cannabis industry) received provisional licenses, according to the Mississippi Department of Revenue and Department of Health, which made the announcement at a media briefing last week.

Those businesses will serve, at this point, 406 state-approved patients, who received certification from 117 healthcare professionals licensed to enroll patients in the program.

Sales in the state, which has a population of around 3 million people, are predicted to reach $265 million in the first year and $800 million by the fourth year.

Mississippi became the fourth state in the South to legalize medicinal marijuana after Arkansas, Alabama, and Louisiana, and it underwent one of the toughest processes to do it.

As a result, 69 % of the state's voters approved medical cannabis ballot measures in November 2020, only for the state Supreme Court to invalidate not only those measures but also the state's voter-initiative system.

The Republican governor Tate Reeves signed the Mississippi Medical Cannabis Act into law in February, after the state legislature passed it in January of this year.