John Schroyer
Medical marijuana products could be available for patients to buy as soon as Wednesday, TV station WLOX reported.
That’s according to Coastal Capital Dispensary in Biloxi, where owner Elizabeth Cavanaugh told WLOX they were only waiting for the state to activate the roughly 1,700 medical marijuana patient cards.
But over the weekend, state regulators began activating patient cards and notifying cardholders, so they could visit dispensaries and get the rest of mandated info uploaded to the state in advance of the sales launch.
“The day we get our product in, we’re gonna have to spend some time categorizing, staging and labeling, so we’re gonna open up our online ordering the day we get product and then we are going to open the following morning at 9 a.m. for in-store purchases,” Cavanaugh said.
Another dispensary, Legally Rooted in the town of Meridian, is also planning to open for business on Friday, the Meridian Star reported, though it’s an open question whether the shop will have MMJ inventory to sell.
The state legalized medical marijuana through the legislature last year, after voters first approved MMJ in the 2020 election. That ballot measure, however, was thrown out by the state Supreme Court based on a technicality. In response, the legislature approved its own MMJ legalization measure in 2022, albeit with a much more limited scope than the ballot initiative.
The sales launch makes Mississippi the latest to join the legal cannabis trade, alongside other southern states such as Louisiana, Alabama and Florida, which are still home to some of the most restrictive MMJ programs in the country.
