Politics
Fight To Legalize Medical Marijuana In Missouri Intensifies As Groups Battle Over Tax Rates
With about one month left until voters head to the polls, things are heating up in the fight to legalize medical marijuana in Missouri.
Three competing medical cannabis ballot initiatives—including two proposed constitutional amendments and one statutory measure—officially qualified for the ballot in August. And in the weeks since, sponsoring committees for the proposals have engaged in a public rivalry that’s landed Missouri in the national spotlight.
Backing Amendment 2, the group New Approach Missouri has received some of the most high-profile endorsements. Missouri NORML, St. Louis’s NAACP chapter, Freedom Incorporated and the St. Louis American newspaper have all recently thrown their support behind the amendment, for example.
#StLouis @NAACP President Adolphus Pruitt endorses #YesOn2 #MedicalMarijuana in #Missouri
Join the #MMJ movement! Text YesOn2 to 52886 pic.twitter.com/JLdqBteK88
— New Approach MO (@NewApproachMO) September 21, 2018
Taxation seems to be a top concern across the board.
Amendment 3, sponsored by attorney Dr. Brad Bradshaw and Find the Cures, would impose the highest sales tax rate on medical cannabis in the country: 15 percent, compared to 7.25 percent in California. New Approach Missouri has seized on that point, arguing that the measure would be prohibitively expensive for patients by setting the highest medical cannabis tax rate in the nation.
“Amendment 3 is exploiting patients with serious and life-changing diagnosis, like cancer, epilepsy and multiple sclerosis, who are seeking this treatment to ease the pain and suffering from their symptoms,” New Approach Missouri spokesperson Jack Cardetti said in a press release Wednesday.
Amendment 2 would tax retail marijuana sales at four percent, and the third initiative, Missourians for Patient Care-backed Proposition C, would impose a two percent sales tax rate.
(See below for a chart showing how other states that currently allow medical cannabis tax it.)
Find the Cures hasn’t backed down despite pressure from the competing campaigns. In fact, Bradshaw filed lawsuits against Missourians for Patient Care and New Approach Missouri in August, alleging that the former submitted invalid signatures and the latter illegally collected signatures.
New Approach Missouri “ran an intentional, systematic, pervasive, and ubiquitous pattern of instructing individuals to violate the legal requirements of the petition signature gathering process,” Bradshaw claimed in the lawsuit.
But the lawsuits didn’t get far. Bradshaw ultimately dropped his suit against Missourians for Patient Care. And a circuit court denied the other suit against New Approach Missouri—a ruling upheld by an appeals court, which denied the attorney a rehearing, in September.
Missouri voters could have had the opportunity to hear out each campaign’s arguments at a moderated forum last month, but representatives for two of the sponsoring campaigns—Missourians for Patient Care and Find the Cures—dropped out of the debate at the last minute.
Based on polling, it appears likely that Missouri voters will approve at least one of the medical cannabis initiatives. The question is whether these heated campaign fights will lead to vote splitting that could jeopardize the reform efforts. As a general rule, the top vote-getter prevails in Missouri; but in this case, if voters green light both a constitutional amendment and the statutory amendment, the fate of the program could be left largely up to the courts.
And it’s not just competition between pro-legalization sponsors that could influence the vote in November. Outright opponents of marijuana reform are entering the ring, as well. A recently formed committee, Citizens for Safe Medicine, is campaigning against all three of the initiatives. Financial disclosure statements aren’t yet available, though, so it’s not clear what kind of resources the committee will bring to the table.
Citizens for Safe Medicine, which bills itself as a coalition of medical professionals, teachers and businesses, appears to be connected to a nonprofit organized called the Council for Drug Free Youth, which receives some of its funding from the federal government. The nonprofit and the campaign committee share a phone number and at least one staff member, according to public filings and their websites.
For legalization supporters and opponents alike, time to sway the vote in Missouri is quickly running out, though. Election Day is just 32 days away. And on a related note, residents will also have the chance to elect a U.S Senator, both of whom have weighed in on their marijuana policy ahead of the vote.
New Approach Missouri circulated the following chart, using data compiled by the Marijuana Policy Project, that shows how other states with legal medical cannabis tax it:
| State | Sales Tax Rate on Medical Marijuana |
| Alaska | n/a |
| Arkansas | 6.50% |
| Arizona | 5.60% |
| California | 7.25% (state-registered patients exempt from standard sales tax) |
| Colorado | 2.90% |
| Connecticut | 6.35% |
| Delaware | 0% |
| DC | 6% |
| Florida | 6% |
| Hawaii | 4% (4.5% on Oahu) |
| Illinois | 1% |
| Maine | 5.50% |
| Maryland | 0% |
| Massachusetts | 0% |
| Michigan | 3% |
| Minnesota | 0% |
| Montana | 0% |
| Nevada | 0% |
| New Hampshire | 0% |
| New Jersey | 7% |
| New Mexico | 5.13% |
| New York | 7% |
| North Dakota | 5% |
| Ohio | 5.75% |
| Oklahoma | 7% |
| Oregon | 0% |
| Pennsylvania | 0% |
| Rhode Island | 7% |
| Vermont | 0% |
| Washington | n/a |
| West Virginia | 0% |
Photo courtesy of Chris Wallis // Side Pocket Images.
