Missouri senators on Monday passed a wide-ranging bill that would ban marijuana-infused candy for medical use, an attempt to ensure children don’t accidentally eat the drug.

The measure would ban candy, lollipops, cotton candy and fruit- and animal-shaped edibles that could appeal to children. Marijuana-infused food or its packaging would have to be stamped with the drugs’ dosage.

The bill also includes stiff penalties for people caught with the lethal opioids fentanyl and carfentanil and what are commonly known as date-rape drugs.

Possessing or trying to buy more than 10 milligrams of fentanyl would mean up to seven years in prison or five to 15 years behind bars for 20 milligrams or more.

A similar bill already passed the House.

The head of Missouri’s medical marijuana program is lashing out over the growing scrutiny he’s facing from state lawmakers. 

Lyndall Fraker, who was tapped to lead the rollout of the nascent program that was approved by Missouri voters in 2018, has been under investigation by legislators there over the process of awarding licenses to run a medical cannabis business.

Appeals and Probes Into Licensing Process

There have been more than 800 appeals filed by prospective business owners who were denied licenses, many of which concern Wise Health Solutions, a company that was hired by Missouri to score the license applications. 

Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) is facing an onslaught of complaints over how medical marijuana licences were issued.

DHSS finalised its review of medical marijuana cultivation applications in December last year after receiving thousands of applications  for cultivation, dispensary, manufacturing and testing laboratory licenses by the August deadline.

Despite hours of testimony in recent weeks from state regulators, Missouri lawmakers still have serious questions about alleged conflicts of interest in the fledgling medical marijuana industry.

With widespread reports of scoring irregularities and hundreds of appeals already filed by unsuccessful applicants, the Missouri House’s government oversight committee began holding hearings in early February to examine the roll out of the medical marijuana program.

In 2018, voters in Missouri made it clear that they wanted access to medical marijuana. But, a year and a half later, they don’t quite have their program up and running yet. Following the timeline provided, the state moved forward with issuing medical marijuana identification cards for registered patients – but the state’s 192 dispensaries that have been approved are still months away from opening. This has left nearly 30,000 patients without a way to access their medicine legally – but that won’t stand in the way of their right to possess it. 

On Friday, the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services began notifying companies that were awarded certifications for seed-to-sale tracking systems.

It was the final set of medical marijuana business license notifications in a series lasting nearly two months, as state authorities designated the first companies that will be able to enter Missouri's medical cannabis marketplace. Boosters say legal medical weed could amount to tens of millions in economic activity within a few years.

Seed-to-sale systems are software meant to help in "tracking medical marijuana from either the seed or immature plant stage until the medical marijuana is sold to a qualifying patient or primary caregiver," according to a written news release. 

According to the Associated Press Missouri health officials on Friday posted the list of recipients of the first 192 licenses to operate medical marijuana dispensaries, “bringing the state closer to joining the many others that allow at least some form of marijuana use.”

The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services is giving 24 licenses in each of Missouri’s eight congressional districts. Officials say recipients were the top-scoring applicants that met the program’s eligibility requirements., and the state received nearly 1,200 applications for dispensary licenses.

Just over a year after Missouri legalized medical cannabis, activists are fighting to get recreational marijuana legalization on the state’s November ballot.

The proposal, filed by the campaign Missourians for a New Approach, was approved to start gathering signatures by Missouri’s secretary of state. The group needs to collect 160,000 signatures by the middle of May.

If approved, the bill would allow adults aged 21 and older to purchase up to one ounce of marijuana for recreational use and cultivate up to three plants for personal use.

A 15% excise tax would also be imposed on recreational marijuana sales in an effort to generate more funding for veterans’ services, infrastructure, and treatment for substance abuse.