This year has been momentous for cannabis reform, from the Illinois General Assembly becoming the first state legislature to pass a bill to regulate cannabis like alcohol to the U.S. House of Representatives passing the SAFE Banking Act and forging ahead with the MORE Act. 

It’s important to celebrate these victories, but with the end of 2019 comes the beginning of 2020, which is already shaping up to be the biggest year ever for marijuana-policy reform. 

The U.S state of Missouri has decided to approach the 2020 hemp season without a USDA-approved state plan for the crop.

In late October, the United States Department of Agriculture published its Interim Final Rule for hemp, which apparently also enables states to operate without a USDA-approved state plan for one year – and Missouri has chosen to take advantage of this extension.

Interest in medical marijuana use has far outpaced expectations only five months into Missouri’s new program.

Leaders of a handful of Missouri hemp association groups have implored the Parson administration to take advantage of a federal provision allowing the state to operate its new hemp program under state statute for 2020. 

The U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) final interim rules allowed states to operate under their own statutes — as authorized under the 2014 Farm Bill — for the 2020 growing season. 

Missouri has already approved more than 17,000 patients for its yet-to-be-launched medical marijuana program — a stark contrast to neighboring Illinois, which had less than 3,000 patients in the first 10 months. 

Licenses for Missouri’s dispensaries are expected to be awarded by January, and cannabis should be available for medical card holders by spring. 

At their core, Missouri and Illinois programs do the same thing: They allow doctors to certify patients to use cannabis if they have a qualifying condition. But there are significant differences in the details of each law, including who has access, how they’re getting access and how the programs can be changed in the future.

Missouri’s health department wants to ban medical marijuana businesses from paying taxes in cash, a move that industry advocates say could shut out small businesses from the field.

Missouri voters in 2018 made medical marijuana legal but sales are still prohibited under federal law.

Financial institutions, particularly national banks, shy away from working with the cannabis industry because of the federal ban, BeLeaf CEO Mitch Meyers said. That forces some marijuana businesses to pay bills and salaries in cash.

A year after Missouri voters approved medical marijuana, News 4 checked in with the state to get an update.

Currently, there are no medical marijuana facilities in Missouri but over 20,000 applications have been submitted for facilities. There are several entries on the list of companies hoping to open a dispensary, with facility license approvals likely happening before the end of the year. To start, the state said they will only approve about 350 licenses for manufacturing and dispensaries.

By the beginning of this week, 20,034 people had applied for patient or caregiver cards. The state’s health department has currently approved 17,345 people.

A medical marijuana trade group wants Missouri health officials to issue strict vaping regulations as the number of people in the United States suffering from vaping-related lung illnesses continues to rise.