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.

Reciprocity, the legal process allowing a state-issued license to be accepted in other states, is relatively common among medical cannabis states. 

But it seems that not that many people actually use reciprocity, particularly in high bar states like Oklahoma.

Missouri’s Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) has finalised its review of medical marijuana cultivation applications – and there will be plenty of disappointed applicants.

Thousands of applications were received by the August deadline for medical marijuana cultivation, dispensary, manufacturing and testing laboratory licenses. At the time we reported it wasn’t clear how many of those were applications for cultivation, but based on this document, it appears to have been more than 550.

Missouri regulators approved eight Kansas City-area locations to serve as medical marijuana transportation facilities and have begun notifying winners of grower licenses.

The Department of Health and Senior Services announced Thursday that it has begun issuing licenses for medical marijuana cultivation facilities. In a release, the department said the 60 licenses are being awarded to the facilities that scored highest in a blind review.

For the first time in more than 70 years, farmers in Missouri will be allowed to grow industrial hemp during the 2020 growing season.

But first they will need a permit from the Missouri Department of Agriculture. Those applications are online now, and the department will start processing them right after the first of the year.

“Producers should know that they need to wait for that final approval before purchasing, receiving or planting industrial hemp seed. We really want them to have that registration in hand so that legally they are in a good spot,” said Sami Jo Freeman, a spokesperson for the Missouri Department of Agriculture.