Clarence Cocroft is the proprietor of a authorized medical marijuana enterprise in Olive Department, Mississippi. Nevertheless, whereas his enterprise is completely authorized, the state is hell-bent on making it virtually unattainable for him to really keep afloat. How? By making it a felony for Cocroft to promote his enterprise.
Mississippians overwhelmingly voted to legalize medical marijuana in 2020, but the state has enacted a sequence of rules that make it nearly assured that authorized marijuana companies will fail to thrive. Not solely does the state have a gauntlet of restrictive rules that make discovering an acceptable storefront extraordinarily troublesome (marijuana companies can’t be inside 1,000 ft of a church, college, or daycare, for instance), however as soon as a enterprise opens, they’re barred from practically all types of commercial.
Beneath state regulation, medical marijuana companies are banned from promoting by way of an especially in depth vary of media, together with print media, tv, radio, social media, mass textual content and electronic mail, and billboards. Signage for companies themselves can also be restricted. Not solely are companies prohibited from displaying their merchandise in retailer home windows, however storefront promoting can’t embrace hashish leaf or bud imagery. Even web sites are restricted to solely offering the enterprise’ “contact information, retail dispensing locations, and a list of products available,” in addition to “general information reasonably expected to be necessary to serving qualified patients of the Medical Marijuana Program.”
The value for slipping up is excessive—violators face felony costs.
This week, the Institute for Justice, a public curiosity regulation agency targeted on authorities abuse, filed a lawsuit difficult the rules by arguing they violate enterprise house owners’ First Modification rights.
“Taken together, these provisions constitute a complete prohibition . . . on all forms of advertising not explicitly and specifically permitted by the Mississippi Medical Marijuana Act,” the lawsuit writes.
The principles have been devastating for Cocroft as he makes an attempt to maintain his enterprise operating. After efficiently securing a storefront that met the state’s stringent necessities, he has struggled to herald clients—one thing made even tougher by the truth that his retailer, Tru Supply, is situated in an industrial park with little foot or automobile site visitors.
“It is common for clients to call Tru Source and ask for directions the first time they go. Tru Source employees have to provide these clients with landmarks and step-by-step directions to find the dispensary. But for the Ban, Clarence would place signage on major roads near the dispensary to provide directions,” the criticism reads. “As a result of Defendants’ ban, Tru Source has struggled to reach its desired clientele, cannot promote its products or its location, and has sustained and will continue to sustain significant harm.”
“The Department’s complete ban on advertising and marketing in any media violates the First Amendment of the United States Constitution by prohibiting business owners like Clarence from engaging in truthful commercial speech to promote their legal businesses,” the criticism argues. “By banning truthful and non-misleading advertisements about a legal product, the Department of Health has abridged Plaintiffs’ freedom of speech and the freedom of speech of anyone else similarly situated.”
Whereas the residents of Mississippi voted to make medical marijuana authorized, state lawmakers enacted labyrinthine guidelines that make really operating a thriving authorized hashish enterprise virtually unattainable. The state’s ban on promoting goes far past any legit coverage goal and clearly violates enterprise house owners’ First Modification rights.
By enacting these rules, Mississippi lawmakers are prone to get the result they actually need—a established order through which medical marijuana is technically authorized however practically unattainable to acquire legitimately, which means that sufferers will as soon as once more be compelled to look to the black market to search out the merchandise they want.