The Mississippi Supreme Court shut down a voter-approved medical marijuana initiative on Friday, which passed with overwhelming support in November.
The state’s high court ruled 6-3 that the proposal, known as Initiative 65, was improperly placed on the ballot last year due to an “odd flaw in the state constitution’s voter initiative process.”
According to the Daily Journal, “The court found that the Constitutional provisions for a voter referendum require that signatures be gathered equally from five congressional districts.” The state, however, only has four congressional districts after losing one seat following reapportionment after the 2000 U.S. Census. Lawmakers never updated the constitution’s language. The outlet reports that the court’s decision “invalidated…the ability of voters to directly amend the state constitution.”
“Whether with intent, by oversight, or for some other reason, the drafters of section 273(3) wrote a ballot-initiative process that cannot work in a world where Mississippi has fewer than five representatives in Congress,” wrote Justice Josiah Coleman in the majority opinion. “To work in today’s reality, it will need amending – something that lies beyond the power of the Supreme Court.”
Justice James Maxwell stated that the high court could not amend the state constitution.
“Yet the majority does just that – stepping completely outside of Mississippi law – to employ an interpretation that not only amends but judicially kills Mississippi’s citizen initiative process,” wrote Maxwell.
Mississippi was the first state in the Deep South where residents chose to legalize marijuana for medical use, with 73% of voters supporting Initiative 65 last fall. The proposal required the state Health Department to create a medical marijuana program.
“The Mississippi Supreme Court just overturned the will of the people in Mississippi,” said Ken Newburger, executive director for the Mississippi Medical Marijuana Association. “Patients will now continue the suffering that so many Mississippians voted to end. The Court ignored existing case law and prior decisions. Their reasoning ignores the intent of the constitution and takes away people’s constitutional right. It’s a sad day for Mississippi when the Supreme Court communicates to a vast majority of the voters that their vote doesn’t matter.”
