PEARL RIVER COUNTY, Miss. (WLOX) – Pearl River County is the latest to opt-out of medical marijuana in South Mississippi.
The Board of Supervisors hosting an open forum with only hours remaining until the deadline for local governments to opt-out, letting the people who these decisions affect speak their minds.
A mixed bag of opinions was voiced.
In the end, supervisors voted 4-2 opting out of Mississippi’s medical marijuana program.
“Tonight the board voted 4-2 to opt-out, and I think the majority of the calls were people who didn’t understand what they voted for. Everyone I spoke to was for medical marijuana, but they didn’t want the grow houses and everything else that comes with it,” said Supervisor Sandy Smith.
We also spoke to one of the supervisors who voted against opting out. Here’s what he told us.
“People of Poplarville and the county opposed beer. Same arguments are made. Crime is gonna go up, DUIs going up, it’s gonna destroy our community, this is the reason I moved here, all that stuff,” said Supervisor Hudson Holliday. “They opted beer in. Crime hasn’t gone up, DUIs have gone down, and the only discernible difference is that we haven’t lost any teenagers on the highway coming back from Bogalusa to get beer. That’s the discernible difference, but people are afraid of change.”
Pearl River County now joins this list of localities choosing to keep medical marijuana businesses out of their communities with Pass Christian, Picayune, Poplarville, Lucedale, and George County also choosing to opt-out.
All other areas will automatically become part of Mississippi’s medical marijuana program.
Like all other areas that opted out, Pearl River County still has the option to opt into the program at a later date.
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