The interior of the FerrCannabis dispensary in Hattiesburg looks more like a dean’s office than a headshop. Built-in bookshelves and landscape paintings line the walls. High-backed chairs and antique lamps round out the décor.
The inspiration came from a library at the University of Alabama, said store manager Ben Prater. That’s about the only similarity this dispensary in Mississippi’s budding medical marijuana industry has with Alabama’s cannabis quagmire, which has stalled two years after the state passed a medical marijuana law.
Alabama passed a law legalizing medical marijuana in May 2021. Mississippi followed seven months later in January 2022. Today FerrCannabis in Hattiesburg finds itself one out of roughly 100 dispensaries across the state.
Some in Mississippi say they have been watching Alabama’s bungled rollout with skepticism, even with a little laugh at the bizarre limitations that would allow THC pills and medicines, but forbid smokeable marijuana.
“I just don’t think people will be lining up to buy cannabis suppositories,” one person cracked during an industry gathering in Hattiesburg the week before Thanksgiving.
While Alabama’s medical marijuana licensing process has faced several deadlocks in the face of lawsuits, mismanagement and political opposition, Mississippi’s has marched steadily forward. Its first dispensaries opened in early 2023, and the number has already grown to about 100 by year’s end, said Henry Crisler, assistant director of the Mississippi Medical Marijuana Association.
“We’re a regulated industry,” Crisler said. “The requirements to get a license for a cultivation facility or dispensary are very strict and comprehensive.”
Dispensaries in Mississippi can sell pre-rolled joints, tinctures, edibles and vape cartridges. Several, including FerrCannabis, have now opened in Hattiesburg, a small college city in southern Mississippi.
Dispensary owners said the industry has encountered some obstacles in Mississippi but have also shown that medical marijuana has a place in the Deep South. The region has long struggled to attract new industry, Prater said, but people are coming from all over the country to invest in medical marijuana.
“The quicker you regulate it, the quicker it figures itself out and the quicker you can help other people with the proceeds from that,” Prater said. “I don’t think cannabis users are opposed to being taxed, we just want to be able to legally use a medicine.”
Prater moved back to Mississippi from Colorado after being hit by a car. The state passed its medical marijuana law and after he recovered, he began looking for opportunities in the industry.
Whitney Strickland manages a marijuana dispensary in Petal, Miss. She likes working with patients who are often dealing with debilitating health issues.Amy Yurkanin
The dispensaries opened, but business was slow. Few patients could navigate the process to get a medical marijuana card.
“In Mississippi, the people who would use cannabis are a little older,” Prater said. “So the technology of signing up for a card hindered a lot of people in the beginning. They actually redid the regulations to simplify that. After that happened, we saw the card numbers go up.”
Mississippi’s medical program also has its own unique limits. More than 30,000 patients now have medical marijuana cards in the state, and uptake remains slower than expected. State regulators authorized marijuana as treatment for 25 diagnoses that include post-traumatic stress disorder, chronic pain, cancer and ALS. Advocates hope the state will expand use to people with anxiety and depression to boost patient numbers.
“I hope they will broaden the qualifying conditions,” Prater said. “There’s so many people fighting for the same 25,000 people. I’m optimistic the patient count will go up.”
Whitney Strickland, manager at Tortuga Cannabis Company, said she serves many cancer patients. One of her favorite customers took fentanyl for years until her insurance stopped covering the drug.
“I’m dealing with her and trying to get her able to sleep at night, anything she can do to just be out of pain,” Strickland said.
Two dozen states have now approved recreational use of marijuana. While recreational use has moved southward, reaching Virginia and Missouri in the last few years, it has yet to take hold in the Deep South. But several Southern states, from Arkansas to Florida to Georgia, have or are exploring medical options.
Pew Research finds support for medical marijuana has hit all-time highs. Nearly 9 out of 10 Americans back the legalization of marijuana for medical use. In fact, even among Republican voters who identify as conservative leaning, opposition to medical use only reaches 17 percent.
In Mississippi, the push for medical marijuana started with a ballot initiative. In 2020, 74 percent voted in favor of medical marijuana. In May 2021, the state supreme court struck down the ballot initiative process and the medical marijuana law.
That pushed legislators to write their own medical marijuana law based on the ballot initiative. The overwhelming voter support for medical marijuana added urgency to the process. Still, Prater says several restrictions including those on THC content and weekly purchases have hurt patients trying to abide by state law.
“The people making the laws have probably never used cannabis and will probably never use cannabis,” Prater said.
Mick Baldwin owns Tortuga Cannabis Company in Petal, Miss. He moved to Mississippi with two terriers from Oklahoma, where he grew and sold medical marijuana.
Baldwin and his “dispensary dogs” now do business out of a boxy building with a sweeping metal roof. From inside, you can hear whirring and banging as workers build a grow facility out back.
Baldwin opened his dispensary in July. In Oklahoma, he said medical marijuana lacked regulation and grew too fast, becoming a liability to communities and then to the industry itself.
The market in Oklahoma opened with more than 100,000 registered patients and grew to almost 400,000 before backlash led to a crackdown by the state. The number of cultivators grew too quickly and flooded the market with cheap marijuana, driving down prices until owners could no longer earn enough to pay the bills.
The industry went rogue, Baldwin said. Fires broke out at marijuana grow facilities. Authorities busted a brothel frequented by owners and managers of marijuana farms. The worst blow came when an investor killed four men after demanding the return of his money, according to the Associated Press. Oklahoma authorities are still cleaning up the mess. It’s become a cautionary tale for other states looking to legalize medical marijuana.
“People get into it thinking they’re going to grow marijuana and become Pablo Escobar,” Baldwin said. “We call it Pablo syndrome. What they find out is that growing marijuana is not easy.”
Baldwin said he moved to Mississippi so he could get in at the beginning of a new market. Unlike Oklahoma, the state has established more restrictions on patients and dispensaries.
Some of the restrictions are threatening to throttle the industry, he said. The state won’t allow marijuana businesses to advertise. Two weeks ago, a dispensary owner in Olive Branch, Miss., filed a lawsuit against the state, saying the restriction violates his right to free speech.
Baldwin would like Mississippi officials to allow advertising. He has a website and social media pages, but no other opportunities to promote his business. The state also prohibits dispensary owners from recommending doctors who can approve medical marijuana cards. They can only refer patients to the Mississippi Department of Health, which keeps a list of authorized providers.
Prater too would like to see dispensaries treated more like regular businesses. Many of the fears regulators had about medical marijuana haven’t come to pass. Businesses haven’t been targeted for theft or fraud, Crisler said.
“I have people come in all the time thinking that it’s recreational and they want to come in and shop,” Prater said. “But I’ve never had anyone come in and try to defraud us or use someone else’s card. It’s been pretty uneventful. Just like a regular business.”
Baldwin, who watched the marijuana industry implode in Oklahoma, has some concerns about how the next year could play out in Mississippi. Even with an increase in patients, some businesses might not make it.
Already prices have dropped for marijuana. If they fall too far, some farms and dispensaries might not be able to turn profits, he said.
So far, the restrictions in Mississippi have kept the industry relatively small, Baldwin said. A spokeswoman from the Mississippi Department of Health said 232 applications have been submitted for cannabis cultivation facilities and 201 licenses have been issued. By contrast, Oklahoma had more than 9,000 marijuana farms at one point, a number that has shrunk by about two-thirds in recent years.
The department has cited cultivation businesses in Mississippi 51 times for violations, the spokeswoman said.
Alabama regulators issued licenses Friday to 20 marijuana businesses, which could be a step toward launching an industry in the state. However, the board has awarded licenses twice before, only to take them back in the face of legal opposition.
If Alabama ever navigates its legal mess to launch its program, it will face many of the same issues as Mississippi. The state only approved marijuana capsules, suppositories, oils, gels creams, transdermal patches or peach-flavored gelatins. Smokeable products and edibles such as brownies aren’t allowed.
In Mississippi, the patients, like the residents of the state, tend to be older.
“The age of our average patient in 40-plus,” Baldwin said. “These are not people who are wanting to go out and get high, these are people that are looking for medication. They’re getting off of opioids. They’re getting off of mood stabilizers.”
Adding additional qualifying conditions could help the industry grow enough to be sustainable, Baldwin said. And the license fees and taxes could help the state.
“I don’t believe in my mind the government wants this here,” Baldwin said. “You’ve got 100 years of propaganda against what is in my opinion a miracle plant that God gave us, and man outlawed. You’ve got to get the politicians to realize how good this is for the public.”
Al.com reporter Hannah Denham contributed reporting to this story
