Have a Current Diagnosis Of a Qualifying Condition
Bring Your Drivers License/ID and Your MSDH Patient Card (Issued Through The MSDH Portal)
Be a Mississippi Resident With Proof Of Residency
You Must Be 21 Years Of Age Or Older To Enter Dispensaries In Gulfport Mississippi
MS Cannabis Is Now Legal
Mississippi has legalized the use of marijuana for medical patients who meet the 22 debilitating medical conditions. In February 2022, The Mississippi State Legislature passed the Mississippi Medical Cannabis Act which established the first medical marijuana program in Mississippi.
The new bill reflects key features of Initiative 65, which was approved by more than 74% of Mississippi voters last November, including broad access for patients, decision rights for certifying doctors, a free market, and sustainable revenue models and reasonable regulations.
The qualifying debilitating medical conditions in Mississippi approved under the Mississippi Medical Cannabis Act include:
Chronic, terminal or debilitating disease or medical condition, or its treatment, that produces one or more of the following:
MSDH will set up rules for testing cannabis. Most states test for mold, pesticides, residual solvents, and other harmful substances.
No. In order to legally purchase medical marijuana products at a dispensary in Gulfport MS, you must be certified by a credentialed and approved medical marijuana practitioner in Gulfport MS 39503 to legally access and buy from dispensaries here. However, out-of-state patients can register as a non-resident cardholder with the Mississippi Department of Health. Additional details on this can be found below.
Qualifying medicinal marijuana patients in Gulfport Mississippi will be able to use their Registry ID Cards to purchase medical cannabis products at any licensed cannabis dispensary near Gulfport MS once the dispensaries officially open in early 2023.
Yes, edibles are legal in Mississippi for registered patients who purchase them legally at licensed dispensaries.
Employers in Gulfport MS don’t have to allow employees to use medicinal marijuana “off the clock” and can still drug test. This is especially true if the employee operates machinery.
However, none of this should be viewed as creating a private right of action by an employee against an employer, and none of these affect the existing legal relationship between an employer and employee or any existing law or regulation relating to such relationship.
For this reason, it is strongly recommended that you talk with your employer about their policy regarding your use of medical marijuana.
Yes. The MMCA does not require any employer to allow the medical use of medical marijuana.
Furthermore, it does not prohibit any employer from refusing to hire, discharging, disciplining, or otherwise taking an adverse employment action against you with respect to hiring, discharging, tenure, terms, conditions, or privileges as a result, in whole or in part, of your use of medical marijuana, regardless of your impairment or lack of impairment resulting from it.
However, some employers may choose to show some tolerance toward employees who possess Gulfport medical marijuana Registry ID cards and receive authorized treatments of medical cannabis – as opposed to zero tolerance for all confirmed positive drug tests.
Employers will need to be mindful of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Family Medical Leave Act (FMLA). The MMCA defines what conditions constitute a “debilitating medical condition”, and many would of these qualifying conditions would also qualify as a disability under the ADA or a serious health condition under the FMLA.
Medical marijuana is the use of marijuana plants and chemicals to treat certain conditions. It is basically the same thing as recreational marijuana, but for medicinal. The cannabis plant has more than 100 cannabinoids, and each one has a different impact on the body.
Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD) are the main chemicals used in marijuana medicine, as THC produces the “high” that people feel when they smoke or consume marijuana, meanwhile CBD does not give the user the experience of being “high”.
Cannabinoids are the active chemicals in medicinal marijuana sold at Mississippi cannabis dispensaries. They are similar to the chemicals your own body makes which affect appetite, memory, motion, and pain.
Research suggests cannabinoids might:
A few years ago,medicinal marijuana gained much attention because parents found out that medicinal marijuana could help control severe seizures in their kids. The FDA even recently approved Epidiolex, which is made from CBD, as a therapy for people with very severe or hard-to-treat seizures. Some people experienced a dramatic decrease in seizures after taking the cannabinoid-based drug.
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