Yes. Amendment 3 has been approved by the Secretary of State to appear on the November 8th ballot.

For one, Missourians now have confidence in our state government’s ability to operate a new division regulating marijuana. The Department of Health and Senior Services has been effective in administering the new program and met all guidelines set out by the Missouri Constitution.

Further, Missourians are already seeing the benefits of an emerging medical marijuana industry. Applications from patients and those who sought facility operating licenses greatly exceeded expectations, and program sales have been similarly robust.

We believe a serious petition effort will attract significant support from a variety of sources, including grassroots supporters, advocacy organizations, and large donations. Our committee name is Legal Missouri 2022, and all contributions will be publicly available from the Missouri Ethics Commission, per Missouri law.

Individuals will be allowed to purchase up to three ounces of cannabis flower, or its equivalents, at a time.

The initiative extends the amount of time that medical cannabis patient and caregiver ID cards are valid from one to three years while keeping that cost low ($25).  By comparison, most other states charge application fees three or four times higher, with some requiring multiple physician certifications in a single calendar year.

Similarly, the $100 fee for Missourians who opt to cultivate cannabis at home will be reduced in half, with the expiration period also extended from one to three years. The proposal would also extend reciprocity to out-of-state residents with valid medical cannabis cards.

The proposal prevents any single business owner from possessing more than 10 percent of the total operating licenses for dispensaries, cultivation, and infused product manufacturing facilities    

All new licenses will be awarded to eligible applicants at random, via a lottery.

Quite a few. Law enforcement agencies investigating possible illegal marijuana grow and sales operations would be required, before seeking a search warrant, to first check with the Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) whether their target is licensed by the state as a home cultivator, patient or caregiver.

Specifically, “Evidence of marijuana alone, without specific evidence indicating that the marijuana is outside of what is lawful for medical or adult use, cannot be the basis for a search of a patient or non-patient, including their home, vehicle or other property.”

In family court, a qualified medical marijuana patient can’t have that status be used to restrict custodial or parental rights to minor children. And while landlords will still be able to restrict or limit legal marijuana consumption on their property, they would also be prohibited from banning their tenants’ legal marijuana possession and consumption by means other than smoking.

Existing laws that prevent such facilities from being located near schools and churches would remain unchanged. And any local government that wished to exclude such businesses from its community could do so, subject to a vote of the people.

The new law would prevent employers from discriminating against cannabis patients in hiring, firing and other disciplinary measures if not related to drug use or intoxication while on the job.

No, gun rights are explicitly protected in the amendment in Section II, Subsection 10, where it refers to preventing the state from denying rights granted by the MO Constitution under Article I, Section 23.

To expunge means to erase or remove completely. In law, “expungement” is the process by which a record of criminal conviction is destroyed or sealed from the official record.

An expungement order directs a court to treat the purged criminal conviction as if it had never occurred, removing it from a defendant’s criminal record.

Yes, at least on paper. But by putting the onus on individuals to first petition the court, the process is time-consuming, costly and rarely completed. According to the University of Missouri-Kansas City School of Law, only 125 Missourians (among the estimated 1.3 million to 1.8 million with criminal records) were able to expunge their records in 2019. UMKC Law calls the expungement process “complex and expensive,” creating a “punishment that never ends.” “Despite having fully paid their debt to society, they find that the impact of their record lingers, blocking educational, employment, and housing opportunities,” the law school found. “The persistence of criminal records also takes a heavy toll on an individual’s health.” Automatic expungement is critical because those that need their nonviolent cannabis records expunged the most have the least amount of resources to petition a court to do so.

The Legal Missouri 2022 initiative stipulates that:

An expungement order shall be legally effective immediately and the person whose record is expunged shall be treated in all respects as if he or she had never been arrested, convicted, or sentenced for the offense, and the conviction and sentence shall be vacated as legally invalid. The court shall issue an order to expunge all records and files related to the arrest, citation, investigation, charge, adjudication of guilt, criminal proceedings, and probation related to the sentence. The court shall provide notice of the expungement to the person who is the subject of the record at the person's last known address, the arresting agency, prosecuting attorneys, central state depository of criminal records, and any other entity that may have a record related to the order to expunge. The central state depository of criminal records shall provide notice of the expungement to the Federal Bureau of lnvestigation's National Crime Information Center, or its successor agency. The court shall issue the person a certificate stating that the offense for which the person was convicted has been expunged and that its effect is to annul the record of arrest, conviction, and sentence.

(b) The effect of such expungement shall be to restore such person to the status the person occupied prior to such arrest, plea, or conviction and as if such event had never taken place. Such person shall not be required to acknowledge the existence of such a criminal history record or answer questions about the record in any application for employment, license, or civil right or privilege or in an appearance as a witness in any proceeding or hearing, and may deny the existence of the record regardless of whether the person has received notice from the court that an expungement order has been issued on the person's behalf.

The automatic expungement provision doesn’t apply to violent offenders or those whose offenses involved distribution to a minor or operating a motor vehicle while under the influence of marijuana.

“Any person currently incarcerated in a prison, jail or halfway house and serving a sentence for a marijuana offense which is a misdemeanor, a Class E felony or a Class D felony, or successor designations, involving possession of three pounds or less of marijuana” can petition the sentencing court to vacate the sentence and order immediate release from the Department of Corrections” and subsequent expungement – with all of the above-outlined legal protections.

Those on probation and parole for marijuana law violations would also have their sentences automatically vacated and also qualify for automatic expungement.

All administrative costs to process automatic expungements will be covered by a 6 percent state tax on adult-use marijuana purchases. The remaining funds from that tax will be split equally among veterans’ services, drug addiction treatment, and Missouri’s underfunded public defender system. A state fiscal analysis projects that this tax will generate annual revenue of at least $40.8 million (and likely much higher) and additional local government revenues of at least $13.8 million.

No. While those convicted of more serious felonies do not become eligible for automatic expungement until completion of the sentence, our ballot language in no way creates a provision that would prevent the General Assembly from passing a bill to expunge those offenses more quickly, if they are so inclined. In fact, our language explicitly says that it shall not prevent people from availing themselves of other expungement opportunities in the law.