JEFFERSON CITY — A major seller of marijuana-infused chocolate bars and vape cartridges this week pushed the author of the “Cannabis Freedom Act” to cap cannabis business licenses in his plan to fully legalize the drug, the lawmaker said.
Rep. Ron Hicks, R-Defiance, sponsor of the effort to legalize cannabis, said he met with Josh Mitchem, CEO of Clovr Cannabis, and others, including lobbyist Thomas Robbins, at the Capitol to discuss the plan.
The meeting came at a time when talk of legalizing cannabis is intensifying in the Legislature, where a May 13 deadline to approve bills looms. Meanwhile, backers of a competing ballot initiative, Legal Missouri 2022, face a May 8 deadline to secure approximately 183,000 signatures to make the November ballot.
Rep. Ron Hicks, R-Defiance (Tim Bommel/House Communications)
Hicks said he initiated the meeting with the marijuana industry representatives. “I’m not happy with people that are fighting my legislation,” he said.
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“Don’t fight my legislation,” Hicks said. “Come talk to me about my legislation. What is it you don’t like? Because we’re trying to get the same thing. And that’s the part I didn’t understand — is why are you fighting me on this?”
Hicks said Mitchem and others expressed a desire for the legislation to cap business licenses; Hicks’ bill doesn’t limit the industry.
“I honestly think the whole group, everyone, doesn’t like my free market side of my legislation,” Hicks said. “Everyone in that group didn’t like my free market side of it.”
Industry insiders such as Mitchem are backing Legal Missouri, which gives current medical marijuana license holders the first shot at full business licenses and allows the state to maintain caps.
Josh Mitchem (Photo courtesy of the Missouri Medical Cannabis Trade Association)
Proponents claim this is to protect the state from too much marijuana, but the ballot question would also provide an advantage to current license holders over others trying to break into the industry.
It follows the particularly contentious rollout of the state’s medical marijuana program, which initially limited licenses to grow, process and sell pot to 338. Applicants who failed to win licenses filed hundreds of appeals with the state, and lawmakers investigated the program.
“I think that they’re kind of just waiting to see what I do with my legislation, if I’m going to make it free market or if I’m going to cap it,” Hicks said Thursday. “And I’m going to be honest with you, I don’t know what to do when it comes to the caps or not. I mean, as it is right now I think I’m going to leave the caps off.”
Hicks said he was OK with limiting the number of cultivators, because “we don’t need a surplus.”
Robbins lobbies for Legal Missouri 2022 and the Missouri Medical Cannabis Trade Association, or MoCannTrade. He works for Strategic Capitol Consulting, the lobbying firm of former House Speaker Steve Tilley, who was also patrolling the halls of the Capitol on Wednesday.
In audio published prior to a House hearing on Hicks’ bill, Robbins is heard comparing proponents to a “clown car” and said opponents of Hicks’ bill would come off to committee members as “the adults in the room.”
“I’m not happy about it, honestly,” Hicks said. “He’s the guy (Robbins) that they have hired to, I guess protect their interests. Now I have nothing against him doing what he’s doing. It’s his job to do. But I’m gonna fight him on it. I’m not just gonna just sit back and let him do his job without me fighting him the same way he’s fighting me.”
Hicks’ proposal has 24 co-sponsors in the House, including House Speaker Pro Tem John Wiemann, R-O’Fallon. House Minority Leader Crystal Quade, D-Springfield, and Rep. Bridget Walsh Moore, D-St. Louis, signed onto the plan this week.
Robbins did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Friday.
Mitchem’s associated company, Green Four Ventures LLC, has sunk nearly $150,000 into the Legal Missouri 2022 initiative, according to a review of Missouri Ethics Commission records.
It’s unclear whether Mitchem will receive a return on his investment.
John Payne, campaign manager for Legal Missouri 2022, did not answer a question this week about how many signatures his campaign has collected thus far, instead sending a statement saying Missourians were “enthusiastically” signing the petition everyday.
At the same time, grassroots groups of cannabis activists have mobilized against Legal Missouri, withholding their signatures and protesting the proposed question.
The Post-Dispatch reported in July on the behind-the-scenes drafting of Legal Missouri 2022.
Kyle Kisner, a marijuana advocate who had worked on the draft, told the Post-Dispatch industry insiders pushed for first dibs on licenses in order to preserve their competitive edge.
“It’s to give them an inside track and to allow them to get their foothold and be established and rooted before they have to deal with any competition,” Kisner said last year.
He said Mitchem was involved in the process, at one point proposing a low-interest loan idea for micro-business license holders. Payday loan companies Mitchem operated in the Kansas City region have been accused by the states of New York and Arkansas of predatory practices.
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