Tag: missouri

Missouri Lawmakers Approve Bill To Legalize Psilocybin Therapy For Veterans

A Missouri House committee has unanimously approved a bill to legalize the medical use of psilocybin by military veterans and fund studies exploring the therapeutic potential of the psychedelic.

The House Veterans Committee passed the legislation from Rep. Aaron McMullen (R) on Tuesday, with amendments to align it with a Senate companion version that moved through a panel in that chamber last week.

The revised bill text of the House measure—which received an initial committee hearing last month—hasn’t been published yet, but the Senate version as recently amended would allow military veterans who are at least 21 and are diagnosed with a qualifying condition such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or substance use disorders to legally access laboratory-tested psilocybin.

In order to receive legal protections under the legislation, participants would need to be enrolled, or have sought enrollment, in a study involving the psychedelic.

There are also numerous requirements for patients to provide the state Department of Mental Health (DMH) with information about their diagnosis, the person who would be administering psilocybin and other details on the place and time of the treatment sessions.

Psilocybin could only be administered over a maximum of a one-year period, with the amount of the psychedelic used in that treatment capped at 150 milligrams, though qualifying patients could be also approved to continue for subsequent one-year periods.

Regulators, physicians and state agency officials would all be protected from legal consequences related to activity made lawful under the legislation.

Also, the legislation calls for DMH to provide funding to support research into the therapeutic potential of psilocybin.

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Missouri GOP Candidate for Governor Was Only ‘Honorary’ KKK Member

A man with a history of “honorary” membership in the Klu Klux Klan not only managed to make it on the unofficial ballot to be the Republican nominee for Missouri governor, but may even appear atop the official ballot when GOP voters vote in the primary this August. 

Those revelations came to light last night when former Missouri Representative Shamed Dogan (R-Ballwin) tweeted out a screenshot showing the unofficial candidate filing list for governor posted to the Secretary of State’s website. On it, Darrell Leon McClanahan III’s name sits atop more well-known GOP contenders like Mike Kehoe and Jay Ashcroft. 

The candidates’ names are listed in ballot order, and because McClanahan drew a low number his name appears first. 

A 2022 article on the Anti-Defamation League’s website shows McClanahan next to a man in white robes as both men give what appear to be Nazi salutes in front of a burning cross some time around 2019. 

The ADL article claims that the organization’s Center on Extremism has been tracking McClanahan for years, as he has affiliated with various white supremacist and Christian identity groups. 

“Hey @MissouriGOP I just learned the candidate listed first on our primary ballot for Governor is a cross-burning KKK member who ran for US Senate 2 years ago and freely admits his KKK membership & white supremacist beliefs,” Dogan wrote, adding in a subsequent tweet that he hoped the party would reject McClanahan’s filing fee, calling him a “racist loser.”

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‘Total disgrace:’ LGBTQ nursing course called out for prioritizing activism over healthcare

A Missouri lawmaker recently criticized a new LGBTQ nursing class at the University of Missouri at Saint Louis where students wrote songs and books to raise awareness about the “disparities and injustices facing the LGBTQ community.”

The course, “Healthcare Within the LGBTQIAA+ Community,” was offered for the first time in the fall 2023 semester through the nursing and honors colleges, but there are no plans to offer it again in the future.

Missouri State Rep. Chris Lonsdale, a Republican from Liberty, described the course as “a total disgrace to the healthcare industry and Missouri” in a statement to The College Fix late last month.

In the class, students learned about “health disparities and injustices facing the LGBTQ community, including implicit bias, the lack of rights for same-sex parents and state laws targeting the queer community,” according to UMSL Daily, the school’s online news outlet.

“Universities are worried more about pushing political propaganda than delivering real healthcare to Missourians. It’s a total disgrace to the healthcare industry and Missouri,” Lonsdale said.

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Missouri Legislation Would Impose Restrictions On Intoxicating Hemp Products, Sparking Clash Over How To Regulate

Missouri lawmakers have heard hours of heated testimony at two hearings in the last week over bills aiming to regulate intoxicating hemp products that get people high the same as marijuana.

Currently there’s no state or federal law saying teenagers or children can’t buy products, such as delta-8 drinks, or that stores can’t sell them to minors—though some stores and vendors have taken it upon themselves to impose age restrictions of 21 and up.

And there’s no requirement to list potential effects on the label or test how much THC is actually in them.

“There’s zero reason why these THC products should not be treated like any other THC product in our state,” said state Sen. Nick Schroer, a Republican from Defiance, during a Monday Senate committee hearing.

The legislation’s proponents and opponents both agree the state should regulate the existing “Wild West” market for intoxicating hemp products.

The debate, however, is over whether the agency that oversees the state’s marijuana program, the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS), should regulate these hemp products.

If DHSS is put in charge, the products would have to be sold at DHSS-licensed dispensaries.

That’s what is proposed in legislation sponsored by Schroer and in the House filed by state Rep. Chad Perkins, a Bowling Green Republican.

“Similar to alcohol, one regulatory body covers all intoxicating liquors and alcohol, such as beer, bourbon, wine, moonshine, brandy and even hooch,” said Schroer, who chairs the legislative committee that oversees Missouri’s marijuana rules.

Opponents contend restricting hemp-derived THC products to be sold at the dispensaries would allow the “marijuana monopoly” to take over the market, given the limited number of licenses for dispensaries available.

They argue there should be a separate regulating system in place for intoxicating hemp products that would allow them to continue to be sold in gas stations and liquor stores.

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Missouri Courts Ask For $3.7 Million To Continue Expunging Past Marijuana Convictions

Missouri circuit courts have cleared more than 100,000 marijuana charges from people’s criminal records so far—a mandate that was a big selling point for those who voted to pass the constitutional amendment that legalized recreational marijuana in 2022.

However, court officials say it’s hard to determine how many more charges are left because many court records are not digitized.

Missouri court officials are set to request another $3.7 million to complete marijuana expungements in the coming budget year, making their case Wednesday to a House appropriations committee.

By law, any revenue the state collects from taxes on recreational marijuana sales, along with fees the businesses pay, must first go towards the state’s costs of regulating the program. Then it goes to expenses incurred by the court system for expunging certain marijuana offenses from people’s criminal records.

Last year lawmakers signed off on $4.5 million for state courts to pay their employees overtime or to hire temp workers to complete the massive number of expungements required by law. They approved an additional $2.5 million in a supplemental budget on May 5.

Circuit courts must request funds to reimburse their expenses for completing expungements from the Circuit Court Budget Committee, which oversees the special assistance program.

So far, the committee has given $4.2 million to the county courts, said Beth Riggert, communications counsel of the Missouri Supreme Court. And the committee has allocated the funds to any circuit court that has requested it, she said.

“Some circuit courts have advised they have not requested special assistance funds because they did not have current court clerks willing or able to work overtime,” Riggert said, “and/or have been unable to find qualified individuals to provide special assistance because the analysis required is complicated and better done by experienced personnel, such as retired clerks.”

As of January 2, Missouri courts have granted 103,558 expungements. Out of all the counties, Greene County has received the most funding, nearly $940,000, and has completed the most expungements at 4,306.

After Greene, the counties that have completed the most expungements are not necessarily the largest counties or the ones that have received the most money.

The second highest number is 3,515 from Laclede County, which has a population of 36,000. The county has received a little more than $35,000 from the special assistance program.

In third place is St. Louis County, the state’s largest county with more than a million people, where court officials have processed 3,479 expungements. The county has received just over $135,000. The court has reviewed 11,300 files, a spokesman for the 21st Circuit Court said.

Franklin County, which has a population of 104,000, is fourth, completing 3,200 expungements and receiving about $53,000. Franklin is just ahead of Jackson County, which has a population of 717,000. Jackson has completed 2,900 and received nearly $195,000.

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CRIME SCENE DNA DIDN’T MATCH MARCELLUS WILLIAMS. MISSOURI MAY FAST-TRACK HIS EXECUTION ANYWAY.

FELICIA ANNE GAYLE PICUS was found dead in her home, the victim of a vicious murder that devastated her family and rattled her neighbors in the gated community of University City, Missouri, just outside St. Louis. Police suspected a burglary gone wrong. The scene was replete with forensic evidence: There were bloody footprints and fingerprints, and the murder weapon — a kitchen knife used to stab Picus — was left lodged in her neck.

That detail caught the medical examiner’s attention. Weeks earlier, another woman had been stabbed to death just a couple of miles away, and the weapon was left in the victim’s body. Days after Picus’s murder, the University City police chief told the St. Louis Post-Dispatch that investigators had identified a “prime suspect,” someone they said had been spotted in the area “in recent weeks,” whom they believed had killed before.

But whatever became of that lead is unclear. After Picus’s family posted a $10,000 reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of her killer, a jailhouse informant named Henry Cole came forward with a story about how his former cellmate, Marcellus Williams, had confessed to murdering Picus. Soon, police secured a second informant: Laura Asaro, Williams’s former girlfriend, also told the cops that Williams was responsible for the killing. There were reasons to be wary of their stories. Both informants were facing prison time for unrelated crimes and stood to benefit. Many of the details they offered shifted over the course of questioning, while others did not match the crime. Nonetheless, Williams was charged with Picus’s murder, convicted, and sentenced to death.

Questions about the investigation and Williams’s guilt have only mounted in the years since the August 1998 crime. DNA testing on the murder weapon done years after his conviction revealed a partial male profile that could not have come from Williams. On the eve of Williams’s scheduled execution in 2017, then-Missouri Gov. Eric Greitens intervened. He issued an executive order that triggered a rarely used provision of Missouri law, empaneling a board to review the evidence, including DNA, that jurors never heard about at trial.

While that review was ongoing for most of the last six years, the board never submitted a final report or recommendation to the governor, as the law requires. Instead, last June, Gov. Mike Parson announced that he was rescinding his predecessor’s order, effectively dissolving the panel that had been reinvestigating the case.

The question now is whether Missouri law allows the governor to simply disappear an ongoing investigation. Because the law has so rarely been used, its contours have never been fully litigated, prompting the Midwest Innocence Project, which represents Williams, to file a civil lawsuit seeking to invalidate Parson’s order. The state’s attorney general balked, arguing that Williams was trying to usurp the governor’s independent clemency powers. The AG has asked the Missouri Supreme Court to toss the lawsuit — and clear the way for Williams’s execution.

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Missouri Bills Would Regulate Hemp-Derived Delta-8 THC Like Marijuana

A Republican state senator has filed legislation to renew last spring’s failed effort to regulate intoxicating hemp products in Missouri, such as Delta-8 drinks and edibles.

Delta-8 THC products can be sold in stores in Missouri because the intoxicating ingredient, THC, is derived from hemp, not marijuana which is a controlled substance. And hemp is federally legal.

There’s no state or federal law saying teenagers or children can’t buy them or stores can’t sell them to minors—though some stores and vendors have taken it upon themselves to impose age restrictions of 21 and up.

And there’s no requirement to list potential effects on the label or test how much THC is actually in them.

State Sen. Nick Schroer, a Republican from O’Fallon who chairs the legislative committee that oversees Missouri’s marijuana rules, said the products are too easily accessible to children, particularly teenagers.

“I’ve had constituents reaching out to me saying that their kids had been hospitalized,” Schroer said.

Schroer’s bill would task the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) with regulating these products, as the agency currently does for the state’s marijuana program. And products would have to be sold at DHSS-licensed dispensaries. State Rep. Chad Perkins, a Bowling Green Republican, has filed a companion bill in the House.

DHSS spokeswoman Lisa Cox said the department does not take positions on proposed bills.

“However,” she said, “we do acknowledge the potential and ongoing public health impact of unregulated THC products.”

Over the past few years, Cox said there’s has been an increase in children going to the hospital for cannabis exposure.

“The department has increased its emphasis on regulatory mechanisms that protect health and children in order to minimize any contribution of the regulated cannabis market to such incidents,” she said. “As of right now, there is no such protective framework for unregulated THC products.”

Sean Hackman, president of the Missouri Hemp Trade Association, said his organization advocates for measures such as prohibiting sales to minors and mandating clear user instructions and rigorous product testing.

“While any overdose report, especially those involving minors, is deeply concerning, this does not constitute a public health emergency but rather an opportunity for improved regulation,” Hackman said in an email to The Independent in response to the legislation.

The association opposes tasking the department with regulating the products and requiring them to be sold in dispensaries.

A similar bill filed by Republican state Rep. Kurtis Gregory of Marshall got stuck in committee during the last legislative session.

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Missouri GOP Lawmakers File Bills To Legalize Psilocybin Therapy And Fund Clinical Trials For 2024 Session

Missouri Republican lawmakers have pre-filed a pair of bills to legalize the medical use of psilocybin and require clinical trials exploring the therapeutic potential of the psychedelic.

Sen. Holly Thompson Rehder (R) and Rep. Aaron McMullen (R) introduced similar versions of the legislation for the 2024 session, setting the stage for further consideration of psychedelics reform in the Show-Me State.

Under both proposals, adults 21 or older who are diagnosed with a qualifying condition such as post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) or substance misuse disorder could legally access laboratory-tested psilocybin. They also would need to be enrolled, or sought enrollment, in a Department of Health and Senior Services (DHSS) clinical trial involving the psychedelic.

The Senate version mirrors a separate House bill that advanced to the floor this year but was not ultimately enacted.

There are also numerous requirements for patients to provide DHSS with information about their diagnosis, the person who would be administering psilocybin and other details on the place and time of the treatment sessions.

Psilocybin could only be administered over a maximum of a one-year period, with the amount of the psychedelic used in that treatment capped at 150 milligrams, though qualifying patients could be also approved to continue for subsequent one-year periods.

Regulators, physicians and state agency officials would all be protected from legal consequences related to activity made lawful under the legislation.

Also, the legislation calls for DHSS to provide $2 million in grants to support “research on the use and efficacy of psilocybin.”

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Missouri NAACP Threatens Lawsuit To Stop Marijuana Social Equity Arrangements That ‘Defraud’ The State

James Harnden has been a longtime activist for cannabis legalization, ever since he got slapped with a low-level felony possession charge for having an ounce of weed.

The 56-year-old Rockford, Illinois, resident says that charge has cost him job opportunities for 30 years.

Earlier this year, he saw an advertisement in the Craigslist “gigs” section posted by a Michigan cannabis real estate group called Canna Zoned MLS. It was looking for “partners who qualify as a social equity applicant” to participate in Illinois’s lottery to award cannabis business licenses that are, in part, meant to benefit people impacted by marijuana criminalization.

“I spent most of my life applying for jobs and not getting them,” Harnden said. “So I’m like, ‘Okay, so maybe one of these licenses will swing my way.’”

The Craigslist ad read: “If you are eligible and provide the required documentation, we will give you $2,000, just for helping us submit the lottery application! If we win the lottery and secure a license, we will give you an additional $20,000!”

Harnden says what he didn’t realize was that he signed a contract agreeing to hold 100 percent ownership interest on the application, but that he wouldn’t get revenue or profits from the business. After the business passed through all the state and municipal approvals, the contract stated that Harnden would be required to sell his share of the business for $1 to the group or be held in breach of contract.

The contract also authorized the group to enter Harnden’s information into lotteries for social equity cannabis licenses in other states—and that’s how Harden says he got paid $500 to be part of the lottery for Missouri’s microbusiness license program.

Harnden was eligible to apply in Missouri because of his marijuana charge, which is among seven eligibility categories that also includes living in census tracts with high poverty and unemployment rates. Canna Zoned’s Jeffrey Yatooma is listed as the “authorized agent” on the contract Harnden provided to The Independent, leaving a space for his signature at the bottom.

Yatooma secured two of the 16 social equity cannabis licenses—in Columbia and Arnold—issued earlier this month, according to information obtained by The Independent through a public records request. Those records show Yatooma is listed as the “designated contact” for 104 out of the 1,048 applications for dispensary licenses in Missouri’s lottery.

Yatooma’s group was not the only one using the strategy of flooding Missouri’s lottery with applications to obtain a dispensary license. An Arizona-based consulting firm is connected to more than 400 dispensary applicants, including six winners, and a Missouri firm is connected to more than 80 applicants and two winners. Both said their clients did not advertise or promise payment for submitting applications.

In at least three states holding lotteries for social equity cannabis licenses this year—Illinois, Maryland and Missouri—Yatooma’s group has offered to pay eligible people up to $2,000 to apply on their behalf and $20,000 more if they won.

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Fentanyl’s littlest victims: Dozens of babies, toddlers die in Missouri and Kansas

The boy’s tiny lifeless body lay on a bed last year inside a home along The Paseo. When Kansas City police officers found 2-year-old Cillian Miller in August 2022, he was wearing only a green T-shirt and was naked from the waist down. Most of his body was covered in a blanket except his feet, which were already discolored, court records show. Strewn throughout the home were new and used syringes, glass pipes and “multiple strips of foil with apparent burnt residue.” One pipe was left underneath a partially eaten McDonald’s cheeseburger on the dining room table. And somewhere inside that home, the child came across fentanyl. Tests would later show the little boy was yet another victim of the drug ravaging the nation and taking hundreds of lives in the Kansas City area. In KC, and across both Missouri and Kansas, dozens of little children have died from the illicit drug in the past three years, The Star has found in an ongoing investigation into the toll fentanyl has taken on our community. This report on our youngest victims launches an extensive project that will include community outreach and stories about the broader impact of fentanyl on the Kansas City area and the challenges of policing the problem. Unlike other drug crises, including crack, these children aren’t suffering from debilitating addictions because their parents were using; they are dying of actual fentanyl overdoses. The babies and toddlers — ages 4 and under — have come across the synthetic opioid and its residue in their homes, inside hotel rooms and even at a city park. Their deaths have largely gone unnoticed, ending up as statistics inside annual state reports on child deaths or in records kept by county medical examiners. Most of the attention on fentanyl has focused on teens or young adults and the awareness that “one pill can kill.”

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