Missouri votes to legalize recreational weed for adults with passage of Amendment 3

Adults 21 and over will soon be able to head to their local Missouri weed dispensary and buy recreational marijuana gummies, joints and other products, as voters approved Amendment 3 according to unofficial election results.

Voters across the Show-Me State voted to legalize adult recreational marijuana use through the state constitution, which makes Missouri one of 20 states to legalize and tax the drug.

The Associated Press called the race early Wednesday morning. As of 1:50 a.m., the constitutional amendment received 53.1% of votes in favor and 46.9% votes against after 88% of precincts in the state reported.

The amendment won’t officially go into effect until Dec. 8. So, none of the provisions will be in place until next month.

“This is going to be extraordinary for Missouri,” said Justice Gatson, founder of Reale Justice Network, a Kansas City grassroots organization dedicated to social justice reform that pushed for the amendment. “So many people are going to be helped by this.”

The vote stands as a major win for the state’s established medical marijuana industry. It will legalize recreational marijuana for adults over the age of 21 and create a licensing system for businesses who wish to sell or grow marijuana. It also allows for people with past non-violent weed charges to have their criminal records expunged.

The very earliest that Missourians will be able to buy marijuana products recreationally is Feb. 6, 2023.

The ballot measure was led by the architects of the successful 2018 campaign to legalize medical marijuana and was backed by many of the current players in the industry.

“This enormous step forward for criminal justice reform will result in hundreds of thousands of Missourians having their records cleared, at no cost to them, for an activity that is now legal,” John Payne, campaign director for Legal Missouri 2022 wrote in a victory statement.

“We made history tonight. The very first state in the country that will automatically expunge past criminal offenses by a vote of the people. And not only were we the first to do it, we won’t be the last,” said Jack Cardetti, a strategist that worked on the Amendment 3 campaign.

Tuesday’s vote showed that fierce resistance to the amendment over how the marijuana licenses would be rolled out was not enough to sway voters.

“Let’s start at legal. And if there’s something that needs to be done, to make it stronger, to make it better, at least we’ve started at legal,” Gatson said.

In the lead-up to Tuesday, the amendment divided legalization advocates and progressive-leaning groups, who argued it did not go far enough to address historic harms of marijuana criminalization. The movement against it included groups such as Pro-Choice Missouri and the Missouri NAACP.

Some also raised concerns that the amendment enshrines a monopoly market into the Missouri Constitution, giving established medical marijuana companies an unfair advantage at getting licenses to sell and grow marijuana over small business owners from marginalized communities.

“I hope that the Missouri legislature takes action to remedy remedy these grossly unfair and unjust ideas,” said Eapen Thampy, Jefferson City-based lobbyist and founder of Great State Strategies who opposed the amendment.

But supporters contended that the amendment was one of the state’s best chances to legalize marijuana after an effort in the Missouri General Assembly failed this spring. Republicans in Jefferson City have been eyeing major changes to how constitutional amendments get onto the ballot, which may have made it harder to get marijuana legalization to a future statewide vote.

Kansas City Mayor Quinton Lucas, who endorsed the amendment, told The Star prior to the vote that he looked forward to the end of marijuana criminalization. He said he didn’t want to see a 20-year-old arrested for possession, and the concerns related to the roll out of the industry could be fixed later.

“I don’t want us to continue to criminalize their behavior — I think this amendment gives us a real chance to do that,” he said. “I think the licensing issues — and I have no faith in the legislature to actually even get them right if given a whole session — I think the licensing issues are something that we can fix later.”

The new marijuana industry is expected to provide a major boon to Missouri businesses. Not only will it make it easier for residents to buy weed, but the market is expected to draw customers from bordering states like Kansas, where marijuana remains strictly outlawed.

The Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services will now oversee the state’s new industry and is tasked with awarding recreational licenses to established medical marijuana facilities. Those established businesses will be allowed to start selling recreational marijuana immediately once they get a license, which could be as early as Feb. 6.

By the end of 2023, the state will also start awarding smaller “micro-licenses” to business owners seeking to break into the industry. These smaller licenses, which are more restrictive than full licenses, will be evenly distributed across the state’s eight congressional districts.

“We know we had a little mistake as we allocated those licenses for medical marijuana and we tried to make some changes with this [amendment] so we can have more people that are able to get into the entrepreneurial spirit,” State Senator Barbara Washington said at Legal Missouri 2022’s election night watch party on Tuesday.

Sales of recreational marijuana will be taxed at 6%. Missouri officials estimate the industry will cost the state roughly $5.5 million each year and bring in at least $40.8 million in revenue annually. It’s expected to cost local governments at least $35,000 each year and bring in at least $13.8 million in revenue annually.

Legal Missouri 2022 has said the extra money generated from marijuana will cover programming costs. Remaining funds would be reserved for veterans’ services, drug addiction treatment and the state’s public defender system, the group said.

“[Legalization] might put the corner boy out of business,” Washington said. “But what it will do is give us money so that we can improve our education in Missouri, improve our roads in Missouri, improve broadband in Missouri and the other things that we need to improve this state.”

Amendment supporters on Tuesday also hailed Tuesday’s vote as a win for those previously charged with marijuana crimes. A report released by the ACLU in 2020 that examined marijuana-related arrests in Missouri between 2010 and 2018 found that Black people were 2.6 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession in Missouri than white people. In 2018, half of all drug arrests in Missouri were for marijuana, it said.

Under the amendment, people charged with nonviolent offenses will be able to have their criminal records automatically expunged. Previous state law required those convicted of marijuana offenses to file a petition with the courts.

Gatson, of the Reale Justice Network, said she works everyday with people who will benefit from the amendment’s expungement clause.

“That expungement is something serious,” Gatson said. “I know people who need this right now, people who are sitting at home, and they are intelligent, and they are brilliant, and they are everything that they need to be except society has said that they are less than because they got this on their record.”

The expungement provision does not apply to violent offenders or people whose offenses involved distribution to a minor or driving under the influence of marijuana.