Medical marijuana supporters hold rally calling for special session

All right, Y’all. My name is J. B. Like Jonathan Brown. Well, I’m so glad to see everyone out here today and we know you know, we’re having fun out here. Thank you guys. Uh, but cannabis isn’t all just about getting stoned. We’re out here for medical cannabis today. We’re talking about patients who are suffering from debilitating medical conditions, that cannabis is the only thing that treats their symptoms. You know, they’ve tried everything else under the stars. And and it turns out that God made a plant that works just fine. So we’re out here for all of the patients who can’t be here today, for those who are laid up at home, who aren’t able to make it out to Jackson, for those who are dealing with those debilitating medical conditions. This is for you all. This isn’t just so we’re gonna be out here and make our voices heard and make a big show that’s all well and good. But we have to institute a medical marijuana program in this state that helps the patients. Um On that note, we were supposed to have The filer of Initiative 65. Our initial petitioner Ashley duval come speak with us. Unfortunately, she couldn’t make it because her little girl Harper Grace is dealing with some seizures this morning. And harper Grace is the reason that medical cannabis got even got started in this state. She is the reason that we have got this ball rolling in the first place. And so just to, to start this off, I’m just gonna ask everybody um whether it’s in remembrance of harper Grace or or whoever your loved one is, that’s at home, that’s suffering that needs medical cannabis. Um let’s have a moment of silence for those people right now. Want to are you once the red? No, guys, people said amen. All right, y’all. We’ve got a great program of speakers for you today. Um First up to the stage, a gentleman who has really taken the ball and run with it in the last week since we’ve had the Supreme Court hand down this horrible decision. Uh, Mr Donnie Collins has been here every step of the way to help build this movement and I believe he’s here in the building right now. Everybody, please give it up for the founder of we are the 74 mr Danny Collins. Yeah, Thank. All right. Hey, hey, how you doing? We are we are we are all right. So listen, here’s the deal. Um, I did this because of my wife. Okay. I’m just gonna put it out there. We’re just gonna jump right in. Um My wife has autoimmune disorder. She’s got chronic migraines. I’m a disabled vet, I’ve got spine injuries to different pain disorders. Right? So we’ve been advocating for medicinal cannabis for quite some time. I had the privilege of meeting people um that put way more work and way more money into it than I did. And it just kind of pulled me along and said, let’s go. Right. So the Supreme Court, we were all sitting on pins and needles waiting on that decision. When that was over with, we were all tremendously let down. And so started having phone calls. What’s going on? What’s everybody doing? Everybody was so defeated. I’m talking about guys. I looked up to people that I’ve I’ve been asking for advice for months. All just defeated in bed, nauseated, can’t get out of bed sad. Well, little did they know I was a collegiate athlete and all I know is go, go, go. Right, so right, yeah let’s go. So anyway, I started making some phone calls and I said, look man, I’m seeing people on social media that are upset, but they’re all going out kind of in their in their own different direction. What if we could harness that energy? What if we could harness that passion and that contempt for our legislators just spitting in our face? What if? Right. Right. So, and then I thought, okay, so there’s people that are connected above me that no more than I do that pushed things in certain ways. What if I could get them to get into a zoom meeting with me and a couple other key people and we start to collaborate and come up with a plan on how to push back. Right? So if you watch the page we announced they were going to have a zoom meeting. Did you watch that? Okay, well let me tell you about that meeting. I won’t go into all of it top secret. Have to kill you. So, um, but let me tell you something. Do not lose hope. Do not be discouraged. Do not be downtrodden. There are things happening behind the scenes. Strong, strong, strong things. Okay? You hear me? I wouldn’t lie to you. I’m telling you. So, what we’re doing? I’m just, look, I’m just Donnie Collins man. My wife and I have a small to small businesses down south of Wiggins. Like we’re just, we’re about the people man. So that’s who I am. That’s right. That’s one of my guys right there. He came all the way up here. That being said, I have nothing to gain from this. We’ve been approached I think four times over the last seven days, because that’s really when this guy started with about seven days ago asking us to become a lobbying firm asking us to get into lobbying, you know what my answer is, We’re not going to be bought, We’re not going to be bought. We are, I don’t need your money. Okay? Right, so that’s right. It’s about 74% of the people being ignored. That’s exactly right. So that’s why we’re here, guys. We’re here for patients, man, y’all broke my heart and my wife’s heart and several other people’s hearts with the patient stories. Did you all see the patient stories? The kids and the women, and the husbands and the fathers and grandfathers and grandmothers just broken leaving our state to seek refuge so that they can get care. Right harper Grace, just last night had a severe seizure. She’s the reason we’re here in the first place. These are the people that were going to fight for, Right? Why? So that being said, look, I’m not gonna take up a whole lot of time. We got a lot of really good speaker is gonna come up. But I wanted to I just want to tell you my resolve is firm. No passion is secure. I will not back down. I will not slow down. And especially now that I see all these people rallying around, how can we stop? How can we stop? Right? So here’s a message to our legislators and I want to make this very clear, Okay, I am not anti legislation. I am not anti government. I am anti ignore your constituents. All right, We vote these people in there’s some really good guys and gals in our legislature. They’re phenomenal people in our Supreme Court, right? But there are some that need to go, right? So that’s where we are. That’s where I am. As we move forward, as we move forward, we are going to become more and more and more strategic. This is not just a facebook page. This is a movement we have. Did you see the, did you see the post that my wife put up asking for people to share their professions and their credentials? Did you all see that Doctors, psychologists, law enforcement officers, previous law enforcement officers, army vets, nurses. Right? There’s there’s a if you’re here, raise your hand, there’s someone that has a Well, I mean, hold on, I’m here too. But This person has 11 different degrees in like four or 5 certifications. Are you here? Incredible blew my mind. So my message to our governor is we’re not stoners. We’re doctors, were professionals, were business owners. That’s right. We’re law enforcement officers. Were school teachers, were parents, that’s who we are and they’re gonna find out. Right. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Donnie. Thank you. Thank you. All right, Shaw. Thank you again for being here. We are. The 74. Uh, if you have been slated to speak today, if you could go ahead and make your way over to the lovely green room, uh, this tent, this way, we’re gonna get this party rolling. Um First up on the stage, actually, I’d like to bring up Donnie was talking about medical professionals. Uh, and if we of course, we know there’s tons of medical research that’s been published on the issue of medical marijuana. But I want to bring up a physician. Dr David Allen. Uh, he’s an expert in the endocannabinoid system to say a few words on the science about medical cannabis. Thank you. Hi, y’all. My name is Dr David Alan. I’m a retired heart surgeon and I’m double boarded and general surgery and cardiovascular surgery. And I’m a member of the International cannabinoid Research Society, which means I’m gonna cannabinoid scientist. And I’m here to talk about the science of the endocannabinoid signalling system and a little bit about the politics of what happened. And so my opinion of what happened is the Supreme Court rendered an opinion And there was nine educated um judges and three of the judges dissented with decision, which means it wasn’t a unanimous decision. It was a decision that that some people objected to. And so there’s probably legal ground um to object to this decision. And I called uh Kyle Kirkpatrick, he’s the uh attorney that’s in charge of initiatives in the secretary of State’s office. And I asked him, well, how was the initiative process law set up? He says, well, it’s a constitutional amendment. And I said constitutional amendment, I said so constitutional law means no other law can be made that takes away the constitutional right because constitutional law is supreme law. And so any decision made by anybody that takes away constitutional rights is by definition unconstitutional. So and so nobody is mentioning this. But it’s the truth. And the other truth is cannabis is a medicine and it’s one of the most unique medicines on the planet. And God made this medicine. and God said in Romans 14 to some may eat all things, others who are weak eat herbs and Romans. 14 3 3 says let those that eat herbs not despise those that don’t and let those that don’t eat herbs, not judge those to do. So, it says in the bible it’s wrong for man’s law to judge people using this herb. And this is all about a science That was discovered about 35 years ago. It’s called the endocannabinoid signalling system and it’s a chemical communication system that your body has. That it works through these antenna that are on all the cells they’re called receptors. And so people are familiar with insulin binding onto insulin receptors. They’re these little protein in town and it causes glucose to go into cell. Well, likewise cannabinoids bind onto cannabinoid receptors and cause remarkable changes in the cell and it regulates what’s called homeostasis, which is the ability to stay away from death. And it’s the most amazing medicine on the face of the earth and will probably replace a large majority of the pharmaceutical agents that we currently use. And so I’m here trying to educate the people about this new science that is not taught in medical school. I did a study about six years ago. I called 157 medical schools in United States and we asked the directors of the curriculum if they were teaching the endocannabinoid sciences to the students. If they had a director with the department, if they taught it in organized courses or if they taught it any ancillary courses like Pharmacology, neuroscience or pathology. And the answer was only 13% of medical schools. The United States teach this new science. And so it’s kind of like doctors not knowing the nervous system or something. So this is a critical part of human physiology. And I want you to look up on the internet. CBD and cytokine. Storm CBD and septic shock. CBD and disseminated intravascular coagulation or D. I. C. And CBD and coronavirus. And you will see that there’s many studies all over the world that are studying and Reuters came out with a study that article that said CBD may be useful in the treatment and prevention of covid virus. So mm I wrote Initiative 77 which is now kind of on hold. But I’ve been told by the Secretary of State, I may start being able to gather signatures fairly soon. So this initiative 77 I invite you to join initiative 77 supporters on Facebook and see if we can change society because can’t if you don’t like cannabis, you’re not gonna like the future. Yeah, thank you. Thank you doctor. Thank you. You ought to know you’re gonna get a homework assignment right? Got some research to do y’all. There’s a lot to learn about this amazing plant, the cannabis plant in the way that it could heal the human body. Thank you doctor for sharing with us up next. I’ve got a very close friend of mine, a dear family friend. She was a picky you native. Um She has been teaching overseas for five years now but she just returned to her home state of Mississippi to take care of her father. This is Jasmine cochran. Thank you J. Bean again. My name is jasmine conquering. I’m from picking in Mississippi um Mississippi state bulldogs, he’ll stay rain track there several years ago um did a few things here in the U. S. And then went overseas to go and teach and recently found out that my father has been diagnosed with lung cancer and so I came back to help to take care of him And when I found out that this was happening today, rearrange my schedule a little bit because this is extremely important and I just have a couple of things I want to share but thank all y’all for coming out here on this hot Tuesday afternoon so that we can get this plant legalized. So Mississippi is the land of dichotomies. I think that we all know that Mississippi has produced some of the greatest names historically and contemporary, early in the history of our nation, Oprah Eudora, Welty, William, Faulkner, morgan Freeman, Jim Henson, James, Earl jones and Sam Cooke. Just to name a few plus, a lot of everyday heroes that we have a lot of out here today and nobody will ever know your name. But you are making a difference in people’s lives. So how is it that a state that has produced so much and not just an entertainment, but in education and in medicine and in science. How is it that we are always last in everything good? We are # 43 in education. We are number 40 for an opportunity. We are number 48 in infrastructure. We are number 49 in economy. And we are number 50 in health care. Mississippi is the nation’s sickest state and we have held that title since 1990. That’s a long time. I was only seven years old when we grab that title and we seem to want to hold onto it forever. But I don’t know why. If you look around today, you see all these dichotomies. We are black, We are white, We are of asian descent. We are of hispanic descent. We are native americans. We are a mixture of all of those things. We are agnostic. We are atheists, we are christian, we are hindu, we are Buddhists. We are nothing, we are gay, we are straight, we are lesbian, We are bisexual, We are trans. We are all these things existing in this state, in the deep south together we are down home people and we are world travelers. We are so different. But the thing that unites all of us out here today is love and not just any love but love for the sick among us. Because a lot of people out here today are sick. And if you’re not sick, you know somebody who’s sick and if you know somebody who is sick then you know somebody who can benefit from this plant. And when we talk about these numbers so often as we saw with Covid 19. It’s just numbers. It’s just numbers. It is just numbers. Until one of those numbers is your mom or one of those numbers is your dad or your kid. Somebody laying on your couch struggling for every breath To us. These people are not just numbers to us, these people are family. And when we voted for initiative 65 in November we voted for our families and we voted for ourselves, I personally voted for my mother Who has been struggling with fibromyalgia for 20 years. A woman who has given her entire life for her family, who has not had a good night’s sleep in over 20 years. Fibromyalgia is hell And the doctors cannot figure it out and they just give you a cocktail of medicines and hope that one of them works and then they say just get a good night’s sleep and my mom says, but I’m in too much pain to sleep and they say, well if you don’t sleep you’ll be in more pain and on and on. It goes for 20 plus years. My mom has struggled with this and I have watched her and she has said to me, I hurt every single day, A bad day for me is a good day for my mom. And not only her, but two months ago, my mom sent me a message because I was in ASia teaching grading papers, like teachers do all night long and I’m in ASia grading papers and I checked my messages, hey call me and my heart sunk has already knew because the only thing that my family dies of is cancer. So I called her, I said, what’s going on mama? She said your daddy was at a doctor’s appointment, They were checking for something else. They found a spot on his lung. I said I’m coming home. My dad was recently diagnosed with stage three squadrons lung cancer. I am watching my hero, a mountain of a man struggle every day to get from POINT A to POINT B. This man still holds records in sports and picking you in Mississippi from the sixties and the seventies. This man is a superhero and every day I’m watching him struggle for his dignity and we could give it to him with a plant when I voted in november and I vote very differently from a lot of Mississippians because we see life just a little bit differently. But we all came together on this initiative to vote for it. I voted for my mom, I voted for my dad. We were thrilled and not just us, but everybody out here who voted for somebody with epilepsy, fibromyalgia, LS, cancer, anxiety and a host of other illnesses that we could fight with a plant. So imagine our collective grief when it was overturned. Like our fellow Mississippian Fannie Lou Hamer, 50 years 57 years later, we are still sick and tired. We are sick with a host of illnesses and tired of a government who couldn’t care less about what we want. And in Mississippi I have heard this mantra my entire life. If you don’t like the way things are you can leave. But that is so intellectually lazy elitists and un american because our constitution says if you don’t like it change it and the way we change it is that the polls and that is what we did, 74% of us who are different from each other. We voted I voted from China, yes China and rallied a whole bunch of other people, democrats and republicans. We worked our butts off so that people who are american all over this globe will be able to vote and their mississippians all over the place. And we voted for this initiative. So imagine our collective grief when they took it away from us. When we did what we were told we could do with our constitution. You will be hard pressed to find a more divided state. But we all came together for this because we share the belief that there is an easier, smarter healthier way than endless opiates. So what we want to know from the people who voted for you, those in positions, who refused to hear us, What we want to know is why what has such a hold on you that you refuse to acknowledge our vote? The very thing that unites us as americans. And where else does this lead? What I find so ironic is that this country is so quick to demonize other governments and then turn right around and do exactly what you demonize other people for doing. It doesn’t make sense. And I read in the paper and somebody, one of our leaders said it’s unconstitutional due to a loophole beyond our control. My question is, if it’s not in your control, whose control as it is, why are we voting for you and why did you not fix the problem before it made it to the ballot? If there are any teachers out here who have ever led a student council at a high school, at a middle school, at an elementary school, you know that if you are in that position, whenever the kids bring a petition to you, your job is to check it and if there’s a if there’s something wrong, you send them back to fix it before it goes before the constituency and you didn’t even do that. Our country suffers from a lack of trust. You think that we don’t want a government that we can trust. We absolutely do. We want to be able to vote for people who can handle our business that we ask you to handle while we go to work, while we take care of our kids, while we take care of our sick family members. But you keep giving us a reason to not trust you. And then when we push back, you say that we are to blame. So here’s our request. You can either follow the constitution that you swore to uphold or stop using it for marketing, quit, lying to us, quit saying that you’re going to do one thing and then you turn right around and slap us in the face and do the opposite thing. Because our family’s lives are at stake. I asked earlier, how is the state with so much promise? Always last? How are we always last? Well, the real question is how much of that has to do with our leadership. And if there is no special session, I hope that once again, the 74 and more than the 74 will come together next time, it’s time to vote and invite you to leave. Thank you. Mhm

Medical marijuana supporters hold rally calling for special session

Mississippi Supreme Court throws out Initiative 65

Updated: 12:50 PM CDT May 25, 2021

Organizers of a voters rights rally called on the governor to call a special session after the Mississippi Supreme Court tossed a medical marijuana initiative approved by voters. The ruling on Initiative 65 puts a hold on medical marijuana in the state. It also brought the entire ballot initiative process into question. In November 2020, Mississippi passed Initiative 65 with 74% of voters casting their ballot in favor of the measure. State lawmakers on both sides of the aisle believe the ballot initiative process should be upgraded.

JACKSON, Miss. —

Organizers of a voters rights rally called on the governor to call a special session after the Mississippi Supreme Court tossed a medical marijuana initiative approved by voters.

The ruling on Initiative 65 puts a hold on medical marijuana in the state. It also brought the entire ballot initiative process into question.

In November 2020, Mississippi passed Initiative 65 with 74% of voters casting their ballot in favor of the measure.

State lawmakers on both sides of the aisle believe the ballot initiative process should be upgraded.