Missouri is preparing to open up an unlimited number of licenses to allow for marijuana research in the state.
The Missouri Division of Cannabis Regulation has filed proposed rules with the Secretary of State that describe what a research licensee would be authorized to do and outlines the application requirements and process for a marijuana research license.
“Ultimately, it’s just exciting to make progress on marijuana research because we know that that’s been historically difficult,” said Rieka Yu, policy director for the division, which is housed within the Missouri Department of Health and Senior Services.
The proposed rules will be published in the May 1 issue of the Missouri Register on the Secretary of State’s website, and the public will be able to provide feedback until May 31.
When voters approved recreational marijuana in 2022, the constitutional amendment allowed the state to establish licenses to “facilitate scientific research or education.”
The language leaves the door open for many research possibilities, said Amy Moore, the division’s director.
“We’re all very interested in any research on cannabis and safety or its impact on the human body,” Moore said. “Certainly as a public health agency, we’re interested in health research, but it’s not limited to that. So it’ll be interesting to see what people want to propose once we get this established.”
Yu is also interested in research on cultivation. New York passed marijuana rules to allow for research in 2023, and the state has approved studies to look at things like how to protect plants from viruses and how different light impacts plant growth.
While the 2022 constitutional amendment allowed for research licenses, Missouri must pass administrative rules to get them off the ground.
That process began in August, when the division published a draft of the rules, along with a host of others, asking for informal public feedback.
Starting in May, the division will ask for another round of public feedback, in order to file the final version of rules for formal rulemaking this summer. From there, it will take about eight months to get through a legislative review and final publication of the rules.
A national study last year found that 17 out of 38 states that have passed either medical or adult-use laws have legislation outlining a funding mechanism for cannabis research. Missouri is not among them.
Of the 17 states that have legislation directing funding to research, the study found that 12 have allocated funding.
Moore said the division had the option of creating limits or priorities in subject matter for the research studies, but without funding, it may be challenging to attract interest in the licenses.
“Letting people decide right now seems advisable, since we’re just not seeing a lot of uptake in other states,” Moore said. “There’s just a lot of challenges still to getting this done.”
