The passage of Amendment 2 at the poles on November 6, 2018 has officially amended the Missouri constitution placing Article XVI into Missouri law.
This historic win for cannabis activists in Missouri has created a shift in how marijuana cases are handled by some prosecutors. Jackson County Prosecutor Jean Peters Baker (photo) in Kansas City said that her office will stop prosecuting most marijuana possession cases. “That mandate from voters is directing this shift in our office,” said Peters Baker. “This changing attitude toward marijuana is something we have been seeing anecdotally from our juries for some time,” reported by Tony Rizzo and Glenn E. Rice of the Kansas City Star.
Once an ardent prohibitionist who joined other prosecutors to file a lawsuit against NAM’s medical marijuana initiative in 2016, Peters Baker follows St. Louis Prosecutor Kim Gardner’s lead in not prosecuting low-level marijuana possession cases. Newly elected Wesley Bell, St. Louis County’s incoming Prosecutor, will also join this growing list of prosecutors refusing to charge low-weight marijuana cases that do not involve other violent crime.
While these enforcement policy developments are a direct result of passage of Amendment 2 and the public’s changing attitude towards marijuana, prosecutors in Clay and Platte counties said they had no plans to change their marijuana prosecution policies.
“The state of Missouri tells me what is legal and what’s not legal and my job is to enforce it,” said Clay County Prosecutor Daniel White. “And we’re going to handle what the police departments bring us and the state of Missouri says is a crime.”
The Platte County Prosecutor Eric Zahnd proclaimed “possession of marijuana is illegal in Missouri today, and, in Platte County, we will continue to enforce the laws as enacted by the legislature or the state’s voters.”
Apparently, many public officials in Missouri still don’t realize that two-thirds of voters in Missouri voted against marijuana prohibition by allowing medical usage. Amendment 2 has opened the door to the possibility that Missouri could put an end to all marijuana prohibition through future citizen initiative.
Greater St. Louis NORML and NORML chapters across the state will continue fighting to end cannabis prohibition in the Show-Me state.