All participants of Mississippi’s cannabis industry should take notice of an opinion the Mississippi Attorney General’s Office published on June 11, 2025. The opinion answered three questions Mississippi Rep. Lee Yancey presented: (1) Is the sale of non-FDA approved hemp-derived products designed for human ingestion and/or consumption prohibited in Mississippi; (2) is the possession of non-FDA approved hemp-derived products designed for human ingestion and/or consumption prohibited in Mississippi; and (3) if the answer to the first two questions is yes, are municipalities authorized to enact rules and regulations that prohibit or penalize the sale and/or possession of the same?

The attorney general, relying on Mississippi’s Uniform Controlled Substances Law (MSCSL), answered the first two questions in the affirmative, concluding that the terms of the MSCSL prohibited the sale and possession of such products unless they were being sold or possessed pursuant to the provisions of Mississippi’s medical cannabis laws and regulations. The opinion, however, notes its limitations by acknowledging that components of the analysis are controlled by federal law: “[A] complete response to [Yancey’s] request is outside the scope of an official opinion.”

The opinion focuses on two exemptions to the MSCSL’s prohibition of THC but recognizes a third. THC, the psychoactive ingredient in cannabis, is illegal under the terms of the MSCSL, however, several exemptions to this prohibition exist. Two of these exemptions, forming the basis of the AG’s opinion, make an allowance for hemp products that have been approved for human ingestion and/or consumption by the FDA or products possessed or sold under Mississippi’s medical cannabis laws. The third exemption (mentioned briefly in the opinion) exempts “hemp,” as defined and regulated under the Mississippi Hemp Cultivation Act (MHCA), from the MSCSL. The MHCA defines hemp in a manner similar to the 2018 Farm Bill, stating that hemp includes all derivatives, extracts and isomers. While many have interpreted the third exemption as allowing the sale and possession of hemp as long as it meets the MHCA’s definition (an interpretation adopted across the country under the Farm Bill’s same definition of hemp), the Attorney General’s Office appears to take a different stance.

In a footnote, the attorney general seems to suggest that since the MHCA has not been fully implemented, the exemption referencing the act may not apply. This positioning points towards the attorney general’s stance being that unless a hemp product is approved for human consumption by the FDA or handled pursuant to Mississippi’s medical cannabis laws, its sale and possession are prohibited by the MSCSL – regardless of what the hemp cultivation act says. That said, the opinion reiterates that because the cultivation of hemp in Mississippi “is legalized, licensed, and controlled by federal law [and] this office cannot opine on questions of federal law [,]… to the extent federal law controls the issues presented in your request, a complete response is outside the scope of an official opinion.”

The opinion, while briefly referencing the MHCA, does not explain additional exemptions to the definitions of both THC and marijuana under the MSCSL for hemp. Again, the opinion generally acknowledges that hemp, as defined in the MHCA and 2018 Farm Bill, is not controlled under MSCSL. But because such analysis is, at least in part, controlled by federal law, the opinion ends its discussion with just these acknowledgments.

While the AG’s opinions are not considered binding precedent, this opinion undoubtedly garnered the attention of Mississippi’s consumable hemp industry and medical cannabis industry alike and rightly so. There’s also little doubt that the opinion will be used as support next legislative session when yet another hemp bill is introduced.

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In our Women in Grow: Leadership in Cannabis Genetics and Cultivation supplement, Cannabis Science and Technology interviewed researcher and educator Anna Schwabe, PhD, Associate Lecture Professor at the University of Colorado and Chief Operating Officer of CannaGen, an online cannabis genetic marketplace for licensed breeders, nurseries, and cultivators.

In this video clip, Dr. Schwabe shares details from various studies comparing cannabis DNA from various sample of strains and the impact in the industry. One study aimed to see if the different genetics each smelled different.

Check out our interactive supplement to read the full expert interviews, including an interview with hemp specialist Daniela Vergara, PhD.

Transcription

Sebastian Krawiec, Managing Editor of Cannabis Science and Technology: What did you find once you started exploring the DNA of the cannabis plant?

Anna Schwabe: So that’s a really good question. I started with the “is Blue Dream, Blue Dream everywhere you go?” question. And that led into another project, which led into another project, and it all just like snowballed. But is Blue Dream Blue Dream, no matter where you purchase it? I got in my car, drove around multiple states – there were three states that I covered – buying at dispensaries. I didn’t tell them who I was, I didn’t tell them I’m a researcher, I didn’t tell them I’m going to be doing genetic testing on your consumable cannabis flower that I’m purchasing, and I ended up with 122 samples that spanned 30 different strains. Some strains had nine or 10 samples, other strains just had two. But really, the question that I was asking is, “are they identical? Are they genetically identical or highly similar genetically within strains?” So, if I have eight samples of Blue Dream from different places, do they all look the same genetically? And the answer generally is no. Blue Dream was one of the better ones. There were, I think, seven that were genetically pretty much identical, but there was one that was completely different. And that was true for 27 of the 30 strains that I had. The three that were genetically cohesive, there was only two or three samples in those three strains. So if you expanded that out, I would assume that we’d find things that didn’t belong. It was really just “one of these things is not like the other,” and sometimes they were all different from each other. It just depended on the strength, like Girl Scout Cookies was all over the place.

After I did that, I had an undergraduate student approached me, and he was a double major chemistry and biology. He was working in the chemistry lab on THC and CBD, but he also wanted to do some biology stuff, some genetic stuff. So I devised a project for him where we had a bunch of samples that didn’t go into that genetic identity study. And I was like, well, let’s just see what we’ve got, because we’ve got some wild cultivated, what we assume to be hemp. We’ve got some cultivated hemp. We’ve got some CBD dominant stuff. We’ve got indica, hybrid, sativa. And then we had these two samples from the University of Mississippi, which had been provided under their research program, called “research grade marijuana,” and we just wanted to see where that that fit in the genetic spectrum of cannabis. And so the undergraduate, he did all the work for that. He did all the DNA extractions, he helped with analyzing the data, he even helped with making figures and things like that, and then we did publish that. So kudos to Connor, because that was a super fun project and really exciting for an undergrad to do, right? It’s out there to read, but basically, we found that the University of Mississippi was providing material that really isn’t close to anything you can find on the retail marijuana side, which was an interesting thing to find.

Then we wanted to know, so when we know that there is something that’s genetically not the same as other things, like, if we had five Blue Dreams and one of them was genetically different, would it also smell different? Would people be able to pick up on that, or do they all smell the same? So maybe that’s why it got labeled as Blue Dream, because it seems to be the same. We did some organoleptic study where we had people sniffing cannabis, which was a really interesting study, because yes, people could smell the genetic difference. They did smell different, but also there was a huge amount of variation for even the ones that were genetically identical, which is really important to know, because, it’s not just the genotype that makes up a phenotype, which is the physical characteristics of any organism. It’s also the environment that feeds into how – and we know this through twin studies, right? You’re a unique individual, and even when you share a genotype, you’re not going to express all the same things, because the environment plays a lot into that. So anyway, so that was a fun one, too.

Then I wanted to look at, okay, well, so people can smell it. What do the actual chemicals look like? So we measured the terpenes and the cannabinoids and found that there’s a ton of variation in that. So here’s the cannabinoids, and the samples that we tested, they were coming back around 13% or 15% and I don’t remember buying anything that was this low in THC. This is kind of weird. So I gathered all of my packaging and figured out the average of the THC of the 15 samples that we use for the smell study was 13.3%. But on the packaging, it was saying things like, 22%, 25%, 28%, even 31% and I was like, these are different. So then that prompted me to go and buy more, test more, and did another study and found that, on average, the THC that’s printed on a label is approximately 30% higher than what’s in the package. Not 30% total, it wouldn’t be 15% plus 30%. It’s 30% of what is reported. So 15% plus another 30% of that on top of it. That’s really interesting in that, as we all know, it has blown up with lab shopping and THC inflation. I noticed that in 2018, so it’s been a while. It’s problematic because for most people, it might just equal not having expected effects. But there are people who make their own medicine that use those numbers to get the right dose. Also, it means that we’ve got a problem in the industry, that we’re lying to consumers about stuff. Is it just THC, or is it more? Are we lying about yeast and mold counts? Are we lying about heavy metals? Are we lying about pesticides? And it creates distrust from consumers when we’re not generating accurate results for them to make their purchasing decisions off of. So it is a little bit of a big deal. So that’s kind of how the whole pathway went down my PhD route.

The Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians could move forward toward decriminalizing and regulating marijuana on tribal lands after members of the state’s only Native American tribe voted for Referendum 2025-01 on Tuesday. The vote allows the Tribal Council to take the next step by searching for a consulting firm to study the feasibility of doing so.

After the Tribal Election Committee convened at 1:00 PM to count absentee ballots and certify the election on June 11, the measure passed by a vote of 1,415 to 1,164, or a 57% to 47% margin.

Of the tribe’s eight communities, only two voted to reject Referendum 2025-01: Standing Pine in Leake County and Conehatta in Newton County. All other communities voted for it, with Red Water voting at the highest percentage with 72% in favor. The smallest margin in favor came from the Bogue Chitto-affiliated community of Henning, Tennessee, which passed it with a 24-22 vote.

During the information sessions that the Tribe held throughout the reservation lands in May, a panel consisting of the Tribal Election Committee, Tribal Chief Cyrus Ben, and Tribal Council members explained that this vote is just a starting point. A consulting firm will “perform a comprehensive study to evaluate the marijuana market (medical and/or recreational) and analyze the potential economic benefits,” including any potential risks to the tribe.

The sample ballot provided to tribal members before the June 10 vote also stated that if the referendum passed, the tribe may proceed with allowing retail sales of marijuana; allowing it to be grown, processed, tested, and distributed for retail sales on tribal lands; and/or changing the current law to remove criminal penalties for adults 21 years and older who possess small amounts of marijuana for personal use.

A voter at the Conehatta meeting on May 27 asked whether the passage of this referendum would be retroactive for people who have faced criminal charges for marijuana use in the past. Chief Ben said there would be no change.

“Past offenses are based on the law on the books at the time,” he said.

A representative from the tribe’s attorney general’s office added that other states are passing expungement statutes “that make it easier to drop past offenses based on changing law.”

During a hearing in April, U.S. Sen. Thom Tillis, a North Carolina Republican, raised concerns about the patchwork of marijuana laws across the country, noting that the Eastern Band of Cherokee has legalized marijuana on tribal lands in North Carolina, even though it is not legal on the state level. In Mississippi, medical marijuana is legal for people with certain diagnoses who obtain a license to purchase it at a dispensary, but recreational marijuana is not legal.

A Clean Sweep for Incumbents

It took less than an hour for all communities to release the unofficial midterm election results on Tuesday night. The tribe now uses electronic voting machines after members participated in a mock election in 2022 to test out the entire Election Day procedure with the voting machines ahead of the chief and Tribal Council elections in 2023. For the first time since the tribe’s existence, the electorate didn’t have to wait all evening for the largest community, Pearl River, to submit its tally.

Initial results from the June 10 election showed that tribal members overwhelmingly voted to keep all the incumbents who were running for reelection to the Tribal Council. In the Leake County community of Standing Pine, incumbent Loriann Ahshapanek did not run for reelection.

The Tribal Election Committee convened in the tribe’s headquarters in the Pearl River community on Wednesday to count the remaining absentee ballots and issue the final certified results. None of the outcomes changed.

In Standing Pine, voters replaced their retiring incumbent with Lalania Denson, who won 106 votes in the small, rural community.  The other five candidates were Benjamin Farve, 93 votes; Jalen Tangle, 51 votes; Ashley Primer, 26 votes; Louis Charlie, 10 votes; and Betty Allen, seven votes.

Incumbent Christopher Eaves won reelection to a third term for the Winston County-based Crystal Ridge seat on the Tribal Council with 43 votes. The other candidates were: Rosa Kanagy with 28 votes; Alexander Hickman with 14 votes; and Tim G. Willis with one vote.

In the Neshoba County community of Tucker, located directly south of Philadelphia, Mississippi, voters there reelected Demando Mingo for a second term to his seat on the Tribal Council with 123 votes, or 42% of the total 291 votes cast. Rounding out the other candidates are: Eric S. Nickey, with 86 votes, Layla Taylor with 51 votes, and former Choctaw Princess Autumn McMillan with 31 votes. 

The other communities each had two positions available on the council, and candidates earning the top two totals from that community win representation on the Tribal Council. 

In the rural Newton County community of Conehatta, incumbents Gregory Shoemake and Hilda Nickey won reelection to their posts, earning 244 and 170 votes, respectively, for a combined 42% of the 975 total votes cast in this community. The other candidates for Conehatta include: Max Anderson with 119 votes; Shaun Grant with 107 votes, former representative Tarina Anderson with 105 votes; Trinesa Barojas with 72 votes; Hannah Charlie with 58 votes; Emerson Billy with 49 votes; and Jeron K. Johnson with 51 votes. Shoemake won a second term on the council while former vice-chief Nickey was re-elected to her fourth. 

The Neshoba County community of Bogue Chitto has an interesting tally structure due to the elected councils also representing the Lauderdale County, Tennessee, community of Henning, just north of the Memphis metro. Henning does not have its own representation on the Choctaw Tribal Council but has historically voted along with the Bogue Chitto residents due to close familial ties. It would take a separate election supervised by the U.S. Department of Interior in order to change the Choctaw Constitution and add a community and a representative; the last time this occurred was the special election of April 11, 2006, to officially add a representative for Crystal Ridge on the Tribal Council. 

The two incumbents, Kendall Wallace and Angela Hundley, were reelected by residents in both Henning and Bogue Chitto with a combined 60% of the 923 votes cast. The other candidates for Bogue Chitto were: Jeremiah Harrison with 74 votes; Natasha John with 67 votes; Kendrick Bell with 62 votes; Randy L. Jim with 56 votes; Jamion Johnson with 41 votes; Kinsey Henry with 30 votes; former representative Davita McClelland with 24 votes; Treundes Willis with nine votes, Kenneth Wallace with five votes; and Jackson Thompson, Jr. with four votes. With this year’s election, Wallace will serve in a third term while Hundley will be in her second. 

Pearl River Community, the tribe’s seat of government, had the largest number of candidates vying for two spots on the council, with 14 candidates. Both incumbents, Kent Wesley and Deborah Martin, retained their seats, however. Both tallied 776 combined votes of the total 1,772 votes cast in the tribe’s largest and most populous community. The other contenders were: Benjamin Stephens with 202 votes; Asa Jimmie with 184 votes; former representative Lola Parkerson with 175 votes; Nickolas Stephens with 136 votes; Robert Dean Martin with 86 votes; Jerod Thompson with 59 votes; Collins Billy Jr. with 39 votes; Robert Briscoe with 33 votes; Mindy Davis with 29 votes; Speedy X. Lewis with 30 votes; Shelley Tubby with 13 votes; and Austin Tubby with 10 votes. 

Red Water Community (Leake County) and Bogue Homa Community (Jones County) did not have an election for Tribal Council, both communities elect their representatives in Chief election years. 

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