FDS Insight Newsletter Oct-Dec 2020

26 sclerosis and post-traumatic stress disorder. The constitutional amendment would establish a regulatory program for businesses to grow and sell medical cannabis and for the products to be taxed at a 7% rate. Under Mississippi law, the legislature has the option to amend or draft an alternate measure, and that’s what it did here via Initiative 65A. The competing measure requires medical products that are of pharmaceutical quality, limits the smoking of medical cannabis to people who are terminally ill, and leaves the future creation of rules and a regulatory framework up to the legislature. Officials from Marijuana Business Daily said that if Initiative 65 is passed, medical sales could total between $750 million to $800 million by 2024. Alicia Wallace, CNN Business (12/9/20) Scotland S URPRISE AND DISAPPOINTMENT AT UK DRUG RESPONSE A cross-party group of MPs has accused the UK government of the almost ‘wholesale rejection’ of moves to tackle Scotland’s record drug deaths. It comes after the Scottish Affairs Committee published a report in November calling for a radical re-think of current drugs policy. Their recommendations included decriminalising drugs for personal use and backing consumption rooms. However, the UK government has rejected most of the recommendations. They include calls to declare Scotland’s record drug deaths – 1,187 in 2018 – a public health emergency. The UK government also said a recommendation to reform the 1971 Misuse of Drugs Act and decriminalise drugs for personal use would not ‘eliminate the crime committed by the illicit trade, nor would it address the harms associated with drug dependence’. They added: ‘There is a strong link between drugs and crime, which is why we reject the assertion that the Department for Health and Social Care should lead on drug misuse. We know that people who regularly use heroin, cocaine or crack cocaine are estimated to commit around 45% of all acquisitive crime.’ Peter Krykant said he hoped the drug consumption van would cut down on overdoses Since 2008 the Scottish government has treated drug misuse as a health