NATCHEZ, Miss. – City aldermen Friday approved a medical marijuana district for the Natchez Planning Commission to review and adopt for where dispensaries can legally be located in the city.
Medical cannabis pharmacies would be allowed only where most of Natchez doctors’ clinics are concentrated near Merit Health hospital on Seargent Prentiss Drive – a district that will include Jeff Davis and Highland boulevards along with Tracetown shopping center.
The Mississippi Legislature in January legalized marijuana that healthcare providers can prescribe to patients with cancer or other serious illnesses.
While it’s expected to be several months before marijuana businesses will be licensed by the state to operate, city officials have been planning since April for where they can set up shop in Natchez.
The state Department of Revenue on Friday (July 1) began accepting applications from businesses wanting the required licenses to dispense medical marijuana.
The Natchez Board of Aldermen voted 4-2 for the zoning measure that it wants the Planning Commission to accept. The aldermen-appointed panel is charged with enforcing the city’s zoning ordinance that determines where various types of businesses and residences can be located.
Aldermen Billie Joe Frazier and Felicia Irving voted against the Natchez medical marijuana district as drawn, they said, because it doesn’t include north Natchez, which is predominantly Black.
“It’s just too centralized for me,” Frazier said of the mapped-out plan. “It doesn’t have anything on the north side of town.”
The new state law enacted by the Legislature does contain various regulations on the growing and sale of marijuana and empowers local governments to impose their own restrictions on where marijuana businesses can be. The state law does specify dispensaries can’t be near schools and churches and that marijuana can be grown only in indoor facilities located in areas zoned for agricultural or industrial uses.
The state is allowing doctors to prescribe cannabis to patients with various debilitating medical conditions such as cancer, sickle-cell disease, glaucoma or dementia. The law limits how much can be prescribed and empowers the state Department of Health to develop medical marijuana regulations. There’s also a cannabis tax structure to generate more government revenues.
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