| Ten years ago, I never imagined writing about various state Supreme Court cases throughout the U.S. As a local newspaper reporter in my previous vocation, I didn’t picture myself covering cannabis on a daily basis either. But here we are in 2022 with cannabis and court cases continuing to collide in my regular work at Cannabis Business Times. In May 2021, when I first wrote about the Mississippi Supreme Court ruling in a 6-3 decision to overturn a voter-approved medical cannabis initiative that garnered a 74% majority in the 2020 election, the conclusion of the justices befuddled me. The basis of the court’s opinion stemmed from the 2000 Census, when Mississippi dropped from five to four congressional districts but never updated its ballot initiative process, which requires that an equal number of signatures be gathered from each of five districts. Despite the one-fifth requirement being mathematically at odds with the political structure of the state’s electorate since 2000, there was no fuss in the Mississippi Supreme Court when a pair of ballot initiatives found majorities during the 2011 election: one requires residents to show government-issued photo identification before voting, and the other limits the use of eminent domain—the right of a government to expropriate private property for public use. Cannabis was singled out again later in 2021, when the South Dakota Supreme Court ruled that a 54.2% majority did not matter roughly a year after the 2020 election because an adult-use initiative violated the state’s single-subject rule. The same single-subject rule swayed the Nebraska Supreme Court to nullify an already certified medical cannabis initiative ahead of the 2020 election. Now, heading into the 2022 election, the Arkansas Supreme Court has claimed authority over a certified adult-use ballot initiative with a future decision pending. And just next door, the Oklahoma Supreme Court has indicated it will flex its judicial clout after state officials took 48 long days to validate signatures for an adult-use petition—causing it to miss a procedural deadline for the November ballot. After lawmakers have stalled on cannabis policy reform in each of those five states, the people have taken the democratic process upon themselves to get the job done at the polls. But supreme cannabis collisions have sometimes kept the people from having the final word. -Tony Lange, Associate Editor | 