Ken Newburger has become very familiar with the issue of medical cannabis in Mississippi over the years.

He worked alongside Mississippians for Compassionate Care, the group behind the Medical Marijuana 2020 campaign, to place one of the state’s two medical cannabis measures, Initiative 65, on Mississippi’s ballot, where voters ultimately approved it on Election Day.

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“As the campaign was coming to an end, it became clear that the next step was going to be, how do we best serve the patients of Mississippi, now that they’re going to have access to medical marijuana?” Newburger told Cannabis Business Times and Cannabis Dispensary. “I’m really excited to see this industry come to fruition after almost three years’ worth of work that people put in to pass medical marijuana here in Mississippi.”

Throughout November and into December, Newburger rounded up a group of people who were interested in launching a medical cannabis association in the state, and the Mississippi Medical Marijuana Association was born.

The organization launched Dec. 15 with a group of associate members that are looking to operate cultivation, testing, transportation, manufacturing, extraction and retail businesses in the state, once the Mississippi State Department of Health establishes the program’s regulations and issues business licenses.

The association’s primary goal is to provide networking opportunities and governmental affairs representation to the businesses that are eventually licensed in Mississippi’s medical cannabis program, as well as offer educational and informational resources to the public.

Newburger plans to work with lawmakers and regulators at the state capital to ensure a smooth rollout for the state’s program, as well as connect with those in other states to learn more broadly about best practices in regulated cannabis programs throughout the country.

Mississippi’s voter-approved medical cannabis legalization initiative gives the Department of Health until July 1, 2021 to establish rules and regulations for the industry and the licensing process.

“It’s a little nebulous right now because you had the big rollout for the COVID vaccine and handling our large caseload of COVID cases seems to be the big priority, and that’s appropriate, I think, for the Department of Health,” Newburger said. “We’ve got a good bit of time before we have more clarity on exactly what [a medical cannabis program] looks like.”

The biggest challenge for the state’s prospective businesses, he said, is the holding pattern that they will find themselves in for the next almost nine months as they await a regulatory framework for the program.

“It’s a strange position for a lot of businesses to try to draft their plans but also think that they need to be compliant with the rules and regulations that will be put forth,” Newburger said. “Trying to balance those two ideas will be their biggest challenge.”

The Department of Health has until Aug. 15, 2021 to issue business licenses and patient ID cards, and Newburger said it will take additional time to get plants in the ground and medicine in the hands of the state’s patient base.

“What’s really exciting for the market as a whole is that there hasn’t been an overwhelming support for almost anything in Mississippi like there has been for medical marijuana,” he said. “We won Initiative 65 with 74% of the [pro-cannabis] vote, and that means I think that we’ll have a large participation of Mississippians in the market, and that’s just going to be great for the state."