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How Cannabis Consumption in Mississippi Compares to the Rest of the US | Mississippi

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www.thecentersquare.com – By Samuel Stebbins, 24/7 Wall St. via The Center Square – 2023-07-13 08:37:32

In May, Minnesota became the 23rd state to legalize recreational marijuana use. After decades of activism, marijuana users and advocates are finally seeing a large-scale relaxation of marijuana restrictions at the state level. The District of Columbia and Guam have also legalized recreational pot.

THC, one of the psychoactive compounds in marijuana, can cause euphoria when smoked or ingested, though it can also cause anxiety. Besides smoking for pleasure, many use marijuana for medical reasons, including the relief of chronic pain, insomnia, nausea, tremors associated with Parkinson’s Disease, and anxiety. Another active compound in marijuana is CBD, which is purported to carry some of the same medical benefits without causing the associated high. (Take a look at these foods and drinks enhanced with CBD.)

For the states that have legalized cannabis use, marijuana has been a boon for government coffers. Many states with fully operational marijuana programs brought in tens of millions of dollars in tax revenue off of cannabis sales in 2021. California reported marijuana tax revenue in excess of $1 billion that year.

Despite its federal status as a controlled substance, people across the country have used marijuana on a regular basis, and continue to do so.

According to the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, 383,000 people in Mississippi aged 12 and up have reportedly used marijuana in the last year – or 15.6% of the 12 and older population, the 12th lowest usage rate among states.

Marijuana’s legal status is mixed in Mississippi but it is permitted for medicinal purposes and recreational use has been decriminalized.

All data on marijuana usage rates is from the 2021 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, published in March 2023. The legal status of marijuana use in each state, last updated on July 1 2023, came from DISA, a third-party administrator of drug and alcohol testing, background screening, and more for employers.

 

Rank State Share of residents age 12+ who have used marijuana in past year ($) Residents age 12+ who have used marijuana in past year Legal status in state
1 Vermont 30.8 175,000 Fully Legal
2 Oregon 28.8 1,052,000 Fully Legal
3 Alaska 27.0 158,000 Fully Legal
4 Washington 25.9 1,691,000 Fully Legal
5 Massachusetts 25.6 1,552,000 Fully Legal
6 Maine 24.8 298,000 Fully Legal
7 Nevada 24.8 659,000 Fully Legal
8 Colorado 24.7 1,217,000 Fully Legal
9 Michigan 24.7 2,118,000 Fully Legal
10 Rhode Island 24.2 229,000 Fully Legal
11 Oklahoma 24.2 794,000 Mixed
12 New Mexico 22.8 406,000 Fully Legal
13 Arizona 21.9 1,348,000 Fully Legal
14 Montana 21.6 203,000 Fully Legal
15 New York 21.1 3,578,000 Fully Legal
16 Illinois 21.0 2,247,000 Fully Legal
17 California 20.8 6,886,000 Fully Legal
18 Connecticut 19.9 619,000 Fully Legal
19 Ohio 19.6 1,947,000 Mixed
20 Iowa 19.3 519,000 Mixed
21 Delaware 19.2 164,000 Fully Legal
22 Maryland 19.1 988,000 Fully Legal
23 Louisiana 19.0 727,000 Mixed
24 Kansas 19.0 459,000 Fully Illegal
25 Indiana 18.6 1,062,000 Mixed
26 Missouri 18.6 963,000 Fully Legal
27 Minnesota 18.6 893,000 Mixed
28 New Hampshire 18.5 225,000 Mixed
29 Virginia 18.0 1,304,000 Fully Legal
30 Pennsylvania 17.5 1,934,000 Mixed
31 Wyoming 17.2 84,000 Fully Illegal
32 Georgia 17.2 1,546,000 Mixed
33 Wisconsin 16.6 834,000 Mixed
34 Tennessee 16.6 975,000 Mixed
35 West Virginia 16.6 253,000 Mixed
36 North Dakota 16.5 105,000 Mixed
37 New Jersey 16.3 1,285,000 Fully Legal
38 South Carolina 15.6 687,000 Fully Illegal
39 Mississippi 15.6 383,000 Mixed
40 Arkansas 15.6 393,000 Mixed
41 Idaho 15.3 242,000 Fully Illegal
42 Kentucky 15.2 573,000 Mixed
43 Florida 15.0 2,805,000 Mixed
44 Hawaii 14.9 175,000 Mixed
45 Nebraska 14.4 233,000 Fully Illegal
46 North Carolina 13.7 1,219,000 Fully Illegal
47 South Dakota 13.7 100,000 Mixed
48 Utah 13.3 361,000 Mixed
49 Alabama 12.7 537,000 Mixed
50 Texas 12.6 3,066,000 Mixed

 

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News from the South - Louisiana News Feed

Carbon capture hearings will hear from concerned residents, industry | Louisiana

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www.thecentersquare.com – By Nolan McKendry | The Center Square – (The Center Square – ) 2025-04-25 16:45:00

(The Center Square) − Louisiana Rep. Joseph Orgeron, R-Jefferson, is taking a less cautious position on carbon capture — acknowledging local concerns while defending the role the technology can play in reducing industrial emissions.

Orgeron will vice chair a high-stakes showdown over the future of carbon capture in Louisiana at the House Natural Resources and Environment Committee on Tuesday, where lawmakers are set to hear a sweeping package of bills aimed at reining in the state’s growing carbon sequestration industry.

“I sympathize with those constituents who are looking for the opt-out option—to not have it in their parish,” Orgeron told The Center Square in an interview. “But I represent an area basically awash in hydrocarbon harvesting from the early ’50s, ’60s. We’ve had our environment kind of shared with the hydrocarbon harvesting industry, so we’re a little bit more open to it.”

Orgeron chairs the state’s Clean Hydrogen Task Force and has positioned himself as an advocate for low-carbon technologies that can reduce emissions without sidelining Louisiana’s traditional energy sector.

“In Louisiana, we have the hydrocarbons, like natural gas, that can then be cracked to make the hydrogen feedstock that’s needed,” Orgeron said. “And rather than release [the carbon] into the environment… basically capture that carbon and sequester it safely in underground pore space that we also have a large amount of.”

Still, he acknowledged the desire of some parishes to block carbon capture developments and said he would support local opt-outs — though not without consequence.

“They would have to relinquish any and all benefits, monetary benefits, that they may receive from the added space, the added industry… that may come from carbon sequestration in the state,” Orgeron said.

The legislation, driven largely by Republican lawmakers from western and central Louisiana, targets everything from eminent domain powers to public notice requirements, with an emphasis on strengthening landowner rights and local control.

Rep. Rodney Schamerhorn, R-Beauregard, said in a previous interview that past land seizures for projects like Fort Polk and the Toledo Bend Reservoir have left lasting scars in his region, fueling deep mistrust of new carbon capture initiatives. While many residents initially supported the technology, he said they now feel misled about its purpose and risks.

The committee will also take up House Bill 4 by Rep. Charles Owen, HB353 by Rep. Shane Mack, HB522 by Rep. Danny McCormick, HB568 by Rep. R. Dewith Carrier, and Senate Bill 73 by Sen. Mike Reese.

The wave of proposals comes amid mounting scrutiny of carbon infrastructure, particularly in light of a 2020 pipeline rupture in Satartia, Miss. that released a cloud of CO2 into a nearby town when a landslide hit, causing residents to collapse or suffer seizures from oxygen deprivation.

Industry leaders are pushing back.

“This is a business opportunity,” said Tommy Faucheux, president of the Louisiana Mid-Continent Oil and Gas Association. “If we lose that, the investments — and the jobs — will go elsewhere.”

“These CCS projects and the associated development could transform communities in ways they’ve never seen,” Faucheux said. “We’re talking about economic development in parts of Louisiana that haven’t traditionally benefited from the oil and gas footprint.”

“The industry has been spending a lot of time engaging with communities, with land owners,” he added. “The companies want to work and come to agreements with all the landowners. They want to have conversations about pipeline routes, for instance. The use of eminent domain has not been something we’ve prioritized or really led with. I think it has been really more the exception than the standard.”

 

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The Center Square

Will Trump extend the 90-day tariff pause? | National

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www.thecentersquare.com – Morgan Sweeney – (The Center Square – ) 2025-04-25 16:01:00

(The Center Square) – The Trump administration has been reluctant to give many details about the implementation of the president’s tariffs since his announcement of the 90-day pause, but Friday, he answered a question that has now been posed many times to his team: Will the pause be extended? 

President Donald Trump called it “unlikely.”

“I think I know pretty much, and again, we’ll have deals made but we’ll also make deals,” Trump told a reporter on Air Force One. “In other words, we’ll just set the tariff and we’ll be reasonable, very reasonable, and that’ll be the end. That’s the deal. We set the price.”

The White House had previously avoided being specific about an extension or most of the ongoing negotiations with a group of at least 100 countries, according to Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent.

A reporter asked White House Press Secretary Karoline Leavitt on Tuesday if some of the proposals other countries had put forward would be enough to extend the pause for at least some of them.

“Well look, ask me in July when the deadline hits,” Leavitt said. “There’s a lot of time left and the president’s trade team is working, again, at Trump speed, as quickly as they can to ensure that these deals can be made.”

Trump also said Friday that he had been in talks with Chinese President Xi Jinping, as the countries were locked in a trade war after the U.S. raised its tariffs on China to 145% and China responded with a minimum 125% rate. But the president remained cryptic, beyond that, on his conversations with the Chinese leader. 

A reporter asked what the two had discussed as Trump was leaving the White House Friday morning.

“I’ll let you know at the appropriate time. Let’s make a deal,” Trump responded.

The president announced new reciprocal tariff rates for nearly all of America’s trading partners on April 2, roiling stock markets worldwide, but then issued a 90-day pause on April 9 after numerous countries quickly approached the U.S. asking for a deal.

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News from the South - North Carolina News Feed

Eradication of divisive medical education policies applauded | North Carolina

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www.thecentersquare.com – By Alan Wooten | The Center Square – (The Center Square – ) 2025-04-25 15:59:00

(The Center Square) – Eliminating policies in higher education that U.S. Rep. Dr. Greg Murphy believes are detrimental to the best in health care is a step in the right direction, the North Carolina Republican says.



U.S. Rep. Dr. Greg Murphy, R-N.C.




“I applaud the Trump administration for rooting out the discriminatory and demeaning requirements of DEI in medication education,” Murphy said, referring to diversity, equity and inclusion. “These practices reward political activism and not merit. Patients deserve better.

“Liberal apologists played with patient’s lives to push a progressive discriminatory agenda. Doctors need to be selected as the brightest and hardest working, not on identity politics.”

Murphy’s assessment came a day after President Donald Trump’s executive order entitled Reforming Accreditation to Strengthen Higher Education.

The third graph of Section 2 reads in part, “The attorney general and the secretary of Education, in consultation with the secretary of Health and Human Services, shall investigate and take appropriate action to terminate unlawful discrimination by American medical schools or graduate medical education entities that is advanced by the Liaison Committee on Medical Education or the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education or other accreditors of graduate medical education, including unlawful ‘diversity, equity, and inclusion’ requirements under the guise of accreditation standards.”

Murphy, a practicing urologist, has repeatedly chastised the medical schools promoting diversity policies over merit.

Earlier this month, he responded to a writing in the New England Journal of Medicine entitled “Advancing health equity in the climate crisis – A climate justice curriculum for resident physicians.” He said it was “yet another example of irresponsible leadership in medical education.”

Murphy opined, “Instead of learning to take care of patients, medical residents are studying this nonsense. No wonder the questions about NIH funding are being asked.”

The National Institutes of Health operates with a budget of $47 billion. For worldwide biomedical research, it is the largest public funder.

Murphy believes the American health care system “is killing the patient” with the middlemen, including the education component.

He’s also spoken out on the Association of American Medical Colleges, saying it has been “exposed for their racially divisive lies.” A significant infant-mortality study, The National Review reported, was edited to preserve racial perspective. The story says “researchers deliberately obscured a data point about white babies under the care of Black physicians because ‘it undermines the narrative.’”

“Falsifying research,” Murphy said, “is why Americans have lost trust in medical education. All those involved in this scandal need to resign.”

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