Mizzou Students Throw Support Behind Medical Pot Initiative: 'It's Just a Plant'
*By Carlo Versano*
On Tuesday, Missouri could become the 32nd state in the U.S. to legalize medical marijuana.
On the ballot are three proposals on the issue ー regarding regulation, taxation, and the distribution of tax revenues. The amendments are byzantine and confusing, but if one passes, medical marijuana will become the law of the land in the "Show-Me" State.
Cannabis legalization has garnered more public support in recent years, and medical pot is often thought to be the gateway to fuller legalization. While the Missouri medical community is [split](https://kcmedicine.org/survey-results-physician-attitudes-medical-marijuana/) on the drug's medicinal value, much of the student body at the University of Missouri has a pro-legalization stance.
CheddarU went to Mizzou's campus to hear what students had to say ahead of the vote.
"I just can't see any good reason not to have it medicinally available here," said In'lana Henderson, VP of Students for Sensible Drug Policy at Mizzou.
"People think that it's very taboo here," she added.
That possibility that Missouri, a reliably red state in the country's heartland, could pass a progressive drug law, gives some students hope that the end result could galvanize public support for cannabis legalization.
"I think that if we can legalize it, it will help other states do that, too," freshman Payton Nichols-Pittman said.
Or, as senior Meg Rogers put it: "It's just something that we don't need to make people feel bad for."
She added: "It's just a plant."
Following a session in which investors saw gains across the major indexes, Wealth Consulting Group CEO Jimmy Lee says investors need to remember that midterm election years tend to be more volatile in general.
Stocks closed lower to end the last trading day of May, but the S&P 500 and the Dow Jones both rose over the past month. The Federal Reserve in early May raised interest rates by half a percentage point as it tries to fight inflation, but the question continues to linger: will we enter a recession as we try to tame inflation? Anthony Saccaro, Founder & President of Providence Financial, joins Closing Bell to discuss today's close, the possibility of a recession, where he is telling clients to look for opportunities, and more.
The semiconductor industry is at an inflection point as it tries to fully recover from the worst of pandemic-era headwinds. While Broadcom has announced it will buy cloud computing company VMware, Nvidia is lowering its current quarterly outlook. Meanwhile, TSMC and Intel are contemplating raising prices -- again -- thanks to higher materials costs. Where does the industry go from here? Ted Mortonson, technology strategist at Baird, joins Closing Bell to discuss.
Memorial Day rang in the unofficial start of summer here in the United States -- and with it, the unofficial start of summer travel. Whether consumers traveled by air or by land, they probably experienced some form of frustration over the weekend. Flyers faced delays and cancellations, and drivers faced the most expensive gas prices ever recorded on Memorial Day. Zach Griff, Senior Aviation Reporter for the Points Guy, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Next-generation gaming ecosystem Joystick recently raised $8 million in a seed round and is in the process of raising a $110 million Series A funding round. Gaming ecosystems are a relatively new type of platform in the Web3 space, allowing users to maximize their play-to-earn gaming opportunities, exchange crypto-currencies, and sell their digital assets. Joystick says its platform is flipping the current model on its head by giving players the opportunity to keep 100% of the revenue they earn. Robin Defay, co-founder and CEO of Joystick, and Michael Le, co-founder of Joystick and TikTok content creator, join Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Abe Stein, Head of Innovation at Sports Innovation Lab, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell, where he explains why the top four spots on his company's 2022 list are European soccer clubs and discusses Sports Innovation Lab's plan to publish data on women's pro sports teams in the not-too-distant future.
