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."
Facebook parent Meta’s miss on Q4 earnings raised alarm bells amongst investors. The tech giant lost users for the first time as it invests a lot into the metaverse, its virtual realm, in the hopes that consumers will move their social media consumption there. The stock dropped around 25 percent on the report, and CEO Mark Zuckerberg chalked it up to people flocking toward apps like TikTok, even as his own platform attempts to make a big pivot to the metaverse future. "It's gonna take a long time to develop and it's gonna take a long time to bring to fruition," Rebecca Walser, president of Walser Wealth Management told Cheddar. "In the meantime, the world is moving on. We have a very short attention span, especially on social media, and we want the short little videos. And Tiktok has just taken off."
Wall Street saw another volatile day after the Federal Reserve left rates unchanged for now, with plans to raise rates in March at its next meeting in order to ease inflation. Fed Chair Jerome Powell said the Fed has not made decisions on the size of rate increases, adding that the Fed is not trying to get inflation below two-percent. Ken Johnson, CFA and Investment Strategy Analyst explains why Powell thinks that high inflation is a significant threat to the labor market.
Ed Butowsky, managing partner at Chapwood Investments, joined Wake Up With Cheddar to break down the disappointing takeaways from Spotify's Q4 earnings report, which sent the stock plunging.
Anu Gaggar, global investment strategist for Commonwealth Financial Network, joined Cheddar News to discuss how global supply chains could be disrupted even further by an armed conflict in Ukraine.
Google parent company Alphabet saw yet another successful quarter reporting its final earnings report for 2021 on Tuesday. The tech giant beat Wall Street expectations across the board with much of that success owed to not only the growth of its cloud business, but also its multi-platform advertising. Joanna O'Connell, Principal Analyst at Forrester explains why advertising may be one of the keys to Alphabet’s future success.
Solid-state battery maker Factorial Energy recently raised $200 million in a Series D round led by Mercedes-Benz and Stellantis. Factorial says the funding will be used to accelerate commercial production and deployment of its solid-state battery technology, which the company says is safer, and offers up to 50% more driving range than current lithium-ion technology. Factorial also has joint development agreements (announced in late 2021) with Mercedes-Benz, Stellantis, and Hyundai, three of the top 10 global automotive manufacturers, to commercialize its batteries. Factorial CEO Siyu Huang joined Cheddar News' Closing Bell to discuss.
Art Hogan, Chief Market Strategist at National Securities, joins Cheddar News' Closing Bell, where he says investors are paying more attention to earnings this week, which is leading to the Dow, S&P, and Nasdaq gaining this week. Hogan also breaks down Spotify and Meta's earnings, both of which came out after the bell.
