The road to establishing a medical marijuana program in Mississippi has a ways to go if Thursday’s state Senate hearing was any indication.

Ken Newberger, executive director of the Mississippi Medical Marijuana Association and one of the organizers behind the recently nullified Initiative 65, told members of the senate’s Committee on Public Health and Welfare “there are some major gaps” in what voters approved last November and what is actually needed to create a viable medical marijuana program.

“Large parts of Initiative 65 need to stay,” Newburger said after the hearing. “The things that (Initiative) 65 got wrong are more procedural.”

Initiative 65, approved by 74 percent of voters in November, was overturned by the Mississippi Supreme Court last month, with justices citing the state’s outdated initiative process.

Specifically, the initiative did not address potential zoning concerns, how tax revenue generated might be used or if the Mississippi State Department of Health was adequately equipped to oversee such a program by itself, Newburger said.

“Putting everything under the health department was a short-sided mistake,” Newburger told senators. [Read more at Clarion Ledger]