(Missourinet) – Missourians could be voting on a medical marijuana proposal in two years, if a Columbia marijuana reform advocate is successful.

Columbia attorney Dan Viets tells Missourinet he hopes to get a medical marijuana proposal on the statewide ballot in 2018. Viets says the Missouri Legislature is never going to pass what he calls a “good” medical marijuana law.

“I doubt they’re (the Legislature) going to pass any kind of medical marijuana law. We’re not counting on that at all,” Viets says. “We are looking to the voters of this state to reform the medical marijuana laws. We hope to have a good medical marijuana proposal on the ballot here in November of 2018.”

The Missouri Association of Prosecuting Attorneys (MAPA) opposes Viets’ plan.

Viets notes the Journal of the American Medical Association reported in 2014 that states with legal medical marijuana have seen a 20 to 33 percent reduction in opioid drug deaths.

“Their study showed that, on average, there is a 25 percent reduction in death from opioid overdose in states where people have access to marijuana as medicine,” Viets says.

Viets also says the “Journal of Pain” reports a survey found that cannabis use was associated with 64 percent lower opioid use in patients with chronic pain.

The Missouri Association of Prosecuting Attorneys tweeted at Missourinet this week, after we quoted Viets as saying that states with legal medical marijuana have seen reductions in opioid drug deaths. MAPA’s tweet said “Trading one drug addiction epidemic for another isn’t the answer. Why not end both marijuana and opioid abuse?”

Last Friday at a drug free youth forum in Jefferson City, drug treatment and recovery professionals and law enforcement officers warned Missouri Senator Roy Blunt (R) about the effects they say marijuana is having on Missouri communities.

One law enforcement official from eastern Missouri’s Franklin County told Senator Blunt that 80 percent of the marijuana coming into his county is from Colorado, where marijuana is legal for those 21 and older. Osage County Prosecutor Amanda Grellner, a participant at that roundtable, told Blunt that Colorado’s legalization has also impacted hospitals in that state.

Viets sees it differently, saying that it’s unrealistic to try to eliminate the use of both drugs, because pain is a reality. He says that the treatment of pain requires the use of these substances, adding that “to the extent that we can substitute cannabis for opioid drugs, we will save lives.”

Viets says marijuana reduces pain and reduces the need for narcotic painkillers.

It’s unclear whether the Missouri Legislature will address the medical marijuana issue during the 2017 session. The election for all 163 Missouri House seats and 17 Missouri Senate seats is in November. However, legislators cannot pre-file bills until December 1.

(Missourinet) – St. Louis Cardinals president Bill DeWitt III envisions a village within the Village.

The club announced their second phase of Ballpark Village which will include residential living, expanded retail space and now office space that will allow fans to live, work and play in downtown St. Louis.  The $220 million plans and 550,000 square foot project looks to eventually create jobs and help the tax base for downtown.  DeWitt says this would be the first new construction project of this type of office building in downtown since 1989.

“We are very excited about the second phase of Ballpark Village,” said Bill DeWitt III, President of the St. Louis Cardinals. “Our vision of a mixed-use neighborhood where people live, work and play will become a reality. This is a real game-changer for the city of St. Louis and the state of Missouri.”

According to the club’s website, the second phase of Ballpark Village will complete a full build-out of Clark Street with a 29-story glass and steel residential apartment tower on the east end, and a large Class-A office building on the west end, as well as additional retail and entertainment in between, transforming Clark Street into one of the most unique city streets in all of major league sports.

The residential apartment tower will be a modern, 29-story, 230 foot tall, luxury high-rise apartment building at the corner of Clark and Broadway that will offer views of the Gateway Arch, the Mississippi River, the St. Louis skyline, and unobstructed views directly into Busch Stadium.

The Class A office building at the corner of Clark and 8th Street will sit right across from the bronze statues on the NW corner of Busch Stadium, and will also include structured parking below, and street level retail and restaurants. It will be the first “new construction” office building built in downtown St. Louis in more than a generation (Metropolitan Square opened in 1989).

Also in Phase II will be a signature two-story retail marketplace and entertainment venue overlooking the existing Busch II Field, the signature “open space” of Ballpark Village. The marketplace will include diverse food options and other amenities to support the new office and residential tenants in the project.

Plans call for construction to get underway during the second half of 2017. While some areas might open in 2018, the entire second phase of Ballpark Village should be finished by 2019.

(Missourinet) – St. Louis County prosecutors are investigating vote fraud allegations in the suburb of Berkeley.

The probe, which includes interviews by the FBI, is seeking to find out if Mayor Theodore “Ted” Hoskins or his supporters tampered with absentee ballots.

The investigation was disclosed by emails obtained through an open records request by the St. Louis Post-Dispatch.  Governor Jay Nixon is troubled by the revelation, given recent improprieties in the region.

“We’ve had two changed elections already in the St. Louis region, down in the city,” said Nixon. “Judge McShane did not order a new election in this one. I have not looked at the particular facts of it, other than to say that clearly the public is watching, the candidates are watching.”

St. Louis County Circuit Judge Maura McShane rejected a petition seeking a special election in Berkeley following the April mayor’s race which Hoskins, a former Democratic state representative, won by 13 votes.

He’s denied handling any absentee ballots himself, but admits member of his campaign have collected and mailed them in. Only election authority personnel can legally possess a ballot after it has been filled out by the voter.

A St. Louis judge ordered a new primary election in the 78th Missouri state house district in September after absentee ballot irregularities.  In the original contest, incumbent Democrat Penny Hubbard won by 90 votes.  Challenger Bruce Franks easily won the new election.

Republican Senator Will Kraus of Lee’s Summit, a proponent of a recently passed photo voter ID law, has expressed concern over a 2015 mayoral race in Kinloch.  The city, which is adjacent to Berkeley, gave the Election Board a list of 27 names of people who it claimed were illegally registered; many of those individual addresses were listed at city-owned apartments.

Governor Nixon acknowledges the voting problems in the St. Louis region, but says voters should have confidence the upcoming election will be fair.

“The vast, vast, vast majority of local election authorities are working really hard to make sure that every vote is counted and turned in.  Folks should not see any of this as a reason not to exercise their voting rights.”

(Missourinet) – New research from the University of Iowa in Iowa City says the number of farm vehicle accidents in Missouri would decline by nearly 40%, if the state would adopt policies similar to industry standards for lighting and marking the machinery.

Study author Corrine Peek-Asa with the school’s Great Plains Center for Agricultural Health says responsibility for these accidents should not fall entirely on the farmers.

“It is usually not the operator of the farm equipment at fault,” Peek-Asa says. “More often these crashes are the fault of the other cars on the roadway.”

The average number of farm related crashes in Missouri each year is 157. The study says that figure could decline to about 62, if such policy changes are made.

“I think our baseline goal is to catch the attention of rural communities, and especially awareness that rural roadway safety is a shared responsibility,” Peek-Asa says.

The research involved regulations in nine Midwestern states where, on average, there are 1,100 total farm vehicle-related crashes a year.

The study is published in the current issue of the Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine.

(Missourinet) – Hundreds of jobs are expected to be eliminated as part of a buyout of Town and Country-based Scottrade Financial Services.

Rival discount brokerage TD Ameritrade is purchasing Scottrade in a two-stage deal announced Monday.

Scottrade has 1,800 workers in the St. Louis area.  A spokesperson says employee decisions will be made during the integration, and confirms a statement from TD Ameritrade CEO Tim Hockey that 500-to-1,000 jobs would be in the St. Louis area following the sale.  The current plan is to keep a call center and some support services in place there.

TD Bank Group will buy Scottrade Bank from Scottrade Financial Services for $1.3 billion and fold it into TD Bank.  Then, TD Ameritrade will buy Scottrade Financial Services for $4 billion.

The move comes as discount brokerages have fallen out of favor with small investors, who are increasingly placing their money in index funds.

In a statement, Scottrade CEO and founder Rodger Riney said it’s “become apparent that scale is more important than ever.”

TD Ameritrade says the transaction adds significant scale to its retail business and more than quadruples the size of its branch network.

It’s possible Scottrade could’ve been up for sale because the 70 year-old Riney was diagnosed with cancer last year.

Combined, TD Ameritrade and Scottrade had $944 billion in total client assets and 600,000 average client trades per day for the year ended Sept. 30.

The deal combines the two biggest online brokerages and is expected to be complete by September 27 of next year.

 

(Missourinet) – A lawmaker thinks the state needs a large infusion of cash to deal with deteriorating roads.

State Senator Mike Kehoe (R – Jefferson City) was at the ribbon cutting ceremony for the just completed Lafayette Street Interchange project in Jefferson City.  The $20 million undertaking, which includes a new lane in each direction of U.S. Route 50/63 in the area, as well as six newly built or replaced bridges, is one of the last large highway projects scheduled in Missouri.

After voters rejected a sales tax to finance transportation costs several years ago, little money was left to address the needs of the state.  Kehoe credits a 2015 federal highway bill for helping to stabilize financing.

But he says much more money will be required to properly fund roads.

“We’re still about $500 million a year short in what it takes to deliver the safety and projects like this across our state” said Kehoe. “It’s a substantial number that I’m sure we’ll be working on.”

Democratic governor candidate Chris Koster has echoed the figure of $500 million as a sum required to maintain roads and bridges and improve safety.

The state Transportation Department favors increasing the gas tax to help offset the shortage.  MoDOT Director Patrick McKenna says “In the case of the gas tax, (it hasn’t been raised) for 20 years…What I am suggesting is that maybe that’s a good area to look at when we consider the investments that we need to make.”

Kehoe doesn’t think funding road projects entirely through the gas tax is realistic.  He claims it would have to be raised 20-to-30 cents a gallon to cover hundreds of million it would take to cover costs, which he doubts the public would accept.

Kehoe thinks financing will probably have to come from a number of sources.

“It could be combination of fuel taxes.  It could be a combination of sales tax.  It could be combination of partnership invested from the private sector.”

Although some have said the funding problem stems from waste, fraud and abuse at MoDOT, Kehoe dismisses those claims as having been cleaned up in 2015 when the agency adopted a master plan.

“They consolidated ten districts to seven,” said Kehoe. “They reduced their workforce by 1,200 employees. They closed about 160 sheds, gained some efficiencies.  And at the end of the day, (they) took all of that money, which was over $100 million per year, and put it towards the highway program.”

Also appearing at the Lafayette interchange ribbon cutting was the head of the contracting firm on the project, Emery Sapp and Sons.  He stated that the interchange was the company’s last venture in Missouri, and it would now be moving to road projects in other states.  Kehoe says the lack of transportation money is having an adverse effect on jobs and infrastructure.

“The ripple effect with not building infrastructure, not taking care of what we have in our state really starts to affect our citizens and their families.  And that’s a big concern to us.”

Ultimately, Kehoe thinks lawmakers will have to look at all resources available to fill the hole in road funding, and then present it to taxpayers.

(Missourinet) – A law enforcement official says the impact of Colorado’s marijuana legalization is being felt in Missouri.

A law enforcement official from eastern Missouri’s Franklin County told Missouri Senator Roy Blunt (R) on Friday in Jefferson City that 80 percent of the marijuana coming into his county is from Colorado, where marijuana is legal for those 21 and older. Drug treatment and recovery professionals and law enforcement warn Blunt about the effects marijuana is having on Missouri communities.

At the drug free youth forum hosted by Blunt in Jefferson City, he says he opposes legalizing marijuana.

“I’m not for access to marijuana, except for whatever medical properties we can figure out how to effectively capture out of marijuana,” Blunt says.

Osage County Prosecutor Amanda Grellner, another roundtable participant, told Blunt that Colorado’s legalization has also impacted hospitals there.

Roundtable participants also warned Blunt about the nation’s growing opioid epidemic.

A woman from southwest Missouri’s Jasper County, who’s making her ninth attempt at sobriety, told Blunt that her addictions began with pain medication. She says her addictions led to her child having health problems. She told the audience that she has been “clean” for eight months now.

Blunt told reporters that her story is powerful.

“One of the great values of hearing stories like that is it gives you just more ammunition to fight back other arguments as to why ‘well this is something that we shouldn’t be concerned about.’ It’s obviously something we should be very concerned about,” Blunt says.

Blunt spent most of the forum listening to the roundtable, and asked several questions. He says he learned a lot about the opioid epidemic from listening to the participants.

(Missourinet) – The state’s unemployment rate has increased for the fourth straight month. Missouri’s September unemployment figure was 5.2%. The number has inched higher since March’s low of 4.2%.

The figure is also above the national unemployment rate of 5%.

Missouri’s 2016 unemployment history:

January: 4.2%
Febuary: 4.2%
March: 4.2%
April: 4.3%
May: 4.3%
June: 4.5%
July: 4.7%
August: 5.1%

According to seasonally adjusted data released Wednesday by the Missouri Department of Economic Development, Missouri’s nonfarm payroll employment grew by 6,700 jobs in September.

Missouri’s largest private-industry employment growth for the month occurred in health care & social assistance (+2,400 jobs), followed by educational services (+1,700 jobs), and finance & insurance (+1,500 jobs).