JACKSON, Miss.— Mississippi may soon tax kratom products at the same 15% rate that the state taxes smokeless tobacco under House Bill 1896. Kratom is currently unregulated in Mississippi and many other states. More than 30 Mississippi cities and counties restrict or ban kratom, the University of Mississippi reports.
Some gas stations and tobacco shops sell kratom products, which are made from the leaves of the tropical evergreen tree mitragyna speciosa in Southeast Asia. The National Institute on Drug Abuse says kratom can make a person feel similar effects to opioids and stimulants. Many kratom users take the herb to curb cravings from opioids and other substance addictions, the institute reports.
Overconsumption of kratom can be fatal in some cases, though NIDA notes it has a smaller death rate than opioids. Kratom use can cause psychiatric, respiratory, cardiovascular and gastrointestinal problems, the organization says.
Mississippi House Judiciary B Chairman Rep. Kevin Horan, R-Grenada, said he wanted to continue to allow convenience stores to sell kratom “to make everybody happy” when introducing the legislation on the House floor on Feb. 26.
House Municipalities Committee Chairman Rep. Randy Rushing, R-Decatur, asked Horan if kratom is “basically just as readily available as any other product when you go into a convenience store.”
“At this time, it is. Yes,” the chairman replied.
The House passed H.B. 1896 by a 114-0 vote on Feb. 26, sending it to the Senate for consideration.
MDOT Work Release Program
Incarcerated Mississippians in every county may soon be able to work for the Mississippi Department of Transportation under Senate Bill 2242 as long as they have not been convicted of murder, rape, aggravated assault, robbery or armed robbery.
The legislation says the Mississippi Department of Corrections would create rules for the work-release program, including who can participate and how to pay incarcerated people for their work. MDOC can assign the oversight and management of the program to MAGCOR, the prison industries corporation, if MDOC decides MAGCOR could provide “effective job training” for the incarcerated people, S.B. 2242 says.
Under the bill, an incarcerated person’s revenue would be split into three or four different streams: 20% of revenue would go to child support if applicable or to court fines and fees relating to obtaining a driver’s license; 50% would go to a fund that the incarcerated person could access after release or completing parole; 20% would go to administrative expenses for the correctional facility and 10% would go to the incarcerated person’s commissary account for “incidental expenses.”
Mississippi House Corrections Committee Chairwoman Rep. Becky Currie, R-Brookhaven, said her committee made a strike-all amendment to S.B. 2242 to include language from a similar House bill that died in the House Corrections and Appropriations C committees on Feb. 4. Her amendment also clarifies language regarding incarcerated people’s child-support payments at the request of the Department of Human Services.
“We were having the inmate, as they work, pay child support, and they said that we needed to go through the child support through DHS to be able to make sure they have a court order and this is done correctly,” she said on the House floor on Feb. 27.
The Senate passed S.B. 2242 on Feb. 10 by a 51-0 vote and the House passed its amended version of the bill by a 119-0 vote on Feb. 27. The legislation returns to the Senate for concurrence before it can head to Gov. Tate Reeves’ desk for him to decide whether to sign it into law.
Mississippi-Israel Joint Legislative Caucus HR 60
A new Mississippi-Israel Joint Legislative Caucus is designed to boost the “long-standing diplomatic relationship and history that exists between the United States of America and Israel to the mutual benefit of both countries with leadership in all of the states,” House Resolution 60 says.
The caucus’ co-chairmen are Sen. Jeremy England, R-Vancleave, Sen. Juan Barnett, D-Heidelberg, Rep. Hank Zuber, R-Ocean Springs, and Rep. Otis Anthony, D-Indianola. Members of the caucus held a press conference with the Consul General of Israel to the Southeastern United States Anat Sultan-Dadon on Feb. 25.
Members of the caucus said Mississippi’s strong relationship with Israel is important for advancing cybersecurity and technology, including artificial intelligence.
“In the economic and technological fields, Israeli companies have long collaborated with Mississippi businesses,” she said. “In the academic realm, our universities and research institutions have engaged in meaningful exchanges, sharing knowledge in fields ranging from medicine to cybersecurity,” Sultan-Dadon said at the caucus’ press conference on Feb. 25.
Hamas attacked Israel on Oct. 7, 2023, killing around 1,200 Israelis and taking 250 others hostage. In response, Israel went to war in Gaza which has killed at least 48,000 Palestinians since 2023. Like the Israeli victims, most of the dead in Gaza are civilians. The war has displaced over 90% of the population of Gaza.
“I think one area that the Joint Legislative Caucus can help with that is by stopping the spread of misinformation,” England said at the Feb. 25 press conference. “I honestly believe that people who will stand against Israel or the people who hate the Jewish people in Israel are misled.”
House Speaker Jason White, R-West, signed the enrolled resolution on Feb. 27.
Judicial Redistricting: Senate Districts
The Mississippi Legislature has to redraw its House and Senate district maps to include more Black-majority districts after a federal court ruled in 2024 that the current districts do not offer Black voters equal participation in the political process.
Joint Resolution 202 would revise the composition of Mississippi Senate districts 1, 2, 10, 11, 19, 34, 41, 42, 44 and 45 to comply with the court’s orders. The court ruled that the Legislature needs to create more Black-majority districts around DeSoto County in North Mississippi and the City of Hattiesburg in South Mississippi.
Mississippi Senate President Pro Tempore Sen. Dean Kirby, R-Pearl, said the Senate has been working on redistricting for “several months” and that it has been “very difficult.” He told senators his main goals for redistricting.
“First, we have to comply with the courts. Whatever the court said, that’s what we have to do. And the number two thing is I want to be as fair to everyone as I can possibly be and be as open as I can possibly be to everyone,” he said on the Senate floor on Feb. 26.
Sen. Derrick Simmons thanked Kirby for his work on the redistricting plan and asked his colleague if he had conducted a “performance analysis” for the newly drawn districts.
“To be honest with you, this map that you’re seeing, … (is) final map number 14, if that gives you any idea how many times we’ve drawn and how many times we’ve sent it off,” Kirby told Simmons. “Either the attorneys say, ‘That will not pass in the courts. They won’t agree with that,’ or the map experts, these companies they send them to have come back and said, ‘No.’” The senator said attorneys told him the plan he presented to the Senate on Feb. 26 “was a fair map to the State of Mississippi.”
The Senate passed J.R. 202 by a 33-16 vote on Feb. 26 and sent it to the House for consideration.
Sales Tax Exemption for Food Pantries
“Designated food pantries” would not have to pay sales taxes on any food purchases under House Bill 248, which would revise the current law that states only nonperishable food is tax exempt.
“House Bill 248 is a very simple bill that revises the definition of food that is exempt from sales tax for food pantries to make that include perishable and nonperishable food,” Mississippi House Ways and Means Committee Chairman Rep. Trey Lamar, R-Senatobia, said on the House floor on Feb. 26.
The House passed the legislation by a 118-0 vote on Feb. 26. H.B. 248 goes to the Senate for consideration.
One Online Sports Betting Fails, Another Still Alive
One effort to legalize online sports betting has failed once again in the Mississippi Legislature after the Mississippi House tabled House Bill 1881 on Feb. 26.
Committee Chairman Rep. Trey Lamar, R-Senatobia, said Mississippi is missing out on anywhere from about $20 million to $80 million yearly to illegal online sports betting. His bill would have taxed a sports better’s revenue at 4%.
“If everybody’s being honest with themselves and the public, we admit that illegal sports betting is rampant in the State of Mississippi. We either need to enforce the current laws or legalize it where it’s tax appropriately,” he said in the House Ways and Means Committee meeting on Feb. 25.
The Mississippi House passed another bill regarding online sports betting passed on Feb. 3. House Bill 1302 would legalize “online racebook” and “online sports pool betting,” allowing licensed gaming establishments that already exist in the state to obtain a manufacturer’s and distributor’s license from the Mississippi Gaming Commission to host online sports betting platforms.
“No platform will be issued a gaming license, rather it shall be required to contract with a licensed casino operator in order to conduct online sports pool or online race book activities in Mississippi,” H.B. 1302 says.
Each gaming establishment would be allowed to sign a contract with no more than “two platforms to operate an online sports pool and no more than two online race book platforms to operate online race book,” the legislation says. The online platforms would also need to obtain a license from the Mississippi Gaming Commission to operate in the state.
H.B. 1302, which is 90 pages long, is a much more detailed online-sports betting plan that lays out the logistics of how gaming establishments could join the online gaming program, how the State would tax mobile sports betting, where the profits would go if it becomes law, who could legally make online bets and legal proceedings for violators of the legislation. H.B. 1881, which is six pages long, simply notes the creation of the program, how the State would tax it and where the revenue would go if the bill became law.
Failed: Casino in Downtown Jackson
The City of Jackson will not be home to a casino within 6,000 feet of the Mississippi Capitol Building downtown after the Jackson Revitalization Act failed in the Mississippi House for the second year in a row.
Mississippi-based licensed casino owners could have opened one new facility inside the Capitol Complex Improvement District downtown on water or land under House Bill 1879 to bring tourism and a “minimum capital investment” of $500 million and 6,000 jobs to the capital city.
“We talk about how we always want to uplift the City of Jackson, bring Jackson to its glory. We talk about wanting to provide jobs and economic development for all of our people in Jackson and the state of Mississippi. Well, before you, ladies and gentlemen, I have a vehicle that will do just that for the City of Jackson—a vehicle that will stimulate business and opportunities in the City of Jackson,” Rep. Chris Bell, D-Jackson, said on the House floor on Feb. 26.
“Licensed gaming activities” at casinos in Mississippi can only occur within 800 feet of the high-water line of a body of water in the state under current law unless a casino is on a Native American reservation, but H.B. 1879 did not require the Jackson casino to be near water.
If the City and Legislature approved the casino owner to build a facility downtown, the owner would have had to pay a “development fee” of $10 million after the State issued the casino license and an annual $10 million “development fee.” All revenue from the fees would have gone to the City of Jackson Development Fund.
The legislation narrowly passed out of the House Ways and Means Committee on Feb. 26, but Committee Chairman Rep. Trey Lamar tabled it on the House floor on Feb. 27 after Bell introduced it, preventing it from advancing further.
