The Advocate Series: Chip Sheppard

Before the 2016 and 2018 campaigns, the City of Springfield enacted decriminalization after a citizen-led petition. They repealed it a month later. This move was deemed illegal and the petition organizers called Chip Sheppard, a Springfield-area business attorney. They called Sheppard because he had recently sued the City of Springfield and won in federal court – and the petitioners wanted him to do it again.

They said, “Well, you’re not afraid to sue the city.”

Sheppard led mediation for the petitioners, the American Victory Coalition led by Miranda Reynolds and John Payne, and the City wrote a check for $240,000. They used a large chunk of the money to conduct statewide polling on medical marijuana.

“The statewide polling came back that said a medical effort would pass with over 60 percent of the vote,” Sheppard said. “With the success of the polling, we got a commitment from out of state funders if we could raise the first money locally.”

Payne and Dan Viets asked Sheppard to join the board of directors for New Approach Missouri. And so, a business lawyer became an advocate. Sheppard was involved in the heartbreak 2016 campaign then the successful 2018 campaign, which turned into Sheppard joining the MoCannTrade board in what he calls a “slippery slope.”

“When I asked the time commitment, they said a few hours and I said, ‘ok, that’s not bad.’ I think we all thought that was it, but it turned out to be a lot of work and a lot of great teamwork, but well worth it.” 

Sheppard went beyond his normal legal day job, helping to assist the campaigns with fundraising by bringing business leaders together to see patients in need of medical cannabis.

“We brought patients in and people couldn’t talk, they got choked up. I remember sitting in one meeting and realizing that now we’re more on a mission, and not just out for profit. This is a mission to help people and that makes people feel passionate who were initially just seeking profit,” Sheppard said. “People some would call greedy business people were not that at all.”

Sheppard has had a front seat to medical marijuana dreams becoming a reality. The most exciting part for him was to see a doctor’s prediction come true.

Dr. Frederic Hamburg, a long-time pediatrician and head of pediatrics at a local hospital, walked into Sheppard’s office and told him that he thought medical cannabis may be “the most important medical find since penicillin.”

“Because of the endocannabinoid system in your body, it’s just wonderful to see this many people helped. It’s the most Christian thing I’ve ever been a part of,” Sheppard said. “You’re probably helping a couple of hundred-thousand people get medicine for the rest of their lives. When you get a chance to meet some of those patients during the campaign it brings it all home how important this effort was.”

Sheppard is still the quintessential attorney, quick with an answer or allusion or reasoning, but if you ask Sheppard if he ever thought he would work to legalize medical cannabis, he almost stumbles with a “No…yeah, no.”

To him, the most important part of Amendment 2, now Article XIV of the Missouri Constitution is, “Any medical condition or symptom in the professional judgment of a physician.”

“This is a return to normalcy,” Sheppard said. “Marijuana was a medicine for 3,000 years – only snuffed out in the last 7-8 decades for the wrong reasons. It will be exciting to see the research back up all the anecdotal evidence from around the world. Israel is way ahead in that regard.”

To this day, Sheppard sometimes wonders if they should go thank the leaders of the Springfield City Council for providing the seed money for what is now a reality for thousands of patients.

http://cecb.com/attorneys/joseph-chip-dow-sheppard-iii/

This feature appeared in the August/September issue of Greenway Magazine. 

FEATURED IMAGE/PHOTO/KAYCEE BARRY-GREENWAY MAGAZINE