Doctor Thomas Dobbs says with the COVID-19 pandemic response winding down and Mississippi’s medical marijuana program getting cranked up, changing leadership at the State Department of Health during this transition made sense. Dobbs will resign as State Health Officer at the end of July. He says COVID has been a “phenomenal challenge” for MSDH but also an opportunity to show what his agency can do and to use it as a springboard to advance other public health topics. Dobbs says he didn’t expect the pandemic to last this long and he says there was another surprise– how quickly the public went from panic to complacency over the virus. And as MSDH shifts its focus to medical marijuana, he says he regrets that the department will have to use so much of its energy putting together that program instead of fighting obesity, diabetes and infant mortality. Dobbs says they’re having to divert staff from other activities to get the medical marijuana program up and running.