Wisconsin Medicinal Cannabis Law Probably Dead Already

A measure that would legalize medicinal cannabis in Wisconsin appears to have reached the end of the road.

Republican lawmakers, who control the state legislature, “allowed a capitol debate on legislation that would legalize the use of marijuana, but the step forward for proponents won’t result in a new cannabis law in the foreseeable future.” Wisconsin,” reported the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

According to the newspaper, a medical cannabis bill was heard in the state capital in Madison on Wednesday that “weeks after GOP leaders concluded the Legislature’s work for the year – prompting some Democrats who have long supported legalization to do so.” to accuse the authors of the Republican bills of using the hearing as a ‘political ploy’ in an election year.”

The bill was authored by a GOP state senator who also chairs the committee whose endorsement of medicinal cannabis is based on her experience with breast cancer.

“All of these drugs have serious side effects, some of which I still know today, which is okay. I mean I’m alive. But what if there was a way a natural product could have helped me with that?” Senator Mary Felzkowski said at Wednesday’s hearing, as quoted by the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel.

“If you have a prescription drug that has a horrible side effect, then you take a drug to counteract the side effect… it was unreal. I mean, it’s almost like I went through six months of fog,” she added.

But the bill was seemingly dead when it arrived, and the Journal Sentinel reported that it has “little support in the state Senate and virtually no chance of moving forward, where the GOP leader has said he will only get such legislation from the Food and Support Drug Administration approves it as a prescription drug.”

Cannabis policy has become a contentious issue in the Wisconsin legislature this year. In February, the state’s Democratic Gov. Tony Evers vetoed a Republican-backed bill that would have imposed tougher and more explicit penalties for the manufacture and sale of cannabis or resin by butane extraction.

Evers, who has been vocal in support of legalizing cannabis for all adults, said the bill was “another step in the wrong direction.”

“I veto this bill in its entirety because I oppose creating additional offenses or penalties related to marijuana use,” Evers, who is running for re-election this year, said in his veto statement at the time.

“States across our country — both Democrat- and Republican-controlled — have been and are taking meaningful steps to address elevated incarceration rates and reduce racial disparity by investing in drug use treatment, community re-entry programs, alternatives to… Incarceration, rehabilitation and other data invest. driven, evidence-based practices that we know are essential solutions to reforming our justice system,” the governor added. “The data and science are unequivocal on this issue, and I applaud lawmakers for having meaningful conversations about judicial reform in Wisconsin.”

Medicinal and recreational cannabis is not legal in Wisconsin.

With Republicans in control of the legislature, full legalization seems unlikely for now. But in a moment of candidness, a top GOP lawmaker in the Badger State recently suggested that such reform might be inevitable.

“Recreational marijuana, I think, has a much harder road getting through the legislature and eventually being passed into law, but I think we’re moving in that direction,” said Jim Steineke, Majority Leader in the State Assembly, last month .

But last year, Steineke’s State Senate counterpart, Majority Leader Devin LeMathieu, said legalization in the GOP-controlled legislature is a non-starter.

“We have no support from the caucus. It’s pretty clear that we don’t have 17 votes in the Medical or Recreational faction [to] legalize,” LeMathieu said at the time.