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Cannabis Connection
“The most dangerous thing about cannabis is that it is illegal,” said state senator Melissa Agard. “For far too long, opponents of legal cannabis have peddled falsehoods as a way to scare people.” Sen. Agard intends to change that through a newly introduced bill to legalize, tax and regulate marijuana in Wisconsin.
The bill, led in the State Assembly by Rep. David Bowen, would make cannabis legal and available to adults 21 and older in Wisconsin. Residents could possess up to two ounces of marijuana and grow up to six plants for personal use. It would allow medical marijuana patients to access cannabis without paying tax after being diagnosed by a physician. The bill would also open the door to expunging past marijuana offenses. Agard announced that conservative projections estimate additional revenue for the state to reach at least $165 million, 60% of which would be dedicated to reinvesting in local communities hurt by the War on Drugs.
This is not the first time that Agard introduced this bill; in the past, it was systematically shot down by the Republican legislature without so much as a public hearing. “In 2013, people warned me about authoring this legislation, saying it might be the end of my career. They said it was too extreme and the time was wrong,” she said in a speech announcing the bill. “Today, it is safe to say that the landscape has changed, and support has grown and continues to grow. It is safe to say there was a paradigm shift in our country as well as in the state of Wisconsin.”
Solid Data
Unlike Republican lawmakers, who have taken it upon themselves to decide that Wisconsin cannot have safe and legal marijuana, Agard’s bill relies on solid data proving how popular the measure is. A 2019 survey by Marquette University found that 59% of Wisconsin voters support recreational marijuana and 83% support medical marijuana. This only serves to confirm the results of the 2018 advisory referendum on marijuana led across Wisconsin, where a bipartisan coalition of nearly one million voters overwhelmingly approved the legalization of both recreational and medical marijuana—70% of voters in Milwaukee County and 76% in Dane County voted for legal recreational weed, and up to 85% voted in favor of medical marijuana. “It is reckless that the Republicans refuse to allow Wisconsinites to speak on this issue,” Sen. Agard protested.
To introduce her bill, Sen. Agard traveled to Illinois, in the city of South Beloit. Standing just a few yards away from the Wisconsin state border. The Sunnyside cannabis dispensary there, which was the largest cannabis retail location in the state when it opened despite being located in a tiny town with 8,000 residents, is emblematic of the tax dollars constantly pouring out of Wisconsin and into more modern states. Sen. noted that the parking lot of the dispensary was filled with Wisconsin license plates, and that the very first sale from that dispensary was to a Wisconsin resident.
South Beloit Mayor Ted Rehl admitted that his town’s budget relies on the failure of Wisconsin to legalize marijuana. Governor Tony Evers even joked that he is “tired of talking to the Governor from Illinois” because Gov. Pritzker of Illinois keeps thanking Evers “for having Wisconsinites crossing the border to buy marijuana.” Out-of-state customers—mainly Wisconsinites coming to enjoy Illinois’ common sense cannabis policy—spent no less than $231 million buying legal marijuana on the other side of the state line in the first half of 2021 alone.
“Wisconsin is an island of prohibition. Prohibition has not worked when it came to alcohol; it did not work when it came to margarine; it is not working when it comes to cannabis,” she spoke in front of the marijuana retail store of South Beloit. “We urgently need to change the policies of our state,” she said, adding that the current status quo in Wisconsin is “embarrassing.” This new legalization bill intends to redress that wrong by addressing racial disparities in how prohibition is carried out, help our farmers, free innocent prisoners and give a powerful economic boost to the entire state.
