Wisconsin Democrats announce marijuana legalization bill
In a bid to capitalize on recent bipartisan pushes to regulate the state’s hemp industry, Wisconsin Democrats have introduced a bill to fully legalize marijuana.
But the effort to create legal recreational and medical programs is all but sure to fail. Republicans, who control both chambers of the Legislature, have not taken up previous Democratic attempts at legalization and have nixed repeated attempts by Gov. Tony Evers to include legalization in his state budgets. GOP leadership has said it will only consider limited medical programs.
Still, Democrats who introduced their latest proposal Monday said that, in the face of a changing federal approach to hemp regulation, full legalization would be both an economic boon for the state, and a way to limit incarceration.
“Arresting someone for smoking weed does not make our neighborhoods safer,” said Rep. Darrin Madison, D-Milwaukee. “It limits access to jobs, housing, education and stability for life and … those arrests fall overwhelmingly on Black and brown communities.”
https://www.wpr.org/news/wisconsin-democrats-marijuana-cannabis-legalization-legislation