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Wisconsin’s top Senate Democrat is asking the public to put pressure on the state’s GOP-controlled legislature to hold a hearing on a bill to legalize marijuana that she’s sponsoring.

Senate Minority Leader Melissa Agard (D) has been pushing the Republican majority to act on cannabis reform for years, and now she’s circulating an online petition to show support for a public hearing for lawmakers to finally take up the issue.

“We know that cannabis legalization is a popular policy in Wisconsin, yet Republican Legislators in the Capitol refuse to even schedule a public hearing for my bill to #LegalizeIt,” the petition says. “Legislative Republicans cannot continue to ignore the will of the people and need to hear the voices of Wisconsinites!”

My #GrassRoutesTour has always been about listening to the people of Wisconsin! You can sign the petition for a public hearing here: https://t.co/XeeEq9OKOb #MarijuanaMonday

Video Credit: @PBSWI pic.twitter.com/TAcGab06ke

— Senator Melissa Agard (@SenatorAgard) November 20, 2023

The petition also directs to a constituent services page with materials on Agard’s legalization bill, her informational illustrated “zine” on marijuana reform and other resources for people to get familiarized with the proposal, which she unveiled at a hemp farm in September.

“Please feel free to share this petition widely and be part of the conversation about this important issue,” Agard said. “Legalizing cannabis will open up new frontiers of economic opportunities, while bringing equity to our discriminatory criminal justice system. We must be willing to put aside partisan politics and prioritize the development of family-supporting jobs through the cannabis industry.”

“Our farmers are ready. Communities that have been harmed by over-enforced drug policies are ready. Our Main Streets are ready,” the petition says. “Wisconsin is ready to grow our future. We can do this folks – let’s legalize cannabis!”

People are invited to add their name and contact information for the petition, as well as their commentary on why legalization is personally important to them.

Here are the key provisions of Agard’s marijuana legalization bill: 

• Adults 21 and older could possess up to five ounces of cannabis for personal use, and they could grow up to 12 plants.
• The bill would impose a 15 percent excise tax on marijuana producers for the wholesale transfer of cannabis, and a 10 percent tax on retailers and lounges for the sale of marijuana. Medical cannabis patients would not be subject to a tax. And 60 percent of tax revenue the state generates would be earmarked for a community reinvestment grant fund.
• Grants would support efforts to support industry participation by women and minorities, healthcare equity and law enforcement training to combat impaired driving.
• The state Department of Revenue (DOR) would be responsible for licensing cannabis businesses. Producers and processors would need additional permitting from the Department of Agriculture. Businesses with 20 or more employees couldn’t be licensed unless they have a labor peace agreement.
• Because Wisconsin doesn’t have a medical cannabis program, the bill dually legalizes for adult and medical use. DOR would need to create a medical marijuana registry for qualifying patients, defined as those with a “debilitating medical condition” such as cancer or AIDS.
• The state Department of Justice would be tasked with reviewing records to identify cases where a person was convicted of an offense the bill legalizes. If the offense was non-violent, the department would need to initiate a process to clear the person’s record.
• With certain exemptions, employers would generally be prohibited from discriminating against workers or applicants on the sole basis that they lawfully use marijuana off the employer’s premise and during non-work hours. Unemployment benefits couldn’t be denied due to cannabis use, either.

So far, arguments about the potential benefits of legalization have not translated into meaningful legislative action in the Badger State. Republican leaders have said they’re working on limited medical cannabis legislation, but a bill to that end has not yet been formally introduced this session, despite Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R) saying they intended to get it out “this fall.”

Another GOP lawmaker in the state, Sen. Mary Felzkowski (R), said recently that Democrats like Agard who are advocating for comprehensive legalization are detracting from efforts to advance incremental reform. But as the minority leader has pointed out, Republicans wield control of both chambers and could theoretically move whatever version of the reform they’d like at any point.

The GOP-controlled legislature in May voted again to strip cannabis reform language from Gov. Tony Evers’s (D) budget request, which included measures on legalizing, taxing and regulating cannabis in the state.

As part of the Evers’s budget request this year, his office estimated that the state would generate $44.4 million in “segregated tax revenue” from legal cannabis, as well as a $10.2 million increase in state general fund tax revenue, in fiscal year 2025 if the reform is enacted.

The governor also included adult-use and medical marijuana legalization in his 2021 budget, as well as decriminalization and medical cannabis in his 2019 proposal, but the conservative legislature has consistently blocked the reform.

With respect to Agard’s bill, the state Department of Revenue released a fiscal estimate of its economic impact earlier this month, projecting that the reform would generate nearly $170 million annually in tax revenue.

Meanwhile, bipartisan and bicameral Wisconsin lawmakers recently came together to introduce a bill that would create a psilocybin research pilot program in the state.

Ohio GOP Senate President Lays Out Process To Revise Marijuana Law, Arguing Voters Didn’t Understand Some Provisions

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Missouri marijuana businesses have now sold more than $1 billion worth of medical and adult-use cannabis products so far in 2023, according to new numbers released by the state’s Department of Health and Senior Services (DHHS).

Retailers sold about $95.5 million worth of cannabis products to adults in October, plus another $17.6 million in medical marijuana. While both those represent slight declines from the month before, they brought the state’s total amount of marijuana sold in 2023 to more than $1.1 billion.

Broadly, adult-use numbers have slowly risen since recreational sales began in February, while medical marijuana sales have steadily dwindled. This year has also seen reductions in the number of registered medical marijuana patients, caregivers and patient cultivators.

All cannabis sales since 2020 total a cumulative $1.7 billion, according to DHHS.

The numbers are approximate, because unlike marijuana sales data from most other states, Missouri DHHS rounds the figures to the nearest $100,000.

Of tax revenue received by the state, lawmakers recently announced that $17 million will be used to fund veterans health, drug treatment and legal aid.

Missouri’s marijuana system has also experienced considerable turbulence this year, with tens of thousands of products recalled over the allegedly illegal use of hemp-derived cannabinoids from outside the state. Regulators last week moved to revoke the business license of Delta Extraction, the company at the center of the controversy.

The incident put state marijuana regulators on their heels regarding practices at product testing labs, which had already come under fire earlier in the year over alleged practices of “lab shopping” as producers sought higher THC potency numbers.

Another company, Retailer Point Management, which does business as Shangri-La in Columbia, recently settled a dispute with a union over 15 charges of unfair labor practices.

Meanwhile, lawmakers earlier this month said the state’s marijuana regulators overstepped their authority when setting new rules on product branding and packaging meant to limit appeal to children.

Businesses last month also filed a lawsuit challenging the “stacked” local and county taxes that companies say is unconstitutional.

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“We were pushing our rights. We’re just sick of being held down. And every economic opportunity, we’re held back from.”

By Max Nesterak, Minnesota Reformer

About three months ago, Mahnomen County sheriff’s deputies and White Earth tribal police raided Todd Thompson’s tobacco shop, seizing around seven pounds of cannabis, along with $3,000 in cash, his cell phone and surveillance system.

The August 2 raid happened the day after recreational marijuana became legal across the state and was the first major enforcement action under the new law.

But no charges have been filed in the case—and the state may not have the authority to prosecute him or any other tribal member for marijuana crimes on reservations.

Thompson, a member of the White Earth Nation, didn’t have a state permit to sell cannabis nor did he have the consent of the tribal council, which voted days earlier to allow adult-use cannabis and sell marijuana cultivated in its tribal-run facility.

For his part, Thompson doesn’t believe he needs the permission of the state or the tribal council to sell marijuana on the reservation under the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe’s constitution or U.S. treaties with the Ojibwe. That’s why Thompson said he and four other tribal members decided to sell cannabis out in the open from Asema Tobacco and Pipe, the store he’s run for five years in Mahnomen.

“We were pushing our rights,” Thompson said in an interview. “We’re just sick of being held down. And every economic opportunity, we’re held back from.”

They made it hard for law enforcement to ignore, advertising marijuana for sale with Facebook photos and videos showing large jars of green marijuana buds and invited people to come in.

The next day, tribal police and Mahnomen County sheriff’s deputies came to Thompson’s store with a search warrant. In the search warrant application filed in Minnesota district court, a White Earth narcotics investigator said they had seen a Facebook Live video of Thompson promoting the sale, and an undercover agent then purchased cannabis there.

Thompson said police handcuffed him and workers at his store and held them for more than an hour while they searched the premises.

He said they also went to his house, where they broke into his safe and “desecrated” sacred items—he found his eagle feather on the floor and the ashes from his sage bowl dumped onto his white sheets.

“They’re just some rotten, dirty bastards,” Thompson said.

To Thompson, the raid was heavy-handed retribution by a spiteful tribal council for edging in on their effective monopoly on legal marijuana sales. Neither the state nor White Earth has set up a licensing system yet for individuals to legally sell cannabis. White Earth has opened a tribal-run dispensary, only the second legal dispensary in the state along with the Red Lake Nation’s.

Thompson actually beat White Earth to market—the tribe opened its dispensary the day after the raid about a half-mile away from Thompson’s store. He also said his prices were about half those in the tribal dispensary and he didn’t charge an additional 10 percent tax.

“They just strong-arm robbed me is what they did. They strong-arm robbed me,” Thompson said in an interview. “As soon as they took my shit, they took us out of cuffs and they left … just like that.”

White Earth Nation Chairman Michael Fairbanks said the council didn’t order the raid on Thompson’s business—tribal police assisted Mahnomen County law enforcement and the council was informed after the raid.

Mahnomen County Attorney Jason Hastings said in an email the case is under investigation and he is “optimistic that the matter should be addressed within the next couple of weeks.”

This isn’t the first time Thompson has publicly taunted law enforcement in order to assert tribal sovereignty. In 2015, he was cited for illegally gillnetting on Gull Lake without a permit. Thompson fought the charges, which were ultimately dropped—years later—after a district court judge ruled that Thompson retained fishing rights on Gull Lake as a citizen of the White Earth Nation.

As in the 2015 fishing case, prosecuting Thompson raises complex legal questions given his tribal identity and store’s location on reservation land.

Minnesota has the power to prosecute criminal—but not civil—violations of state law by tribal members on certain reservations including White Earth’s under what’s called Public Law 280. The key in Thompson’s case will be determining if possessing large quantities of cannabis or selling it without a license is criminal or civil.

The answer may lie in a landmark 1987 U.S. Supreme Court case called California v. Cabazon Band of Mission Indians, which ushered in modern Indian gaming by creating a distinction between criminal laws that are prohibitory versus regulatory.

In that case, the Supreme Court decided that “if the intent of a state law is generally to prohibit certain conduct, it falls within [Public Law] 280…but if the state law generally permits the conduct at issue, subject to regulation, it must be classified as civil/regulatory.”

And by the looks of it, Minnesota moved to allow “the conduct at issue,” i.e., marijuana sales, as of August 1.

Yet, in some cases, the state may still pursue criminal prosecutions if the conduct violated the state’s “public policy.”

In 1997, the Minnesota Supreme Court took up a case involving prosecution of a Leech Lake Band of Ojibwe member for underage alcohol consumption. A district court judge dismissed the charge, saying the state didn’t have jurisdiction. But the state Supreme Court disagreed, ruling that state law strictly prohibits underage alcohol consumption because there is public policy interest in doing so.

In Thompson’s case, he said he and his partners only sold to other adults.

Even if state authorities find they have the power to prosecute Thompson, doing so would be politically fraught. Minnesota’s new laws on cannabis are intended to end the state’s punitive approach to marijuana crimes.

Charging a Native American man for selling weed without a license smacks of the old regime.

State Democrats, buttressed by public polls showing support for legalization, said the new laws would advance racial justice through provisions to expunge people’s records of marijuana convictions and provide people from communities disproportionately harmed by the War on Drugs with a leg up in opening cannabis businesses of their own.

Dave Hart, commander of the Paul Bunyan Task Force that helped carry out the raid, emphasized that law enforcement agencies aren’t focused on marijuana crimes, especially as the opioid epidemic rages.

“Marijuana isn’t something we particularly target…we’re busy enough with heroin, fentanyl, methamphetamine,” Hart said. “In this particular case, it was a pretty blatant disrespect for the law.”

State Democrats also argued legalization would increase safety by bringing state regulation and oversight to the industry. Allowing people to sell unlicensed products of unknown potency and origin—Thompson declined to say where he sourced his product—without consequences would make state and tribal regulations meaningless, effectively giving as little oversight to a mind-altering drug as the government does to vitamins.

Already state regulators have struggled to clamp down on rampant violations of regulations on low-dose THC edibles as new businesses look to stake their claim in the Green Rush coming to Minnesota.

The fact that cannabis remains illegal under federal law could further complicate Thompson’s case, though the matter is not likely a priority for federal law enforcement.

The U.S. Department of Justice advises federal prosecutors to focus marijuana enforcement on cases that involve sale to minors; revenue that goes to criminal enterprises; the use of firearms and where other serious factors are at play.

That leaves White Earth authorities to enforce adult-use cannabis codes, which prohibit the cultivation and sale of cannabis unless licensed by the tribe’s Medicinal Cannabis Control Commision. The tribe’s code says the commission has the power to destroy illegal cannabis and levy fines against people who violate the code.

Another factor adds further confusion: While the tribal council voted to approve the adult-use cannabis code on July 28, it wasn’t ratified and signed until August 3, the day after the raid, meaning it’s not clear if the White Earth regulatory regime was in effect when the raid occurred.

Fairbanks, the tribal chairman, said he wasn’t fully briefed on the jurisdictional issues at play, but he said he thought the county would lead on investigating Thompson and bringing any charges.

Calls and an email to the head of the White Earth Medicinal Cannabis Control Commission seeking clarity on when the codes took effect and what penalties there may be were not returned.

Thompson’s own legal challenge to state law and the tribal code are headier. Like many Native people, he doesn’t believe Public Law 280 is legitimate.

He also thinks the White Earth tribal council overstepped its authority by establishing rules on cannabis sales without putting it before tribal members for a vote. White Earth did pursue medicinal cannabis through a referendum in 2020, but Thompson thinks that should have been voted on by all six member bands of the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe, not just White Earth.

He also believes the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe constitution grants him the right to sell cannabis because it grants “equal opportunities to participate in the economic resources and activities of the Tribe.”

Law professor Angelique EagleWoman is skeptical of his legal interpretation, however.

EagleWoman, who directs Mitchell Hamline’s Native American Law and Sovereignty Institute, said the Minnesota Chippewa Tribe constitution doesn’t give tribal members carte blanche in regulated industries.

“The common understanding of the constitutional provision in many different governmental constitutions…refers to the idea that if an economic activity is licensed and regulated by the government, then a citizen who meets all of the requirements will be able to participate equally in the economic resource,” EagleWoman wrote in an email.

Even if the county doesn’t ultimately prosecute Thompson, it doesn’t have to automatically return his cannabis, cash, cell phone or other seized items. Thompson would likely have to file a lawsuit to get his property back.

Thompson said he is considering his legal options.

“This has not ended,” Thompson said. “Believe me, this isn’t by any means over with.”

This story was first published by the Minnesota Reformer.

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A top federal health official is offering some pointed critiques of the U.S. drug criminalization model, stressing how politicizing addiction has fostered a system of incarceration that increases overdose risk while biasing research that could reveal the benefits, as well as the risks, of substances such as marijuana and psilocybin. She also rebuked treatment approaches that focus exclusively on abstinence.

National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Director Nora Volkow made the comments in an appearance last month at the International Drug Policy Reform Conference, speaking on a panel with Drug Policy Alliance (DPA) Executive Director Kassandra Frederique.

One of the conversation points touched on the dangers of focusing on abstinence in drug treatment, rather than meeting people who use drugs where they’re at. The “inflexibility” of abstinence-only “costs a lot of lives,” Volkow said.

If a person wants to get treatment and abstain from drugs, “that’s great” as a “theoretical ideal,” the official said. “But to basically impose that as a reality for everyone—who have very different backgrounds and opportunities—I think it’s sort of like a magical thought and not practical.”

In general, the policies and strategies the U.S. has historically pursued to combat drug misuse are “not helping to address the overdose crisis,” evidenced by the fact that “overdose fatalities are continuing to rise,” Volkow argued.

“What it tells us is whatever we’re doing is clearly not sufficient. What do we need to do to change this?” she said at the panel, a recording of which was shared with Marijuana Moment. “This very polarized categorical perspective that it’s either, ‘you go abstinent or we don’t pay any attention to you and we send you to jail’ is catastrophic. I mean, it has basically contributed to what we’re seeing as a horrific problem in our country with horrible fatalities like we’ve never seen.”

She also discussed how research has increasingly identified a strong relationship between addiction and “adverse” social environments, including cultures where drug use is stigmatized. One example of a “commercial determinant” that’s compounded substance misuse issues, Volkow said, is the U.S. carceral system itself.

“What are the commercial determinants of health? What are the commercial determinants of addiction?” she said. There are commercial detriments intertwined with the marketing of substances like alcohol and tobacco, she said. However, “we also have jails—and those are commercial entities.”

Volkow also expressed her frustration with policies that lead medical professionals to report pregnant women when they’re seeking treatment after testing positive for illicit substances. That practice—which she said takes place in half of the states in the country and can lead to incarceration in five—is significantly contributing to why mortality rates for pregnant women are increasing.

“What’s happening is these women are desperate. Because [they are saying], ‘I wouldn’t go [to treatment]. I don’t want to end up in jail, and I wouldn’t want to lose my child,'” she said, echoing points she made in an op-ed for STAT News this year. “So of course you don’t seek treatment, and you are in a very dangerous [situation] right now. Illicit drug markets. And that makes you more desperate.”

The NIDA director said that when she goes to testify before Congress on drug policy issues, she tries to make abundantly clear that “you don’t want to politicize science” to inform policymaking.

“Unfortunately, we have seen—and you saw during the COVID pandemic—a horrific politicization of science, which is very, very unfortunate because it negatively affects everyone and so that permeates a lot of things,” she said. But my belief is certainly, science should be outside the political or ideological world.”

DPA’s Frederique pointed out, however, that it has long been the case that politics and individual ideologies do permeate the type of research that’s being funded into drug issues.

“The kind of research that is prioritized is not happening in a vacuum, right?” she said. “It is shaped by what people want to know, what questions are put forward and who gets to ask the questions. So I think part of the thing that we want to engage and interrogate is how do we change up the questions?”

Specifically, Frederique said that the type of research that’s typically prioritized and funded focus on identifying the harms of drugs—a reflection of the drug war mentality that’s shaped public policy. There’s a relative lack of research on “how drugs operate in society” and “what are the ways that drugs help people.”

“I agree 100 percent,” Volkow replied. “I mean, I think that that notion—very much that focus in terms of ‘drugs are harmful, harmful, harmful’ is an ideological one. And in many ways, it’s actually, from our perspective of what is our role as an institute, is to also understand what are the effects of drugs.”

There are people who use currently illicit drugs like cannabis to derive medical benefits, for example, she said.

“We need to investigate them so that we can understand whether they have benefits or not, and that information needs to be given to the public,” she said. “So this is very obvious when it comes to, for example, cannabis—but we’re seeing it right now also expanded to the interest on psychedelic drugs like psilocybin and an ecstasy. And it is our responsibility to provide that knowledge.”

Earlier this year, Volkow also said there is emerging evidence that psychedelics carry “significant potential” as therapeutic treatments for certain mental health conditions, and it’s a topic of “great interest” for researchers.

The director told Marijuana Moment in 2021 that researchers need to prioritize psychedelics research, as more people are likely to use them as they’re exposed to studies showing the therapeutic potential of the substances.

Last year, she argued that drug criminalization has “created a structurally racist system” in which Black people are treated “worse” than others. Volkow also talked about the relationship between racial prejudice and drug criminalization in 2021, saying the U.S. is “currently reckoning with a long history of discriminatory and racist policies, many of which still continue today.”

In a separate essay in 2021, the health official reiterated that the current federal drug policy leads to disproportionate enforcement against communities of color and can actually increase the risk of overdose deaths. She stopped short of explicitly endorsing decriminalization, but signaled that it was time for that kind of an approach to effectively combat addiction and overdoses.

South African Lawmakers Approve Marijuana Legalization Bill Years After Court Deems Prohibition Unconstitutional

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The post Top Federal Health Official Says Abstinence-Only Drug Treatment Is ‘Magical’ Thinking That ‘Costs A Lot Of Lives’ appeared first on Marijuana Moment.

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