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Wisconsin GOP Lawmakers Sour on Governor’s Marijuana Legalization Plan but Open to Narrower Reforms
Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers (D) said on Sunday that he will be including a full legalization plan in his 2021-23 budget request next week. It is a step up from his 2019 proposal that called for legalizing medical marijuana and decriminalizing simple possession—which the GOP Assembly and Senate killed at the time.
But while the governor has evolved on the issue, Senate President Chris Kapenga (R) said on Wednesday that adult-use legalization is a non-starter with the GOP-controlled legislature.
“The legalization of recreational marijuana is not in the best interest of Wisconsinites,” Kapenga said in a press release on Wednesday. “There are serious health and societal issues that need to be understood, and Governor Evers shouldn’t sacrifice the safety of the people of Wisconsin—particularly our children—in pursuit of the mighty dollar.”
New Mexico Marijuana Legalization Bills Get First Hearing This Week
As the governor of New Mexico steps up her push to enact marijuana legalization, a House committee is set to take up two separate proposals to end cannabis prohibition at a hearing this weekend.
One bill introduced by Rep. Javier Martínez (D), would allow adults 21 and older to possess “at least” two ounces of cannabis and grow up to six mature and six immature plants for personal use. It would also create a system of regulated and taxed cannabis sales.
Of the four separate legalization bills that have been introduced in the New Mexico legislature so far this session, Martinez’s is the only one that includes provisions to automatically expunge prior cannabis convictions and use tax revenue from marijuana sales to support reinvestments in communities most impacted by the war on drugs.
More Than Half of North Carolinians Support Legalizing Marijuana for Recreational Use
More North Carolinians think that legalizing marijuana for medical and recreational uses would be a good move for the state, according to a new poll from Elon University.
“Opposition to recreational marijuana legalization fell substantially over the last three years,” said Jason Husser, director of the Elon Poll and associate professor of political science. “I suspect this is due in large part to the wave of states that have passed legalization measures. Medical marijuana legalization remains broadly supported in every demographic group we examined.”
In 2017, Elon asked North Carolinians if they support or oppose legalizing marijuana for recreational use.
At the time, more people said they were against legalization than said they supported it with 45% in favor and 50.5% opposed.
Now, that balance is shifting.
In 2021, the Elon poll found that more people support legalizing marijuana for recreational use with 54% in favor and 43% opposed.
The 2017 and 2021 poll results for legalizing medical marijuana both showed over 70% support for medical marijuana.
Starting A Business? Study Finds Marijuana May Help—And Hinder
A new study out of Washington State University suggests cannabis may inspire entrepreneurs to come up with big, bold business ideas—but could also lead them down a rabbit hole of wishful thinking.
Researchers found that entrepreneurs who were frequent marijuana consumers came up with business pitches that were more original but less feasible, according to a panel of experts who scored the ideas.
Researchers say their findings support one of the study’s core hypotheses: that there are differences between how cannabis users and non-users arrive at business ideas. “Cannabis users are more impulsive, disinhibited, and better at identifying relationships among seemingly disparate concepts,” the study proposes. “However, these differences and cannabis users’ diminished executive functioning likely detracts from idea feasibility.”
As the study itself acknowledges, many successful business leaders and visionaries have credited the inspirational powers of cannabis. Apple luminary Steve Jobs, for example, “noted that his use of cannabis helped him feel ‘relaxed and creative.’”
Iowa GOP Lawmaker Makes Another Push to Decriminalize Psilocybin Mushrooms
A Republican lawmaker in Iowa is taking another swing at reforming the state’s psychedelics laws, introducing a bill on Tuesday to remove psilocybin from the list of controlled substances.
While Rep. Jeff Shipley (R) has plans to continue to put forward additional, broader psychedelics reform measures this session, this first bill has a narrower scope. The text of the legislation simply states that it “removes psilocybin and psilocyn from the list of substances classified as schedule I controlled substances under Iowa’s uniform Controlled Substances Act.”
The representative also filed legislation in 2019 that would have legalized psilocybin, MDMA and ibogaine for therapeutic purposes. That bill did not advance.
