Wisconsin is becoming an island when it comes to legal cannabis, and that’s a situation that has to change according to Wisconsin Senate Minority Leader Melissa Agard, who brought her message to Sheboygan last Thursday.
Agard, who has been advocating for reform of Wisconsin’s Marijuana laws for the past decade, says that “the most dangerous thing about cannabis in Wisconsin is that it remains illegal.” Agard calls current Wisconsin laws “antiquated and deeply-unjust” policies that have unfairly affected Wisconsin’s black community. According to the ACLU, black people were 4.24 times more likely to be arrested than white people in Wisconsin during 2018, and similar disparities exist in convictions. A bill that Senator Agard introduced last month “lays a solid foundation for those that have been harshly convicted for non-violent possession charges and the ramifications of those convictions.” The act authored by Agard and Sate Representative Darrin B. Madison of Milwaukee, would allow recreational marijuana for Wisconsinites age 21 and older, and medical marijuana for any age. The bill establishes a permit for producers, an excise tax, 60 percent of which goes into a “community reinvestment fund”, and also provides penalties for underage use and production, processing and selling pot in violation of the measure.
Agard met with the staff of Sheboygan’s Brick and Mortar Hemp Company last Thursday on her “Grass Roots Tour” to talk about the legislation with the business, which she called a “woman-owned business with the vision of creating a strong community surrounding the cannabis industry to help educate the public.” Wisconsin allows hemp products, which contain Cannabidiol, or CBD, to be sold as long as they contain less than point-three percent THC – the ingredient that gets people high from marijuana strains of cannabis. Agard and the Brick and Mortar staff discussed the medicinal benefits of cannabis and how the employees got involved with CBD and the business.
Agard says that the time is right for Wisconsin to join neighboring Michigan, Minnesota and Illinois which have all passed their own legislation legalizing marijuana to some degree. As they’ve done that, Agard says tens of millions of dollars have been flowing into those states from Wisconsin, money that could stay here at home where, according to Agard, 69 percent of Wisconsinites, including a majority of Republicans, support full legalization of marijuana. She says that “It is way past time that our state honors the will of the majority and seizes the many positive economic and social benefits that cannabis legalization has to offer.”
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