UPDATE: Wisconsin Pro-Legalization Governor Will Go In For Republican Plan

Editor's note: Wisconsin Republican lawmakers unveiled their medical cannabis legalization proposal after this article was published. Here's what's included in their plan: 

• Allow patients to access non-smokeable cannabis products, such as oils, tinctures, edibles and topicals. 
• Qualifying conditions include: Alzheimer’s disease cancer, chronic nausea, chronic pain, epilepsy, glaucoma, HIV or AIDS, inflammatory bowel disease, multiple sclerosis, muscle spasms, post-traumatic stress disorder, and terminal illnesses where a person’s life expectancy is less than one year.  
• License five state-run dispensaries under the state's Department of Health Services, with an option to increase that store number in the future. 
• Establish an Office of Medical Cannabis Regulation to oversee a forthcoming retail program and patient registry.
• Exempt medical cannabis purchases from the state's sales tax.
• License independent businesses to cultivate and manufacture/process cannabis.
  
• Direct the state Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection to regulate the cultivation, manufacturing/processing and testing of cannabis.

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After years of making no headway on cannabis reform with an opposing party in control of the Legislature, Wisconsin Democratic Gov. Tony Evers is now open to a limited medical cannabis legalization plan.

This comes after Evers, who has held the governorship since 2019, has pushed for broad cannabis legalization via his state budget proposals in past years. In early 2021, for example, Evers put forward an adult-use legalization motion in his biennial budget that suggested taxing the plant like alcohol in what he estimated would generate $165 million in annual revenue.

But Republican lawmakers who have held majorities in both the state House and Senate since 2011 have repeatedly rejected Evers’ ongoing push for legalization as well as legislation—for both medical and adult-use reform—sponsored by their Democratic colleagues in the Legislature. And in Wisconsin, one of 24 states in the nation that does not provide citizen-initiated ballot measures, cannabis reform must have the backing of the Legislature.

Notably, in February 2021, Wisconsin majority leadership slammed Evers’ inclusion of cannabis legalization in the state budget, including state Sen. Howard Marklein, co-chair of the Joint Finance Committee, who holds the fiscal keys to much of the decision making in his chamber.

“[Cannabis legalization is] a significant enough policy change that that topic needs to be debated in the light of day on its own,” Marklein said at the time. “It’s a big policy shift, and I just believe it’s too big to be inserted into the state budget.”

Despite this, Evers continued pushing for this legalization route in 2022. In addition, a pair of Democratic lawmakers took a shot at policy reform with the introduction of a legalization bill in September 2023. Both efforts came to no avail.

But now with Republican lawmakers stating their intentions to come around to reform via a limited medical cannabis program, Evers told The Associated Press that he’s open to supporting incremental reform.

“I would think that getting it all done in one fell swoop would be more thoughtful as far as meeting the needs of Wisconsinites that have asked for it,” Evers said. “But if that’s what we can accomplish right now, I’ll be supportive of that.”

In October 2022, pollsters from Marquette University Law School found that 64% of Wisconsin voters supported adult-use legalization.

The text of the GOP-led medical cannabis bill is expected to be unveiled Jan. 8, the AP reported. But one leader warned that this bill will not be a stepping stone toward adult-use legalization.

Wisconsin Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, told the Wisconsin State Journal in December that the forthcoming legislation would only pave way for a limited medical program similar to that of neighboring Minnesota, which original only allowed patients to access cannabis in pill, oil and topical form before expanding to allow flower products in March 2022.

Minnesota went on to legalize adult-use cannabis when Gov. Tim Walz signed legislation in May 2023.

Vos also indicated a Wisconsin program would only allow patients with serious health conditions—such as HIV, cancer, Crohn’s disease, post-traumatic stress disorder and chronic pain—to quality for access.

But with talks of this being the first step of cannabis reform, Vos had a clear message for Evers just days before unveiling the legislation.

“I’m glad that the governor is open to supporting our proposal,” Vos told the AP on Dec. 5. “But if he keeps saying it’s only a precursor to recreational marijuana, it will kill this proposal.”

Wisconsin remains one of nine states without even a highly restrictive medical cannabis program.