Wisconsin could be the 41st state to legalize medical cannabis under bicameral legislation that the state’s top senators are putting their clout behind.
Senate President Mary Felzkowski, R-Tomahawk, and Senate President Pro Tempore Patrick Testin, R-Stevens Point, introduced the bill on Sept. 29, with state Rep. Patrick Snyder, R-Weston, sponsoring a companion proposal in the lower chamber.
The legislation would provide patients with qualifying conditions access to “safe and legal” medical cannabis under a state program of licensed and regulated growers, processors, labs and dispensaries, according to Felzkowski, who issued a press release to introduce the bill on Monday.
“Someone who suffers from a serious health condition should not have to make the choice to travel to another state or break the law so they can try an alternative medicine for relief,” she said. “This legislation is about giving our friends, family members and neighbors suffering from a chronic illness the freedom to explore another option with their doctor. This is also a chance for small businesses in our state to take part in this market with reasonable regulations on making and selling these products, all while still protecting public safety.”
While Wisconsin maintains some of the least permissive cannabis laws in the nation, the Badger State borders Minnesota, Michigan and Illinois, where licensed dispensaries sell cannabis to those 21 years and older.
The text of Wisconsin’s medical cannabis legislation wasn’t publicly available as of Tuesday morning, but some of the qualifying conditions include cancer, glaucoma, inflammatory bowel disease, multiple sclerosis, post-traumatic stress disorder, seizures or epilepsy, severe chronic pain, severe muscle spasms and severe chronic nausea.
Patients would be required to register with a new Office of Medical Cannabis Regulation, which would be tasked with licensing and regulating a commercial marketplace.
Felzkowski and Snyder also sponsored a bicameral legalization measure during the 2022-2023 biennium that would have required patients to receive a doctor’s recommendation to access medical cannabis in liquid or oil form. Smokable or inhalable cannabis products would have been prohibited under their previous proposal.
While Republicans have held majorities in both chambers of the Wisconsin Legislature since 2011, Democratic Gov. Tony Evers has pushed a broader adult-use legalization agenda since taking office in 2019, including in his executive budget released in February.
With little hope of bypassing incremental reform, the governor said in early 2024 that he was willing to support a more limited medical cannabis legalization approach that Republican lawmakers were entertaining in both chambers.
This GOP approach ran into trouble. Assembly Speaker Rob Vos, R-Rochester, backed a plan that called for state-run dispensaries, but Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, called that idea a “nonstarter.” Neither leader was willing to budge, dealing the state’s 2024 medical cannabis legalization hopes an early blow last session.
Vos’ position on state-run dispensaries, an untested legalization approach in the current era of federal cannabis prohibition, remained a blockade to reform entering the 2025 legislative session, Felzkowski told WisPolitics in December.
Felzkowski, Testin and Snyder’s bicameral legislation, introduced this week, won’t take a state-run approach, as Felzkowski indicated in her press release that the bill aims to create a program “after learning from the experiences in other states.”
While most cannabis reform advocacy organizations recognized Texas as the 40th state to legalize medical cannabis after Gov. Greg Abbott signed an expansion bill earlier this year, many still don’t recognize Georgia’s low-THC oil program, nor Iowa’s program that prohibits smokable cannabis flower.
The probability of Wisconsin leaving the ranks of medical cannabis prohibition in 2025 is anyone’s guess. Even one of the bill’s sponsors wasn’t so optimistic.
In an interview with ABC-affiliate WISN on Monday, Snyder called the latest push to legalize medical cannabis a “Hail Mary.”
“I just know my road in the Assembly will be challenging,” the bill sponsor said. “I’ve had a lot of my bills get delayed one session after another. And, just from reading rooms now, with my experience, this is going to take a pretty gigantic-type Hail Mary to get all the way through. But Hail Marys have happened.”
As Wisconsin Republican lawmakers grapple with the idea of reform, the voters who put them in office have a clear position: 86% of the state’s registered voters supported medical cannabis legalization in a February 2024 survey conducted by Marquette Law School pollsters.
The elected officials who govern state laws are the ultimate deciders: Wisconsin is one of 24 states without initiative or referendum processes. It appears this won’t change anytime soon.
Evers included a proposal in his 2025-27 biennial budget to allow Wisconsinites to put citizen-initiated measures and referendums on the ballot.
GOP lawmakers didn’t go for it when they gutted the governor’s budget in May.
