We knew it was coming, it was a just a matter of when and who. Republican lawmakers chose to not fund our Wisconsin Hemp Pilot program a few years back to make it permanent, if they did, the state would have continued to run the program and make the rules. Instead, the program was kicked to the curb and Wisconsin sent the hemp program back to the USDA and to be ran by the federal government. Prior to and during this transition, it was made very clear that some politicians thought the federal bill had “loophole” language, while others praised the language as one of the most strategic ways laws/language created to help end the prohibition of cannabis in the United States. Either way, the writing was on the wall to Wisconsin….. make your hemp bill permanent or the federal government will do it for you. Now a few select prohibitionist type Republicans join forces with some freshman Republican to propose a bill that threatens an entire industry.

It is a shame that the friendly Republicans could not join forces with the Democrats who have been writing legislation on cannabis reform for years to form The Wisconsin Cannabis Caucus. An official bipartisan state caucus can streamline cannabis reform legislation at the state level while developing and promoting sensible cannabis policy reform and work to ease the tension between political parties. Had this caucus been formed, these prohibitionists would not have even written this legislation. This is a last ditch effort from prohibitionists to get some press coverage before the next round of legislation comes out that would further regulate the Wisconsin hemp program, as well as another attempt at medical marijuana for the GOP. The Democrats have not sent out their proposals for legislation regarding the plant. A bipartisan bill for statewide decriminalization will probably rot and fall to the ground, this low hanging fruit could easily be passed by The Wisconsin Cannabis Caucus, should it form.

So without The Wisconsin Cannabis Caucus to combat and kill bad legislation from the start, we will turn to Governor Evers, who would most likely veto a bill that completely bans hemp cannabis products and that proposes such drastic language change to our definition of hemp in Wisconsin. We are also going to turn to you, citizens of Wisconsin, to engage with your elected officials and tell them not to support the bill to ban hemp in Wisconsin.