Tony Evers would likely sign clean medical marijuana bill

Democratic Gov. Tony Evers said he would likely sign a medical marijuana measure being floated by legislative Republicans — as long as it’s a clean bill and doesn’t include provisions Democrats would consider poison pills.

Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, R-Rochester, said in December he plans to introduce a medical marijuana bill that would allow Wisconsinites with serious health conditions to use the substance.

Evers has long called for legalizing both recreational and medicinal marijuana in the state, but he told the Wisconsin State Journal on Thursday he could potentially get behind a medical-only bill. Evers said Wisconsinites have largely supported the idea of recreational marijuana, but he doesn’t see such a proposal coming from the current GOP-controlled Legislature.

“We’ll see,” Evers said when asked of Vos’ proposal. “If it’s a bill that’s not filled with poison pills, I probably will sign it.”

A formal bill has not yet been introduced, but Vos said it would likely propose something similar to Minnesota’s medical marijuana program, which originally allowed for the substance to be sold in pill, oil and liquid forms for people with serious conditions such as HIV, cancer, Crohn’s disease, post-traumatic stress disorder and chronic pain. The Minnesota law was recently modified to allow for smokable forms of cannabis.

Vos did not provide specifics about the bill but said its authors wanted to make sure there would be no pathway “to assume that because we have medicinal (marijuana), someday we’ll have recreational.”

Vos said the bill is different from legislation Sen. Mary Felzkowski, R-Irma, has been working on. It’s unclear what the differences between the proposals will be, but Felzkowski’s last version of the bill also proposed allowing the use of medical marijuana in nonsmokable forms for people with serious conditions.

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Felzkowski’s previous version of the proposal received a public hearing in April 2022, the first hearing in Wisconsin for a marijuana measure since 2009 and the first one ever under a Republican-led Legislature.

Senate Majority Leader Devin LeMahieu, R-Oostburg, who previously said he opposed legalizing marijuana for medical use, has since said Senate Republicans are moving closer to supporting the policy for serious conditions.

An October 2022 Marquette Law School Poll found 64% of registered voters in Wisconsin, including 46% of Republicans, want marijuana to be fully legalized. A 2019 Marquette Law School Poll found 83% of Wisconsinites said medical marijuana should be legal.

Republicans last year stripped provisions to legalize marijuana from Evers’ two-year budget.