Where marijuana is legal in the United StatesWisconsin Gov. Tony Evers, a Democrat who was reelected last November, has again included marijuana legalization in his budget, one of several proposals unlikely to gain favor in the state’s Republican-led Legislature.
It’s the second time Evers has introduced full legalization of marijuana, a position he campaigned on during the general election, the Wisconsin State Journal in Madison reported.
Evers won the governorship with 51.2% of the vote in a state that tends to vote Democratic nationally and Republican locally.
Republican lawmakers are likely to reject this marijuana proposal as they did in Evers’ 2021 budget requests as well as other long-held party goals of expanding Medicare and other social services.
State Sen. Howard Marklein, a Republican co-chair of the Joint Finance Committee, summed up his party’s appetite for these reforms.
“It’s the same movie that we saw two years ago, produced and directed by Tony Evers: deficit spending and a liberal wish list,” Marklein said after the governor’s address, according to the State Journal.
Passage of a medical marijuana program in the state also faces long odds.
Wisconsin is one of 11 states without a medical or adult-use cannabis program.
Polling of registered voters in Wisconsin has consistently shown widespread approval of legalization since 2019.
