This week, a newly elected Republican candidate in Wisconsin for governor said that he was “open to different opportunities” regarding the legalization or use of marijuana by adults and medical patients in his state. He has not provided any specifics.
Bill Berrien (CEO of a manufacturing company and former Navy SEAL) told Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, in an article published Wednesday, that he was open to different possibilities. Perhaps we can use tax dollars from THC drinks to help attract businesses and corporations. “I’m open to some of these ideas.”
Berrien didn’t provide any details on the tax revenue generated by THC drinks that could be used to encourage business investment.
Cannabis remains illegal for adult and medical use in Wisconsin.
Berrien said that in the latest interview, he agreed with most of President Donald Trump’s decisions during his second mandate. There’s no way to know what this might mean for cannabis policy. Since Trump took office, reform efforts in Congress and the executive have largely stalled.
Washington County executive Josh Schoemann entered the race as a Republican gubernatorial candidate only in May.
In the meantime, on the Democratic Side, there is current Gov. Tony Evers hasn’t announced whether he plans to run again.
Evers, in a speech delivered at the Democratic Party of Wisconsin 2025 Convention last month, said that, if the party can gain control of the Wisconsin legislature, it can “finally legalize” marijuana, so residents won’t need to travel to Illinois for its adult-use cannabis market.
Evers, speaking at the Democratic Party of Wisconsin 2025 convention said “Republicans should get used to Democrats in power” as the new redistricting plan he approved in 2013 could give the Democratic Party a “Democratic Trifecta” with the control of the Assembly and Senate.
This would allow lawmakers to move past the conservative legislators who have blocked several important issues such as parental leave, health care, and marijuana legalization. “Yes, we could now finally legalize cannabis so that we don’t send our money to my friend. [Gov. J.B. Pritzker (D)] “I’m from Illinois,” said the man.
Dianne Hesselbein, Senate Minority leader (D), also touched briefly on this issue during the convention of the Democratic Party. She said that “we’ll also legalize marijuana” as part of the Democratic Agenda if they win a majority next year.
A separate poll conducted by Marquette Law School last month found that 2/3 of Wisconsin voters favor legalizing marijuana.
The study found that the support for reforming cannabis laws has steadily increased since 2013 when the organization began to track public opinion about legalization. Today, 67 per cent of respondents are in favor of this policy. It’s 17 percent higher than 2013.
The Democrats, with 88 percent of the vote, are most likely to support legalizing marijuana, followed by Independents (79%). A majority of Republicans (56%), however, said that they are still against legalizing adult-use cannabis.
Underscoring the importance of party control, the state’s Republican-controlled Senate and Assembly last week rejected another attempt to legalize marijuana, defeating amendments to budget legislation that would have ended prohibition in the state and established new medical and recreational cannabis programs.
Evers has routinely attempted to change that policy as part of his budget requests—and Democratic leaders have similarly pushed for reform.
Republicans in the legislature also cut the marijuana provisions from a state budget proposal in May, as they’ve done in past sessions.
Despite Republicans’ move to cut legalization from the budget legislation, party leaders recently acknowledged that the debate over medical marijuana legalization is “not going to go away,” and there’s hope it can be resolved this session.
Tyler August, Assembly Majority Rep. (R), said that in February: “I do not think anyone would be naive to believe marijuana or THC products were absent from Wisconsin. They are available across state borders. I think this is something we should address.” I’m optimistic that we will be able to.”
If medical marijuana is to be called such, it should be treated as a drug. The marijuana debate will not go away, Sen. Dan Feyen said. The margins have shrunk.
There have been repeated attempts to legalize medical marijuana in the legislature over recent years, including the introduction of legislation from Assembly Speaker Robin Vos (R) that called for a limited program facilitated through state-run dispensaries. This was controversial with his Republican colleagues and ultimately failed last year.
Evers previewed his plan to include marijuana legalization in his budget in January, while also arguing that residents of the state should be allowed to propose new laws by putting binding questions on the ballot—citing the fact that issues such as cannabis reform enjoy sizable bipartisan support while the GOP-controlled legislature has repeatedly refused to act.
Previously, in 2022, the governor signed an executive order to convene a special legislative session with the specific goal of giving people the right to put citizen initiatives on the ballot, raising hopes among advocates that cannabis legalization could eventually be decided by voters. However, the GOP did not accept this proposal.
Evers said in December that marijuana reform is one of several key priorities the state should pursue in the 2025 session, as lawmakers work with a budget surplus.
Days after he made the remarks, a survey found the reform would be welcomed by voters in rural parts of the state. Nearly two-thirds of respondents (65%) said that they supported legalizing cannabis.
Last May, the governor said he was “hopeful” that the November 2024 election would lead to Democratic control of the legislature, in part because he argued it would position the state to finally legalize cannabis.
He said, “We have been hard at work for the past five years and several budgets to achieve this.” “I’m aware that there are many states around us with legal recreational marijuana. And we will keep doing this.”
A Wisconsin Democratic Assemblymember tried to force a vote on a medical cannabis compromise proposal last year, as an amendment to an unrelated kratom bill, but he told MEDCAN24 he suspects leadership intentionally pulled that legislation from the agenda at the last minute to avoid a showdown on the issue.
Meanwhile, the state Department of Revenue released a fiscal estimate of the economic impact of a legalization bill from then-Sen. Melissa Agard (D) in 2023, projecting that the reform would generate nearly $170 million annually in tax revenue.
A legislative analysis requested by lawmakers estimated that Wisconsin residents spent more than $121 million on cannabis in Illinois alone in 2022, contributing $36 million in tax revenue to the neighboring state.
Evers and other Democrats have since at least last January insisted that they would be willing to enact a modest medical marijuana program, even if they’d prefer more comprehensive reform.
Side Pocket Images. Photo by Chris Wallis.