SB 377 is an important piece of legislation wasting away in committee in the Wisconsin Senate. It is a bill that is identical to AB 220 which is currently wasting away in committee at the Assembly level. The Senate committee is comprised of the worst possible group of people to move this bill in the proper direction so we really need your help persuading them to do the right thing. We need to let them know we want the chance to be heard on this bill.
Please share this petition with everyone you know. This is a statewide petition and it doesn’t matter if anyone who signed the petition is in the committee members district or not. Thank you for your efforts to bring common sense to Wisconsin’s cannabis laws. Your activism is needed and appreciated.
Northern Wisconsin NORML meets on the 2nd Thursday of each month for food, fellowship and public meeting. The next meeting will be held on Thursday, November 8th, 2012. Check the calendar of events often for updates, items to bring to the meeting and to confirm agendas.
From 4:20pm to 5:30pm we enjoy fellowship as an informal group of supporters gathering together prior to our meeting. We meet at the Harmony Cafe in Appleton, which has food and beverages available for sale. At 5:30pm we begin our general meeting, which goes until 6:30pm, sometimes finishing early, but we have the room reserved up till 8pm in case we need to go longer. Meetings are also broadcast over the Internet via Google + Hangouts. The chapter will post a link on the Northern Wisconsin NORML Official Facebook Page once we are live.
Membership is the key to being a strong chapter and we are currently looking for field directors in Northern counties of Wisconsin to work with the Treasurer and fundraising team on specific projects, please contact us at NorthernWiNORML@gmail.com if interested in assisting. If you live in or would like to work in the Vilas, Oneida, Iron, Ashland, Forest, Florence or Sawyer Counties, please include the name of the county in the subject line of your email.
Meetings are open to the general public and you need not a be a member to attend.
This is no April Fools Joke, there are some Democrats that do not support adult use / recreational marijuana and there are Democrats that have not signed on or publicly supported decriminalization of marijuana ……….
Rep. Spreitzer (D-Beliot) co-sponsored Adult Use, Grow Your Own/Smoking Medical Marijuana and Decriminalization and that is all we can ask. Thank you Rep. Spreitzer for your continued support. We expect a high grade for this Rep in the 2020 Smoke the Vote: Candidate Guide and Voter Information.
Senator Ringhand (D-Evansville) has co-sponsored the Grow Your Own/Smoking Medical Marijuana Bipartisan bill, but has remained “undecided” about recreational marijuana and has not co-sponsor any decriminalization measures this session. As Minority Caucus Vice Chair in the Senate, her lack of support for recreational marijuana hurts the already conservative Senate and does not set the best tone for the Democratic Caucus in general.
# # #
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE March 13, 2020
Contact: Rep. Spreitzer, 608-237-9145; Sen. Ringhand, 608-266-2253
Rep. Spreitzer and Sen. Ringhand Cancel In-Person Listening Sessions, Announce Virtual Listening Session MADISON – Today, Rep. Mark Spreitzer (D-Beloit) and Sen. Janis Ringhand (D-Evansville) announced they are cancelling in-person listening sessions in Beloit and Evansville and will instead host a virtual listening session for all district residents on April 1st.
“As concerns grow around the COVID-19 pandemic, we have decided to take our listening sessions online in order to prevent the spread of the virus,” said Rep. Spreitzer.
“We are committed to continuing our communication with constituents across our districts, but feel that this is the best choice for everyone at this time,” said Sen. Ringhand.
In lieu of physical town hall events, Rep. Spreitzer and Sen. Ringhand will be holding a virtual listening session on April 1st from 5pm to 6pm. Details on joining are below.
To submit a question or discussion topic: Email Rep.Spreitzer@legis.wisconsin.gov with the subject line “Listening Session question”.
“While we regret that we won’t be able to speak with everyone in person, we hope this alternative will allow for our dialogue to continue,” said Rep. Spreitzer.
WHAT: Baked Sale “Pie By The Slice”
WHERE: From The Land Festival in Green Lake
WHEN: Sat Oct 19th (10-4) and Sun 20th (10-3)
WHO: Open To Public
Northern Wisconsin NORML is conducting a fundraiser/baked sale. The chapter will have a “Pie By The Slice Booth” at the From The Land Festival in Green Lake on October 19th and October 20th, 2013. Proceeds from this event are going to fund a public service announcement for the upcoming 2013-14 Wisconsin Medical Marijuana Act. We are currently pricing billboards, radio and television advertising rates.
If you cannot attend the event, but would like to contribute to the funding of the public service announcement, please use the PayPal button below, attend a meeting or contact the chapter to donate anonymously.
Please visit http://www.fromthelandfestival.com/ for complete details of the festival, including other food vendors, artisans, speakers and directions to the event.
In my opinion, this type of decriminalization effort should have been the first marijuana reform bill submitted after the Republicans gutted everything marijuana reform from the budget. This is not new for the elephants in the room and it may not all be politically driven as some of these people just hate marijuana.
It is obvious this year the Republican leadership hates marijuana. Leadership rejected and killed any marijuana reform, even the bills vetted and approved by their own Republican caucus (medical marijuana SB 683 / AB 750).
Republicans have been killing marijuana reform since taking control over a decade ago. Back in 2013 when the public defenders office put together a budget proposal to save tax payers money and could have prevented hundreds of thousands of arrests by simply decriminalize small amounts of marijuana. The Republicans that year denied the budget cut request and have held hard onto the just say no mentality.
This new decriminalization bill was introduced late in the session and failed to attract even one Republican co-sponsor yet. The 2017 bill was basically the same wording, same bill and again the lead Assembly author was a Republican, Rep. Adam Jarchow (R-Balsam Lake). Jarchow is no longer an elected rep, but there are five other GOP cosponsors from the 2017 bill that are…. and two of them are now Republican Senators, Kathleen Bernier (R-Lake Hallie), Reps. Joel Kitchens (R-Sturgeon Bay) Dale Kooyenga (R-Brookfield), Paul Tittl (R-Manitowoc) and Michael Schraa (R-Oshkosh).
So far, this bill, this session, has only attracted Democrats: Goyke is co-author and co-sponsors are Shankland, Considine, Kolste, Sinicki, Crowley, Gruzynski, Brostoff, Subeck, Anderson, Bowen, Spreitzer – Senate co-sponsors are Smith, Taylor, Larsen.
RE: Co-Sponsorship of LRB-5228 relating to: possession of not more than 10 grams of marijuana and providing a penalty.
In the last decade, 161,016 arrests were made for simple possession of marijuana. Comparatively, there were 19,190 arrests made for possession with intent to deliver.
The burden placed on local resources, from police focus, man-hours for arrests, paper work, and court appearances, to the court system dockets and public defender costs, would be much better spent on serious, violent crimes.
Like other common substances consumed by adults – alcohol, psychoactive caffeine, etc. – we recognize morally that the victimless crime of imbibing is itself not illegal. We do still hold individuals legally responsible if they should commit crimes while under the influence, as we should.
However, because marijuana is illegal on the federal level, this bill does not legalize marijuana. Instead, it reduces the penalties for possessing negligible amounts. This will act to relieve the financial burden the state and local law enforcement dedicate to marijuana possession, and open up resources for the enforcement of more serious crimes.
When someone is jailed or convicted of a felony for possessing a small amount of marijuana, it affects the rest of their life and makes it very difficult to gain employment. This adds further burdens on our criminal justice system, and makes it harder to businesses to employ qualified workers who have criminal convictions. There are no winners for aggressively enforcing simple marijuana possession.
Current law prohibits a person from possessing or attempting to possess marijuana. A person who is convicted of violating the prohibition may be fined not more than $1,000 or imprisoned for not more than six months, or both, for the first conviction and is guilty of a Class I felony for a second or subsequent conviction.
This bill reduces the current penalty to a $100 forfeiture for possessing or attempting to possess not more than 10 grams of marijuana and eliminates the increase in penalty if second or subsequent violations involve not more than 10 grams of marijuana.
Analysis by Legislative Reference Bureau
Current law prohibits a person from possessing or attempting to possess marijuana. A person who is convicted of violating the prohibition may be fined not more than $1,000 or imprisoned for not more than six months, or both, for first conviction and is guilty of a Class I felony for a second or subsequent conviction. This bill reduces to a $100 forfeiture the penalty for possessing or attempting to possess not more than 10 grams of marijuana and eliminates the increase in penalty if second or subsequent violations involve not more than 10 grams of marijuana.
The Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection (DATCP) is hosting a virtual public hearing for the hemp emergency rule ER2016 at the following:
Date: Thursday, July 23, 2020
Time: 1 p.m.
Online (limited to 200 participants): To attend the hearing go to www.webex.com, click on “Join” in the top right corner and use meeting access number 126 395 1554 and password ARMHearing, or join by telephone at (408) 418-9388, then meeting access number 126 395 1554#, followed by meeting ID 27643274#.
Phone – listen only (limited to 150 participants): Call toll-free at (888) 327-8914 or (847) 944-7654 (long distance charges apply); and enter passcode: 9548531#.
The virtual public hearing offers two separate platforms for public participation – an online/call-in WebEx meeting or a telephone call-in option. The WebEx platform allows for 200 participants. Those who are planning to provide verbal testimony should use the WebEx option, as that option is interactive. For those that are connecting to the meeting to listen to the testimony of others, please utilize the (listen only) toll-free, telephone option to participate.
Public comments can be provided at any time until the close of the public comment period at 11:59 p.m. on July 30, 2020. Comments can be provided by email, regular mail, or verbally during the hearing. Whatever method you choose, all public comments will be given equal weight. For more details on the public input process, view the official public notice for this hearing at link.
Stakeholders are invited to provide comments and additional information related to ER2016 that DATCP will consider as it develops the state hemp plan for U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) approval and the next emergency rule for the hemp program.
For the past three years DATCP has implemented the hemp pilot research program – per federal regulations the program will sunset on October 31, 2020. At that time, DATCP will develop a new hemp emergency rule by November 1, 2020, to transition Wisconsin to the new federal program for domestic hemp production. The state hemp plan and next emergency rule must meet the federal requirements of USDA’s interim final rule for domestic hemp production (7 CFR 990). A reminder that any federal regulations follow a separate federal process for public comment on rules.
Please send questions and comments for ER2016 to Abbey Graf at abbey.graf@wisconsin.gov by July 30, 2020.
Thank you for your interest in the Wisconsin Hemp Program.
More information about Wisconsin’s Hemp Pilot Research Program: https://hemp.wi.gov
Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection Division of Agricultural Resource Management | Bureau of Plant Industry https://datcp.wi.gov
One of the most common excuses I hear from our anti-cannabis legislators when talking to them is that there is no support for cannabis legalization in their district. Even if I bring up the non-binding referendum or I speak of recent polls that were released, they will not budge from their answer. When I ask them why they feel there is no support their answer is almost always “I haven’t heard anything from my constituents that suggests the support you speak of.” It is usually at that point I’ve hit a brick wall. I can’t very well debate that with them because I know the same thing they do. Many of their constituents do want cannabis to be legal but they will not speak up and talk about it. Your continued silence gives their argument a certain sense of legitimacy.
Letters are a way to let your elected officials know what you want to see happen in your communities and in your state. Without hearing from you, they are going to assume that you want them to use their best judgement. In their opinion the non-binding referendum on the subject is a moot point because that referendum applied to only a handful of districts. They do not care about the opinions of those outside of their district because their opinion will not impact their chances at re-election. That is why it is so important to maintain contact with the Representative and Senator from your district.
I imagine writing a letter or sending one of our letters that we issue during a letter writing campaign can seem pretty intimidating to those who have never done so. You do have to give your name and address to verify your constituency. In a world that has become accustomed to hiding behind the anonymity of a computer screen; void of personal accountability, personally identifying yourself for the sake of your beliefs is a fairly worrisome venture. I have been writing letters to elected officials for well over a decade and I can tell you that the worst that has ever happened is the typical Dear John letter that usually follows a few days to a few weeks later. So if you’re worried about attaching your address to the letters you send don’t be. They won’t accept them without knowing whether or not you reside in their district.
How often should you write a letter? As many times as it takes. I have written my state Representative and Senator in the ballpark of thirty times in the last year. The squeaky wheel gets the grease right? One letter is good but sending one every opportunity you get keeps the subject in the forefront and if enough people are doing the same thing, they no longer have the excuse that there is no support. It also is a very easy way for those who can’t make the trip to the Capitol or to town hall meetings to make their voices heard.
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