Minnesota lawmakers introduced a new bill on Monday to both houses of the state legislature that would end marijuana prohibition in the state and establish a regulated market.<\/p>\n
The new bill<\/a> would\u00a0make it legal for adults 21 and older to possess, grow and purchase marijuana.\u00a0In addition, the state would license and regulate businesses to cultivate, process, test and sell marijuana to adults. The bill is sponsored by State Senators Melisa Franzen and Scott Jensen, and its companion bill was filed by Rep. Mike Freiberg in the state\u2019s House of Representatives.<\/p>\n \u201cMinnesota\u2019s outdated prohibition policy has become more of a problem than a solution,\u201d Freiberg said in a statement. \u201cIt is forcing marijuana into a shady underground market, which creates more potential harm for consumers and communities than marijuana itself. Regulating marijuana would make our state safer by removing the criminal element and empowering our state and local governments to start controlling production and sales.\u201d<\/p>\n Minnesota currently has\u00a0a restrictive medical marijuana program<\/a>, with only 10 severe qualifying conditions and no allowance for smokable marijuana.<\/p>\n Following the legalization bill\u2019s introduction on Jan. 28, supporters at\u00a0Minnesotans for Responsible Marijuana Regulation<\/a>\u00a0released a statement highlighting some of the benefits of the proposed law. First, they celebrated that the Minnesota Department of Health would be empowered to regulate dispensaries and implement seed-to-sale tracking. Municipalities would be able to regulate all aspects of production and sales locally.<\/p>\n Second, supporters noted the victims of\u00a0Minnesota\u2019s<\/a>\u00a0current cannabis prohibition are not forgotten in the new effort. The bill would allow for the\u00a0expungement<\/a>\u00a0of certain marijuana-related crimes from the records of people with past offenses. It would also dedicate $10 million annually to impoverished communities. Many of those communities disproportionately bore the impact of the War on Drugs.<\/p>\n \u201cOur focus in drafting legislation to end the prohibition of cannabis in Minnesota is to ensure we have a responsible regulatory model for consumer access that still provides for public health, safety and welfare,\u201d Franzen said. \u201cThe time has come for us to have this debate.\u201d<\/p>\n The\u00a0Marijuana Policy Project<\/a>\u00a0notes if Minnesotans continue to use cannabis at current rates, the regulated sales of cannabis could net the state coffers between $200 million and $300 million, based on Colorado prices.<\/p>\n Recent polling before the 2018 election<\/a>\u00a0found 67 percent of Minnesota voters under the age of 50 support legal cannabis. But even when you include older demographics, the numbers still come out in favor of legalization \u2014 with 56 percent in support.<\/p>\n \u201cIt is time for Minnesota to recognize that, like alcohol prohibition in the 1920s, its prohibition of marijuana does not work,\u201d said Jason Tarasek, Minnesota political director for the Marijuana Policy Project and co-founder of Minnesotans for Responsible Marijuana Regulation. \u201cBy legalizing marijuana and carefully regulating its sale, we can keep it out of the hands of teens without needlessly arresting responsible adult consumers. This would allow law enforcement to spend more time addressing serious crimes, while also creating a significant new revenue stream for our state.\u201d<\/p>\n Cannabis policing in Minnesota has not been without controversy. Recently, Minneapolis mayor Jacob Frey\u00a0directed the city\u2019s police department to end sting operations<\/a>\u00a0against low-level marijuana sales. Frey acted in response to concerns that black men were being disproportionately targeted for enforcement. Police Chief Medaria Arradondo later acknowledged that his undercover officers arrested dozens of African-American men just for selling small amounts of marijuana. It could best be described as a backhanded acknowledgment.<\/p>\n \u201cWe took a look back and we analyzed and we saw that while we were making the arrests and we were keeping guns off the streets down there, we were seeing a segment of the population that was being disproportionately impacted,\u201d the chief said in a press conference, days after the mayor raised concerns. He also said black people weren\u2019t targeted.<\/p>\n While African Americans make up a little over 18 percent of the city\u2019s residents, 46 of the 47 people arrested for selling pot during the sting were black and low-income, MPR News reported. According to public defenders, those people were also grossly overcharged for the cannabis in their possession.<\/p>\n \u201cBut by virtue of the fact that police were approaching people and buying one or two grams, those people wound up getting charged by the county attorney\u2019s office with felony drug sale,\u201d said Mary Moriarty, Hennepin County\u2019s Chief Public Defender told MPR News. According to the\u00a0Minneapolis Star Tribune<\/a>, Moriarty was the one who originally contacted the mayor.<\/p>\n Charges against all 47 people caught up in the sting were dismissed, the Star Tribune reported.<\/p>\n TELL US,<\/b>\u00a0do you think Minnesota should legalize cannabis?<\/p>\n The post Lawmakers File Bill to Legalize Cannabis in Minnesota<\/a> appeared first on Cannabis Now<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Minnesota lawmakers introduced a new bill on Monday to both houses of the state legislature that would end marijuana prohibition in the state and establish a regulated market. The new bill would\u00a0make it legal for adults 21 and older to possess, grow and purchase marijuana.\u00a0In addition, the state would licenseContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[50,687,292,4318,884,7341,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32496"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=32496"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32496\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":32497,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/32496\/revisions\/32497"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=32496"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=32496"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=32496"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Minnesota\u2019s Prohibition Policing Problems<\/h4>\n
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\nRead More: Lawmakers File Bill to Legalize Cannabis in Minnesota<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"