MADISON: Tuesday Sept. 14 is Wisconsin’s Fall 2010 partisan primary election. Unlike the Nov. 2 general election, voters are limited to voting for candidates within a single party. The winners of contested primaries represent their parties on the Nov. 2 ballots. Sometimes it can be politically strategic to vote outside one’s usual party choice.
The following is a look at some key primary contests. Because of length I will be publishing it in 2 parts. This information is by no means complete with so the many candidates and races. Reader input on candidates is appreciated.
As Madison NORML Examiner reported May 10, the likely Democratic nominee Tom Barrett, who faces only nominal primary competition, told a caller on Wisconsin Public Radio that he would sign a medical cannabis bill if elected Wisconsin governor this November.
On the Republican side, the real race is between Milwaukee County Executive Scott Walker and former U.S. Rep. Mark Neumann. While neither seems to have made any recent on record public statements regarding medical cannabis, it is likely they are opposed to an issue most Wisconsinites support.
In 1998, while serving in Congress, both Neumann and Barrett voted for H. Res. 117, “Expressing the Sense of Congress that Marijuana is a Dangerous and Addictive Drug and Should not be Legalized for Medicinal Use.” However, while Tom Barrett has evolved from opposition to willingness to sign a mmj bill, Neumann seems stuck in the past along with Walker.
It would be nice to have something definitive, so to that end, Madison NORML Examiner is offering a free Jacki Rickert Medical Marijuana Act t-shirt for getting Walker and/or Neumann on record. Only a hundred of these shirts were originally printed a year ago. If you can get it on video, we’ll see that Jacki signs your shirt too!
MADISON: A River Falls alderman who has been coordinating a campaign to gather enough signatures to place a medical marijuana advisory referendum before City voters this Nov. 2 reports they have enough signatures to make the ballot.
Bob Hughes says supporters filed 99 pages containing a total of 892 signatures with the city clerk’s office. A minimum of 665 good signatures are required to place the referendum on the ballot.
As with Dane County, where a Nov. 2 medical cannabis referendum was unanimously approved by the County Board July 15, the question will be the same:
“Should the Wisconsin Legislature enact legislation allowing residents with debilitating medical conditions to acquire and possess marijuana for medical purposes if supported by their physician?”
For more info: Dane County Medical Marijuana Referendum: www.jrmma.org. 06/24/10: Gary Storck OPED: Isthmus: Rejection of Wisconsin medical marijuana bill was a profile in cowardice. This Oct. 1-3, 2010: Great Midwest Marijuana Harvest Festival. Madison NORML Examiner: Jacki Rickert MMJ Act 2010 runs out of time in Wisconsin Legislature. For additional details on medical cannabis and Wisconsin visit JRMMA.org, IMMLY.org, Wisconsin NORML or MadisonNORML.org. Visit my Madison NORML Examiner articles archive. Photos courtesy of Madison NORML/IMMLY and friends. All rights reserved. Madison NORML Examiner is dedicated to the memory of our sister and hero Mary Powers (1949-2009).
MADISON: Law enforcement and news sources have linked last weeks 200-officer raid on more than ten marijuana grows on public lands in NE Wisconsin to Mexican drug cartels. Meanwhile, before the dust from what TIME called a “pot megafarm” had settled, another national forest grow was located. Marinette County Sheriffs reported deputies found more than 3,000 plants on another grow on Aug. 17.
In Mexico, with over 28,000 already dead in cartel related violence triggered by drug prohibition, President Felipe Calderon has now proposed a debate on the legalization of drugs. Calderon’s predecessor, Vicente Fox, declared that since prohibition strategies had failed, Mexico should consider legalizing “the production, sale and distribution of drugs.”
It was President Richard Nixon who really launched the war on marijuana, rejecting a report by his own handpicked commission that urged that the sale and possession of small amounts of cannabis be decriminalized.
While the Shafer Commission’s findings were rejected by Nixon, they led to decriminalization laws in a number of US states, and attempts to pass legislation in many more, including Wisconsin.
MADISON: A year ago, it seemed like nothing could stop Wisconsin from being the next medical marijuana state. A state of the art bill was being written. The bill had the support of the Governor and powerful leaders in both houses.
Despite all this, a lack of political courage and political will left the JRMMA in the legislative dustbin once again, crushing the hope that had been given back to long suffering state patients and families.
Below is a list of 10 things that would be different in Wisconsin had the Jacki Rickert Medical Marijuana Act (AB554/SB368) passed this session.
One: Jacki Rickert and thousands of WI patients would have their medicine
Jacki Rickert, namesake of the Jacki Rickert Medical Marijuana Act, would finally get a big YES to the question she has been asking for so many years, “Is My Nedicine Legal YET?”. Jacki, who was approved for federal medical marijuana supplies in Dec. 1990 but never supplied, was counting on state lawmakers to make good on a lifetime of broken promises from everyone from Bill Clinton on down. Not only Jacki, but thousands and thousands of Wisconsin’s most vulnerable, most hurting citizens would finally have safe and legal access to cannabis. Many would be getting it for the first time because they could not or would not access the cannabis black market. The people affected, seniors, veterans, disabled people, terminally ill, chronically ill, all have families and friends would all feel better knowing their friends and loved ones burdens and struggles had been eased.
