As you know, recreational marijuana went legal in Minnesota on August 1st. Everyone’s happy, right? Wrong. Twenty House Republicans want to harsh your buzz big time as they try to repeal the law before it can even get off the ground.
Here’s Five Fast Facts Republicans’ Legal Weed Woes:
- 🪴 Dear Governor - The lawmakers sent a letter of concern to Gov. Walz, asking for a special session to address their concerns. He obviously ignored it. If only they’d get this worked up about potholes.
- 🌿 Think of the Children - One claim is that the law doesn’t penalize underage use. Which is incorrect. An existing state statute already makes it a petty misdemeanor for minors in possession. In fact, anyone selling to children faces harsh punishment, too. This concern apparently came from an article that falsely made those claims. The article has since been corrected.
- 🌱 Hometown Narcs - Another concern is local control. They want to give cities control over sale, possession, and consumption. They also want the local governments to be able to limit smoking and vaping in public places. Let the states decide, indeed.
- 😮💨Green Black Market - Finally, they want to close an apparent black market loophole that will occur between August 1 and whenever regulated dispensaries open. The idea being that they want everything done legally without any kind of underground operations starting up while everything gets settled.
- 😶🌫️ Hurry Up and Wait - Since the special session was ignored, the next chance they’ll have at getting their claims heard will be in Feb. 2024 when the legislature finally reconvenes.
🔥Bottom line: More and more it seems like elected officials are fine with the system they support until it doesn’t go their way. This is another instance of that. Sure, this might be political grandstanding, but the law was passed. Regardless of how you feel about marijuana use, a majority of Minnesotans elected people who would make this happen. That’s democracy!
What do you think of this political move? Is legal weed good for Minnesota?
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