Wisconsin Democrat Gov. Tony Evers speaking to constituents in February. He is proposing to legalize marijuana to stop local cash from benefiting Illinois. | facebook.com/Tony4WI
Wisconsin Democrat Gov. Tony Evers speaking to constituents in February. He is proposing to legalize marijuana to stop local cash from benefiting Illinois. | facebook.com/Tony4WI
Wisconsin's lack of legalized marijuana has been a financial benefit to authorized providers in Lake County, but that may come to an end.
Illinois' northern neighbor's latest budget recommendation included proposals to legalize medicinal and recreational marijuana, in part because Gov. Tony Evers is fed up with his state not benefiting from the financial benefits.
"Frankly, I'm kind of tired of talking to the governor from Illinois," Evers said in an April 14 video posted to Twitter. "Whenever I get with him, he thanks me for having Wisconsinites cross the border to buy marijuana.”
One Lake County dispensary is aware of how many cheeseheads cross the border for marijuana and is capitalizing on it. With 30,000 cars traveling on Route 12 daily, Shermer Farms intends to open a dispensary and craft growing location a stone's throw from the Wisconsin border in Fox Lake and rake in an estimated $10 million to $20 million in annual sales.
Thomas Gordon, a cannabis industry attorney, said in an April 21 video from Cannabis Legalization News that it doesn't matter what the state's Democratic governor does with its Republican stronghold in the statehouse.
"Let’s talk about why it doesn’t matter," Gordon said. "Wisconsin Republicans will not allow medical or recreational marijuana. This is coming out of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel. They are reporting that Wisconsin’s top Republicans will not allow medical or recreational marijuana. Good thing to note there that Republican control of the senate is 20-12, and their majority will increase to 21-12.
Evers held a virtual town hall earlier this month with almost 300 attendants, where he urged his constituents to pressure their GOP lawmakers to stop stonewalling cannabis legalization and reform.
“In one of the rooms I work in at the Capitol, on the ceiling, it says: ‘The will of the people is the law of the land,’” Evers said in the Marijuana Moment article, “and I take that seriously. When people are passing referenda to say, ‘We believe that we should have recreational marijuana and/or medicinal marijuana,’ that’s what we should do as legislators and as leaders in the executive branch.”
Shermer Farms is currently awaiting the proper licensure from the state to get to work on its Fox Lake dispensary.
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