Wisconsin marijuana initiatives listed among Top Ten Marijuana Victories in 2010 by The Huffington Post
Come on lucky number seven! National news with a mention of Wisconsin, a great payoff for the hard work activists have been doing in the state. After being reported in December as number seven on the worst states to retire, we needed some good news.
The very popular website TopRetirement.com first reported the data and their interpretation which was then covered extensively byThe Wall Street Journal Market Watch along with reports from The Wisconsin News.
Here is TopRetirement’s list of the bottom of the barrel:
7. Wisconsin: A high tax state (9th highest tax burden) with cold weather. High property taxes. But it does not tax military pensions.
Rob Kampia of the Marijuana Policy reported in The Huffington Post his Top Ten Marijuana Victories in 2010. He did a great job of a re-cap of the movement and provided some insight into his evaluation process.
In trying to make this list manageable, I haven’t listed (1) developments in clinical research; (2) developments in foreign countries; (3) the passage or defeat of local measures to tax medical marijuana, since these measures can be viewed as either good or bad; and (4) the progress that the Marijuana Policy Project made with moving our bills forward in the Delaware, Illinois, and other state legislatures where we haven’t yet achieved the ultimate victories we seek.
In the interest of full disclosure, MPP played a significant role in five of the 10 victories below, assisted in an ancillary way in four, and played no role at all in one (the court cases).
7. LOCAL INITIATIVE VICTORIES IN FOUR STATES: In Massachusetts, voters in nine legislative districts passed initiatives recommending that medical marijuana be legalized on the state level; in another nine legislative districts, Massachusetts voters recommended that marijuana be legalized entirely. In Wisconsin, voters in two local jurisdictions urged their state legislature to legalize medical marijuana. In California, voters in two cities blocked dispensaries from being banned. And in Colorado, voters in 8 cities and counties voted to allow dispensaries (this overt support is significant, even though voters in another 34 Colorado municipalities decided to ban dispensaries).
To read the rest of his story, please use the following link.
With some additional good news to start of 2011, the activists and supporters from throughout South East Wisconsin meet yesterday in Milwaukee to explore forming an chapter of NORML to serve Wisconsin in additional to Madison, Wisconsin and Northern Wisconsin NORML chapters. Facebook fans and attendees reported:
An outstanding group of diverse people got together for an insightful and promising 1st meeting in Milwaukee tonight of Southeastern Wisconsin NORML. The first meeting commanded the attention of about 45 attendees, and several others who sent messages of interest, but were unable to attend tonight. Thank you to all who came out to make it full of ideas, insight and inspiration.
There is a facebook page for activists Southeastern Wisconsin to join and stay in touch as they group moves toward a formal organization. It would be great to see the grassroots movement in Wisconsin continue to grow throughout the 2011. Get active today! If not us, who? If not know, when?
