| Photo: NORML Foundation |
| From left, Ken Wolski, Jacki Rickert, and Jim Miller at October’s rally at the Wisconsin State Capitol. |
The Wisconsin Legislature will hold a public hearing Tuesday to debate SB 368, the Jacki Rickert Medical Marijuana Act, which would allow seriously ill patients to use cannabis without fear of arrest if their doctor recommends it.
The hearing will be at 10 a.m., Tuesday, Dec. 15, at the State Capitol, Room 412 East, Madison, Wis.
Qualifying patients with doctors’ notes could grow their own marijuana or obtain it from “compassion centers” around the state if the bill becomes law.
Wisconsin is working to become the 14th state to allow medical marijuana. Legislation is in the works in at least 14 other states, according to Mike Meno, assistant director of communications at the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP).
The bill is the namesake of Jacki Rickert, a 58-year-old grandmother from Mondovi who has Ehlers-Danlos syndrome and advanced reflex sympathetic dystrophy, and who founded medical marijuana advocacy organization Is My Medicine Legal Yet? (IMMLY) in 1992.
Rickert led hundreds of medical marijuana supporters in an October rally at the Wisconsin State Capitol in support of the legislation bearing her name.
The House Public Health Committee and Senate Committee on Health, Health Insurance, Privacy, Property Tax Relief, and Revenue will host the hearing on the bill, which is sponsored by state Rep. Mark Pocan and state Sen. Jon Erpenbach.
The entire text of SB 368, the Jacki Rickert Medical Marijuana Act, can be read here (PDF).