Minnesota NORML announced our 2024 Legislative Agenda to news media and supporters, on August 1, 2023, Legalization Day in Minnesota, at Grounded Gardens hemp shop, in St Paul, Minnesota.
“August 1, 2023 is Legalization Day in Minnesota, a day so many of us have worked so hard for, for so long, has arrived. We celebrate our progress in ending marijuana Prohibition in Minnesota. But we know we also have work yet to do, to end the marijuana Prohibition regime in Minnesota.”
“Today Minnesota NORML announces its agenda for the 2024 Minnesota legislative session:”
2024 Legislative Agenda: End Prohibition
1. Repeal all criminal penalties for Possession
We ask the Minnesota legislators to pass a repealer law, eliminating all possession crimes for cannabis, THC, marijuana. After all, we have zero criminal penalties limiting possession of beer, wine or spirits based upon weight or volume.
Should wine aficionado with a wine cellar containing 300 bottles of wine be made into a criminal? Because “who even needs more than two bottles of wine?”
How Heavy is a 16 gal Keg? A full keg is 160 pounds; empty is 30 pounds. So there are 130 pounds of beer in a full 16 gal keg. But there is *no* criminal weight limit for beer. Should there be?
The People should not be asked to justify their possession of cannabis, any more than of beer, wine or spirits. Line-drawing crimes based on quantity are the heart of Prohibition.
2. Farmer’s Market Bill
The Minnesota Cannabis Farmer’s Market Bill will regulate through statute each citizen’s right protected by the Minnesota Constitution, Article 13, Section 7, to sell marijuana lawfully grown at home, without a license. Lawmakers should enact laws to clarify regulation of this Constitutional right, while still respecting it. This will help citizens and law enforcement officers ensure peaceful respect for the laws. And, other states have Farmer’s Market laws for cannabis. Minnesota should too, in this legislative session.
3. Personal-Use Coop Grows Authorized
Adults assign their right to grow in their home, to authorized cooperative growers, to grow the plants for them. This new law would, if passed, help older and disabled people, as well as people who are just too busy to row themselves, to have affordable access to cannabis. Others states do this; and Minnesota should too in the upcoming legislative session. It will also help remove more people from the dwindling illegal economy, reducing its ill effects.
4. Amnesty, Clemency and Sentence Reductions
People incarcerated for cannabis crimes that have been repealed, to be released immediately. People on probation for repealed cannabis crimes, to be discharged immediately. Others convicted of cannabis crimes will be eligible for sentence reductions reflecting current law. We should improve the 2023 laws provisions authorizing the Minnesota Cannabis Expungement Board to do some of this; now to explicitly encourage courts to do so; and authorize defendants to ask a judge for this immediate relief.
About Minnesota NORML
Founded in 2011, Minnesota NORML is the Minnesota Chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws. Minnesota NORML’s mission is to legalize the responsible use of marijuana by adults, and to advocate for consumers to assure access to safe, convenient and affordable marijuana. Our organizing focuses on legislative solutions. So far, our work helping lead Minnesotans to advocate for legalization, lead to major progress in the 2023 Minnesota marijuana reform laws.
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