Minnesota Democratic–Farmer–Labor (DFL) party Rep. Ryan Winkler presented the adult-use cannabis bill to the Minnesota House of Representatives that would legalize recreational marijuana, and on Feb. 23, the bill passed through its second round of House committee meetings.

A similar bill was rejected by the Minnesota Senate in 2019, but Winkler said he and other supporters have done work over the last year to gain advocacy, including changing policy to make the legalization process smoother.

“(The bill) is better prepared and accounts for a lot of opponents’ concerns, addresses them, and really strikes a balance between the equity goals and the criminal justice reform elements that are important to this work,” Winkler said.

Republican Party of Minnesota Rep. Patrick Garofalo, who supports the bill, said that the bill is an issue that legislators and citizens need to be better informed on.

“This is a complicated issue in terms of market design, tax structure, employee rights, employer rights, testing, transportation,” Garofalo said.

Jessica Siegel, an associate professor in neuroscience and psychology at St. Thomas, said that the legalization of recreational marijuana is important for the health and safety of Minnesotans.

“Teaching people to be more responsible, first, I think starts with legalizing… because otherwise, it’s just sort of this underground taboo conversation about drugs,” Siegel said. “By making something like marijuana legal, we can make sure it’s not contaminated with things like fentanyl or other things that are going to kill you.”

Despite the bill’s past failure, Winkler is hopeful the revised bill can reach consensus because of its added layers. The new bill includes plans to expunge misdemeanor-level cannabis convictions.

“The current criminal justice approach to prohibiting use of cannabis is actually creating more harms than cannabis does on its own, and the policy is wrong; it’s not working. It has significant racial disparities in how we use the criminal justice system to enforce it,” Winkler said.

“According to the ACLU (American Civil Liberties Union), arrest records for arrest data in Hennepin County, in Dakota County in Minnesota, you’re 10 times more likely to be arrested for cannabis if you are African American than if you’re white.”

Siegel said that expungement of criminal records is an important step to combat the issues in the criminal justice system and policing.

“I’d say that any change in the legal status of marijuana, if it’s not coupled with expungement, is missing a lot of the benefit and equity that can come from changing the laws,” Siegel said.

Across the state, Winkler said that it is four to six times more likely for an African American to be arrested for cannabis related charges than a white person even though each group uses cannabis at almost the same rate.

Despite the impact the legalization of marijuana would have on arrests, Siegel worries racial disparities will continue.

“I would like to hope that legalizing marijuana would help reduce some of the disparities in terms of arrests and just patrolling certain communities,” Siegel said. “That disparity that we see in different communities might just translate to other drugs.”

Winkler said the main goal is not only to expunge criminal records, but to set up a legal marketplace that will benefit Minnesotans. Winkler also said the plan is to try to avoid big cannabis players coming in and overtaking the marketplace. Instead, there will be a heavy emphasis on small businesses.

“If you do it right, you can make sure that your own state and your own citizens of your state benefit the most from building this marketplace,” Winkler said. “We want to make sure that the regulatory burdens aren’t too high and the taxes aren’t too high, so that people will actually shift their business into the legal marketplace.”

Though Winkler said he’s confident the bill will pass in a Democrat controlled House, he still isn’t sure if it will get a hearing in the Senate.

“The danger for legalization happening this year is that the Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka simply won’t even discuss it,” Winkler said. “If (Senate Republicans) let this bill come forward, I think it will become law.”

Gazelka said in a statement that the legalization of recreational marijuana is not a priority for the Minnesota Senate right now.

“I am open to looking at additional medicinal uses and a conversation around drug sentencing. My main concerns are the unintended consequences of recreational pot,” Gazelka said. “We’re just starting to learn about legalization’s adverse effects in other states like Colorado and Washington. There is no reason to rush this in Minnesota without learning more.”

Some of the misconceptions of the drug are due to old stereotypes, Winkler said. He argued that cannabis is used as responsibly as how people use alcohol or tobacco.

“(People) are not used to thinking of cannabis as something that is safe,” Winkler said. “They think of it as the old way of thinking reefer madness, ‘if you try cannabis, you’re immediately going to become addicted,’ and the next thing you know, you’re going to be addicted to heroin or something like that… those old scare tactics which have no basis in reality stick around.”

Garofalo said this misconception is something Minnesotans shouldn’t worry as much about, as there are more dangerous things that are legal.

“The reality is, people should be far more concerned about the medicines and drugs they’re getting in a medical setting than they should be about the recreational use of marijuana,” Garofalo said.

Garofalo also said some supporters overestimate the benefits of legalizing marijuana.

“Just like any other device, whether it’s tobacco, alcohol, gambling, there certainly is some benefit, but there also are costs, and we need to do a better job of understanding those costs and doing things to minimize the negative things that happen from it,” Garofalo said.

Garofalo said that the progressions of other states, such as South Dakota, on the issue of marijuana could propel its importance in Minnesota. He also said that after watching a majority GOP South Dakota Senate pass a recreational marijuana bill, the issue is not a partisan one.

“The media likes to portray things as like, Democrats are in favor of this, Republicans are against them, progressives are in favor of this,” Garofalo said. “There’s certainly a conservative way to legalize it and a progressive way to legalize it, but the issue of reform and modernization and legalization is not a partisan issue.”

Winkler said as more states move to legalize the drug, it’s becoming less possible for Minnesota not to.

“I think we’ve got the best models from various states put together in our bill,” Winkler said. “(The bill) is actually the product of a lot of careful consideration and work and the attention of a large group of people.”

Scout Mason can be reached at scmason@stthomas.edu.