While Wisconsin becomes island around marijuana, other unregulated alternatives are legal
MILWAUKEE (CBS 58) -- With Minnesota legalizing marijuana, Wisconsin is now an island when it comes to the drug.
"A vast majority of adults in Wisconsin live less than two hours of a dispensary," State Sen. Melissa Agard (D) said. "By very conservative estimates, if we were to legalize cannabis, we would be bringing over $165 million."
Madison State Senator Melissa Agard has been pushing to legalize marijuana in Wisconsin, saying her estimates for the dollar amount the state would bring in do not even account for the economic impact it could have on job creation and lightening the load on the criminal justice system.
"That’s money that we could be reinvesting into our communities," she said.
She is not the only person working to help the state follow in the footsteps of our neighboring states that have all legalized marijuana in some form.
"At this point, the saddest part is the money that we're missing out on. That's really what it is. These tax dollars that are now going to pour over our borders in every direction whether that's North, South, East or West," Owner of CBD Therapeutics of Wisconsin Rachel Cartwright said.
Cartwright has been one of the many looking to get more regulations for the CBD industry because it has very limited restrictions.
"Technically, you could walk into my store and at any age purchase whatever you wanted," she said.
At her store, every customer is carded, and she will not serve minors, but there is no rule saying others have to do the same. She sells a wide variety of handmade products from Delta 9, the THC found in marijuana, to Delta 8 and other forms of THC that are classified as hemp-derived.
In Wisconsin, only .3 percent of Delta 9 per product is legal, but that is not the same for other hemp-derived products.
"With Delta 8 and Delta 10, they are legal in all concentrations because they are part of the industrial hemp plant, and they are written under that Farm Bill of 2018," Cartwright explained.
The Farm Bill removed hemp from the definition of Marijuana, opening the door to new possibilities and creations like gummies that give you a high or relax you.
Kind Oasis is another local shop that handmakes its CBD and Delta-strain products.
"The real loophole is that it's hemp-based and hemp-derived CBD. It's hemp-derived THC," Kind Oasis Retail & Event Coordinator Grant Steskal said.
"The hemp products work just as well as their cannabis alternatives which is awesome."
Legalizing marijuana could create age restrictions and production standards across the board, no matter the THC product. At Kind Oasis, they also think it will remove the stigma around it, but they want the change to be equitable too.
"When Wisconsin legalizes, because I have no doubt in my mind that we will somebody, we around here we'd love to see a set of regulations that are a lot more small business forward and lot more friendly to people who have been doing it for a long time here already," Steskal said.
Because Delta 9 is legal to sell in a small amount, with no regulations or tax revenue like in other states, Cartwright feels it makes no sense that lawmakers do not want to legalize all forms for recreational use in Wisconsin.
"If I have a 3-gram gummy, which is 3000 milligrams, and you divide that by .3 percent, it can have 10 milligrams of Delta 9 THC in it, which is essentially enough to get somebody high the same way that you would if bought something from the dispensary," she said.
"So, I can literally sell the exact same gummies as the dispensary without actually any kind of regulation, or any kind of oversight and or any taxes. So, to the politicians who keep dragging their feet, we already have this in our state. My business and hundreds of other businesses are already selling these products."
Last November, 74 percent of voters in Milwaukee County said they are in favor of recreational marijuana. Right now, Delta 8 and other types of THC from the industrial hemp plant are not FDA regulated.