Welcome back to The Week in Weed, your Friday look at what's happening in the world of legalized marijuana.
Let's start off with Illinois, where recreational marijuana became legal on January 1, 2020. A social equity component of the legislation ensures that some of the tax revenue will lower the costs of starting a cannabis business. And Governor J. B. Pritzker ended 2019 by issuing over 11,000 pardons for low-level marijuana offenses.
In Indiana, a state Senator introduced legislation to decriminalize possession of less than one ounce of cannabis. The move has bipartisan support in the legislature, but is opposed by the governor.
In Oklahoma, it's been an up and down week for legalization advocates. They withdrew their recreational cannabis petition, over concerns that it might cause problems for the state's booming medical market. Then, they resubmitted it, after changing the wording to include protections for medical marijuana.
As we all know, 2020 is an election year. Forbes has a nice roundup of where cannabis may be on the ballot, either for recreational or medical access.
If you'd like a summary of 2019's biggest marijuana stories, the Cannabis Business Times, Marijuana Business Daily, and Marijuana Business Daily International have you covered. Of course, we took a stab at that ourselves.
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