Legalization didn’t quite get across the goal line in the Louisiana Legislature this year. But it ain’t over til it’s over. Cannabis will soon be legalized in his state, Louisiana Governor John Bel Edwards believes, reports Newsweek.
Edwards, of course, is striking the familiar political stance of playing to both sides of a debate. The governor said he still has concerns about allowing people to consume the plant.
The Louisiana Legislature was debating a bill that would have taxed adult-use marijuana as lawmakers there advocated legalization. (The motive, for many of the pro-legalization lawmakers, is to get Louisiana out of debt via marijuana taxes.) But the state House rejected it on Tuesday. Because of that, Louisiana almost certainly won’t legalize Cannabis this year.
However, Edwards seems to be warming up to weed. Presumably, the poll numbers have played a major part in changing the Governor’s mind. Two thirds of Louisianans — fully 67 percent — favored adult-use and medical legalization in a recent poll.
“I will tell you, I have come to believe that it is going to happen in Louisiana eventually,” Edwards said. The Governor had signaled the shift in his thinking last month.
People in Louisiana—Republicans and Democrats—”support making marijuana legal for adults, and the likelihood of passing a legalization bill increases when lawmakers hear a groundswell of support from their constituents,” according to Violet Cavendish of the Marijuana Policy Project.
