A bill to decriminalize up to three ounces of cannabis has been introduced in the Wyoming legislature, KGAB reports. Currently, arrests for up to three ounces of cannabis in Wyoming can result in a $1,000 fine and up to a year in jail. The measure seeks to reduce the penalty to a $100 fine with no chance for jail time.
The legislation is a step back from a broad legalization bill that passed the House Judiciary Committee last year but was shelved by Republicans and missed a key deadline for a floor vote. The bill is sponsored by a bipartisan group of legislators including the state’s only Libertarian representative, Rep. Marshall Burt.
For now, the conservative Mountain West state remains one of the few states in the country with little to no cannabis reforms on the books.
Wyoming does have a hemp program but recent advocate efforts to pass cannabis reforms at the ballot box have failed to get off the ground, at least for elections coming later this year. Marijuana Moment reported in January that two Wyoming campaigns to legalize medical cannabis and decriminalize cannabis possession did not reach the required signatures threshold for 2022 — activists say they are now looking to 2024 as the next opportunity to pass reforms through the ballot initiative process.
Citing weather challenges and the pandemic, campaign organizer Apollo Pazell told Marijuana Moment that the group had considered “keeping teams on the ground [to collect signatures] through the holiday season, and we may have made it, but the uncertainty was too much in my opinion.”
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