Statewide Iowa — Two Democrats are urging Iowans to pressure Republican legislators to return to the Iowa Capitol and override the governor’s veto of a bill that would have expanded Iowa’s medical marijuana law.
Representative John Forbes, a Democrat from Urbandale, is a pharmacist. He says the changes would have made cannabis products more effective and more affordable.
A special legislative session this year is unlikely, however. Republicans control a majority of seats in the House and the Senate. Speaker Linda Upmeyer — the top Republican in the House — says the best way forward is work with Republican Governor Kim Reynolds and develop a new bill that matches the recommendations of a state advisory board. Senator Joe Bolkcom, a Democrat from Iowa City, says there’s no reason to wait ’til next year to act and it takes just 36 Republicans to join Democratic lawmakers to over-ride the governor’s veto.
A few advocates of raising the THC limit on the cannabis products being sold in the five Iowa dispensaries attended the news conference Bolkcom and Forbes organized. Bob Lewis is a business owner from Des Moines.
Lewis has serious health issues and buys a more potent cannabis patch from a source he refers to as the “underground railroad.”
2006 was the last time legislators overrode the veto of an Iowa governor. Democrats and Republicans objected to then-Governor Tom Vilsack’s rejection of a bill that set new constraints on government action to seize land for development.
