UPDATE:The Minnesota Senate passed HF1818's companion bill yesterday, May 6, on a veto-proof 48-18 bipartisan vote.

The House companion bill HF1818 to Senator Dibble's bill is languishing in the House.

Another bill, described in the House DFL research department memo posted here, is under consideration and it's NOT a companion bill. It does not create a system for legal medical cannabis to be distributing at alternative treatment centers across the state.

It creates an "observational study."

Call Representative Melin's office and ask her to quit playing games--and put HF1818 (amended to be the version passed in the Senate yesterday).

Contact Rep. Melin at 651-296-0172 or 888-726-0711 and tell her to pull SF2470 and support SF1641/HF1818.

It's time to be an honest broker, again, Representative Melin.

UPDATE: Bluestem Prairie's House medical marijuana people's whip count will not tally a whip count on the "compromise" clinical trial bill offered by the House in conjunction with law enforcement lobbyists.

This bill is not a companion bill to SF1641, and we're not going to pretend that it is. The Senate bill legalizes the use of medical marijuana for patients and sets up a tightly controlled system of alternative treatment centers to dispense medical cannabis to patients with cannabis cards. The legislation--originally offered by Tomassoni in the Senate,with a Melin sponsored companion in the House, originally dealt with K12 school technology.

The "compromise" allows for the creation of a few clinical trials, although the legality and feasibility these trials are suspect.

Should law enforcement lobbyists wish to create a whip count for the clinical studies bill they appear to have forced on Representative Melin, they are welcome to do so.

You can follow the Senate whip count here. [end update]

The Minnesota legislature reconvenes Tuesday, April 22, and will scramble to conclude business by May 19. One high profile issue, the legalization of medical marijuana, enjoys overwhelming popular support, according to recent polling.

And yet as Forum Communications' veteran political reporter Don Davis reports in his Minnesota political notebook: Minnesota marijuana issue remains clouded. Davis writes:

Medical marijuana legislation stalled in the Legislature until Dayton told reporters that lawmakers were “hiding behind their desks” from the issue. That prompted Senate Majority Leader Tom Bakk, D-Cook, to kick the issue into committee meetings. The Senate measure awaits a vote, while a House bill sits in a committee. Dayton says he will not sign a medical marijuana bill until law enforcement and medical organizations get behind one.

Curious where your legislator stands? Bluestem Prairie has assembled a chart of what is publicly known about Minnesota House members' positions on Representative Carly Melin's (DFL-Hibbing) HF1818 and HF2383, the identical "overlflow" bill filed by David FitzSimmons (R-Albertville) and five others after the maximum lawmakers allowed under House rules signed on to HF1818.

UPDATE: We neglected to include HF2099, another medical marijuana bill that's fairly close to the other bills. It's authored by Andrew Falk (DFL-Murdock) and co-sponsored by Phyllis Kahn (DFL-Minneapolis) and Jay McNamar (DFL-Elbow Lake).

It's posted below the fold, and we're working on a chart for the Senate companion bill, SF1641.

Just as in the minimum wage constituent's whip count, Bluestem is asking readers to help fill in the blanks If your state representative hasn't gone on record on the bill, please politely contact her or him (click on the link under the names; if you don't know who represents you in the Minnesota House find out here) and ask her or him where she or he stands on HF1818. No need to ask about the overflow bill. (When you get an answer, please email Bluestem your answer at sally.jo.sorensen {at} gmail.com or leave the answer in our comments.

We won't publish your name or comment (absolutely NO temporary, fake, or spoofed emails acccepted in comments), but we do need to have documentation of constituent contact (email, letter or your account in an email of an office visit or a conversation) before we add the information you've collected to the Whip Count chart below the fold.

We'll update the Whip Count as new information comes in, and we will link to the Senate whip count when we have it constructed.

Photo: Carly Melin, author of HF1818.

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