Yesterday, April 20, was an unofficial holiday for marijuana enthusiasts across the country, and here in Wisconsin, lawmakers marked the day by weighing the future of pot in the Badger State.

In a Senate committee hearing, legislators considered a Republican-authored bill which would legalize medical marijuana, with tight controls and regulation from state agencies and doctors.

Sen. Mary Felzkowski, R-Irma, noted both Republican and Democrat-controlled states have passed similar bills.

"It's in complete red states, it's in complete blue states, it's in purple states; and I don't think that medical marijuana is a partisan issue," Felzkowski asserted. "This is about a drug, it's not an FDA-approved drug, but it's a drug under a doctor's care that can help people with debilitating diseases."

Democrats have criticized Felzkowski's bill for being too restrictive, as the measure does not allow folks to smoke marijuana and only permits medical pot for a limited range of illnesses, although Felzkowski countered the list is open to additions.

Democrats have tried and failed for years to pass recreational marijuana bills through the GOP-controlled Legislature. Lawmakers are not scheduled to reconvene and vote on any bills until next year.

The measure is opposed by the Wisconsin Chiefs of Police Association and the Wisconsin Medical Society, and supported by the Business Education Fund and the Wisconsin Hemp Farmers and Manufacturers Association.

Sen. Melissa Agard, D-Madison, said the bill is "half-baked" and doesn't go far enough.

"Senate Bill 1034 doesn't address our racial disparities," Agard contended. "And it doesn't provide a path for expungements and bars people who have been previously harmed by these controlled substances and the prohibition of cannabis from contributing to this important industry."

A recent Marquette Law School poll of Wisconsin voters found 61% of respondents support legalizing marijuana. And 51% of Republican respondents support full legalization, up 10% from 2019. According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, at least 37 states, four U.S. territories and Washington, D.C. permit medical cannabis.

Social justice advocates have just launched a new public education campaign. It's called "Just Safe," and it's aimed at changing the conversation about crime, especially in the wake of the recent mass shootings.

The group Californians for Safety and Justice has released a commercial, narrated by actress Jennifer Lewis, making the point that safety isn't just the absence of crime - it is the presence of well-being.

The group's executive director, Tinisch Hollins, said these shootings and others plague a society that neglects mental health.

"So, the goal of this is to invite conversation about doubling down on investments that lead to well-being," said Hollins, "like mental health treatment, substance abuse treatment, education."

The campaign applauds efforts to heal communities, such as the announcement last week from the California Victims Compensation board of a $2.5 million grant to open three new trauma recovery center offices in Stockton and Bakersfield.

The state's 19 trauma recovery centers offer mental health treatment, help with medical expenses, and support groups for victims of violent crime.

While accountability is important for people involved with the justice system, Hollins said she agrees with the state's efforts in recent years to prioritize rehabilitation over punishment. She called post-incarceration programs that help people re-enter society "a wise investment."

"Removing barriers, making sure that they have the resources they need when they return home," said Hollins, "keeps us all safe, prevents more crime from happening, and helps our economy, because we have more folks to be able to play a role."

She noted that right now, people who've paid their debt to society often fail to recover when they face huge obstacles to finding employment and housing, and must comply with onerous legal requirements.

Find out more about the campaign online at 'JustSafe.org.'

A new report shows social workers are not being paid equal to similar professions.

The report, from the National Association of Social Workers New York Chapter finds 34% of social workers surveyed are at the same salary they were when they started their job, which on average began one to five years ago.

Many feel this is one piece of a larger puzzle contributing to social workers leaving the field. Report author Olivia Knox - BSW and policy assistant with the NASW's New York Chapter - said stagnant wages could make people leave the field for something different.

"Only 90 people received a merit increase," said Knox. "So, if social workers aren't receiving salary upgrades there's a huge potential and risk that they'll leave the profession for a more equitable field."

She added that this would be alarming given the current state of mental health in the U.S.

According to Mental Health America, 19.86% of adults, or 50 million Americans, are experiencing a mental illness.

Samantha Fletcher - MSW, Ph.D, and Executive Director of the NASW's New York Chapter - said she feels one challenge to addressing this from a legislative perspective is that social workers are involved in other fields.

But, she said she's confident this will be handled since part of Gov. Kathy Hochul's State of the State address spoke about allocating funds to mental-health staffing.

Another issue has been the recent cost-of-living increases. Given social workers are often underfunded, it's causing people to leave the field to find something that can sustain them.

This has particularly been hard on nonprofits, which often help people unable to afford private-practice clinics. Adrienne LoPresti, MSW and executive director of the YES Community Counseling Center, said this trend is leaving a void in care for people who need it most.

"Those that cannot afford and may go toward a nonprofit organizational setting are not getting the care," said LoPresti, "because everyone is fleeing that setting where those that need cannot afford and those that are supposed to fund, like the government and private practice, are not properly reimbursing."

LoPresti added that there's also a lack of a pipeline for graduates to join nonprofit social work since they're quickly going to positions with higher salaries.

She said she feels educating more people about what social workers do, and how it translates into other areas is needed to help keep people in the field.

Some longtime social workers feel their need for additional education than those in similar professions should be a reason they should earn higher salaries.

Martha Schultz - LCSW and northeast division director with the association's New York Chapter - said she finds nurses with associate's degrees are making much more than her, despite her much more rigorous training.

She said she thinks it's time social workers receive their due.

"The money exists to pay social workers," said Schultz. "I think we need to be a bit more accountable to institutions that employ social workers to push that the money exists, you're just finding other ways. You've gotten funds from the federal government to pay people. It's time that we actually pay social workers what they deserve."

While she said she loves her work and the field she's in, issues with pay need to be resolved to ensure people aren't just encouraged to join the field - but incentivize them to stay.

The world's richest 1% took home almost twice as much wealth as the bottom 99% combined during the pandemic, according to a new Oxfam International report.

Morris Pearl, chair of the group Patriotic Millionaires, said current tax codes are not cutting it anymore. The rich keep getting richer while people who work for a living are making daily sacrifices on essentials such as food, which is not good for families, or for investors who want to make money.

"Because money does not trickle down, money trickles up," Pearl pointed out. "As people pay their bills, for their iPhone and their rent every single month, that is how rich people make money and get richer. And if people don't have enough money to do that, that's not good for any of us."

The report said a 5% tax on the world's multimillionaires could raise enough money to lift 2 billion people out of poverty. Wyoming tax codes are pointed in the opposite direction. The state does not tax corporate or individual income. Wyoming has a higher sales tax, which falls hardest on low-wage earners, than at least forty other states. And only eleven states collect lower property taxes.

While families in Wyoming struggled with rising gas and grocery prices, the report found profits for 95 top energy and food corporations more than doubled in 2022, with 84% of those gains going directly into the pockets of wealthy shareholders.

Pearl argued people who earn their living by working for wages, with taxes taken right out of their paychecks, have been left behind.

"The system is rigged against them, and we have to unrig the system," Pearl stressed. "We have to change the system so they are not holding the bag for everything that the government needs to do. And we need to make the rich pay some of the taxes too."

Three-quarters of the world's governments plan on making nearly 8 trillion dollars in cuts to public-sector funding, including health care and education, over the next five years.

Pearl noted taxes make it possible to provide for the nation's common defense, hire firefighters and police, and build schools, hospitals and highways.

"And things like that have, for the history of this nation, been done by people putting their resources together, and doing things together that they just can't each do individually by themselves," Pearl added.