Gov. Dannel P. Malloy said he is reserving judgment on whether he will back efforts to legalize medical marijuana in Connecticut this year, but he does have some thoughts about those protesters who greeted him as he arrived at the Capitol this morning with a “legalize, don’t criticize” chant.
“None of them look sick,” he joked, adding it’s a legislative issue and “I’ll watch it.”
Last year his administration did introduce a bill that would allow physicians to write prescriptions that would permit their patients to grow marijuana indoors. That bill was never raised in the Senate.
The legislature decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana last year.
The protesters are students from the University of Connecticut’s Students for Sensible Drug Policy group. UConn has knocked down the penalties for marijuana use on campus, aligning it with alcohol infractions.
Jacqueline was CT Mirror’s Education and Housing Reporter, and an original member of the CT Mirror staff, joining shortly before our January 2010 launch. Her awards include the best-of-show Theodore A. Driscoll Investigative Award from the Connecticut Society of Professional Journalists in 2019 for reporting on inadequate inmate health care, first-place for investigative reporting from the New England Newspaper and Press Association in 2020 for reporting on housing segregation, and two first-place awards from the National Education Writers Association in 2012. She was selected for a prestigious, year-long Propublica Local Reporting Network grant in 2019, exploring a range of affordable and low-income housing issues. Before joining CT Mirror, Jacqueline was a reporter, online editor and website developer for The Washington Post Co.’s Maryland newspaper chains. Jacqueline received an undergraduate degree in journalism from Bowling Green State University and a master’s in public policy from Trinity College.