INDIANAPOLIS — The future of marijuana in Indiana is set to be a topic discussed in the upcoming legislative session.
Ball State, in a survey, interviewed 600 Indiana adults and found that 56% of people believe marijuana should be legal for recreational use, 29% think it should be legal for only medical use and 15% feel it shouldn't be legal at all.
Amanda Jenkinson, owner of Indy CBD Plus, says she hopes lawmakers will consider it.
"People are so caught up in the reefer madness and they don't understand,” Jenkinson said. “I was one of those people who prior to didn't know how much it could help people.”
Her shop has been open since 2018 when the Indiana general assembly made CBD legal. Jenkinson prides herself on educating her customers, especially since Delta 8 and 9 products have actual THC in them.
"The active ingredient is the same. Whether it's derived from hemp or derived from Marijuana, it's all cannabis,” Jenkinson said. “So, you can get edibles as long as it's .3 percent or less by dry weight in Indiana right now."
Delta 8 and 9 are different than CBD. Delta products can cause a person to be intoxicated, while CBD products cannot. However, side effects depend on the person.
"Delta 8 is a form of THC,” Jenkinson said. “So, Delta 8, Delta 10, all of that is Delta 8 THC. Delta 9 is what most people think of when they think of THC or the active ingredient in Marijuana. "
As for this CBD shop's take on the legalization of marijuana in Indiana, Jenkinson is in favor as are most of her customers. She feels it could make things safer.
"If we have legalization, we're reducing the amount of people that are trying to buy it from a legacy market where it's not tested, and you don't know where you are getting it from," Jenkinson said.
That viewpoint is shared by most Hoosiers, however, policy experts say the Indiana legislature has a harder task than other states that have legalized marijuana. Mainly, because many of them made it a ballot initiative. That is something Indiana doesn't do and couldn't unless the state constitution were to be changed.
"It lies exclusively with the state legislature,” said Chad Kinsella, managing director of the Bowen Center at Ball State University, which conducted the survey. “That's going to be a tough thing because they've got to keep a lot of different people happy. "
We did reach out to both the speaker of the house and president pro-tem of the senate to see if they had a response to the survey. They referred us back to their comments on organizational day that it will likely be a conversation in the upcoming legislative session.
