A bill that would legalize recreational marijuana in the state of Minnesota was approved by a 48th committee in the state’s House of Representatives on Tuesday.

The committee, which had deliberated for two weeks before reaching the conclusion, levied its decision after enduring some stalling by Republicans who took issue with the drug’s off-putting color and capacity to cause “reefer madness”.

State Representative Pamela Zywelszky (R-Desert Lake) held up Friday’s scheduled vote for a demonstration in which she had aides carry in twelve and a half pounds of hemp to demonstrate how ugly it would look on a coffee table and invited her fellow congresspeople to smell a set of living room curtains before and after they had been treated with a high-potency spray that mimicked the odor of the drug in its smoked form.

The bill moved onto the 48th committee just over two weeks ago after passing the fourth voice vote held by the previous committee. That vote had been complicated by intra-party debate by two Republicans, congressman Pete Adolfsson of Walleye Lake, who had previously alleged that legal CBD would attract unwanted Jamaican immigrants to the North Star state, and congresswoman Barbara Sigurðsdottir of Lake Innsbruck (Eye-ns-brick), who recently invested $2.4 million in a Saint Cloud-based manufacturer of CBD-infused lotions and motor oils.

The bill now proceeds to its 49th committee where it’s expected to face similar blockages; congressman Dean Schmidt (R-Lake Calhoun 2) already announced he wouldn’t vote for a bill that would incentivize central American marijuana growers to move their operations to Central Minnesota. Meanwhile, congressman John Jacob Jingleheimer-Olsen (R-Massacre Lake) disagreed with his colleague, arguing the United States should never have veered from its path of funding Central American narcostates to begin with, calling it “The American Way”.

Regardless of the bill’s success in progressing through the House of Representatives, it can only become law if its sister bill makes it out of the Minnesota Senate, where it’s currently being filibustered by State Senator Janelle Nieminen (R-Confederate Lake) who maintains the bill is, quote, “both woke and gay”.

Minnesota Democrats say they hope to have the bill ready to sign on Governor Walz’s desk some time between late April and end-of-year 2035.

For more on this story as it develops, stay tuned to this page.