Frequent readers of The Dragons’ Tale may remember “Green Light for Green”, the article I wrote in April of last year about legislation Nebraska voters passed to legalize medicinal cannabis. Since then, progress for the movement to make medical marijuana available in Nebraska has only gone backwards. Specifically, U.S. Sen. Pete Ricketts and State Attorney General Mike Hilgers have opposed the movement and put forth bills to restrict it. To some people, like Garrett Connely, campaign manager for Nebraskans for Medical Marijuana (NMM), this is bad news for all Nebraskans.
“The most important factor,” Connely said, “is that 71 percent of Nebraskans voted in favor of a comprehensive medical cannabis program in the state, and Nebraskans deserve to have their voices heard on that. Our state government’s currently failing in that regard, and doing everything that they can to ensure that that doesn’t happen.”
He said he feels that this is an insult to voters.
“Every legislative district voted in favor of medical cannabis. That means every state senator, if they are representing the interests of the voters that elected them, should be in support of medical cannabis, and they’re not,” Connely said.
Connely said that the state’s failure to honor its voters’ wishes is a major issue.
“Our elected officials should respect what we want, and even if we disagree on issues, they should still be representative of their voters,” Connely said. “And so, we don’t have to agree on everything, but I do think we have a really big opportunity in Nebraska this year in particular to make waves and to change things from the trajectory that the state has been on for the last decade or so.”
Connely has tried and failed to understand Ricketts and Attorney Hilgers’s problem with NMM and their beliefs.
“I don’t believe their arguments about safety because they do things that directly contradict that,” Connely said. “For example, Mike Hilgers and Pete Ricketts, during last year’s legislative session, they wrote an op-ed saying that the legislature shouldn’t take action on medical cannabis for a variety of reasons, but they included its classification as a Schedule I drug under federal law, and that it couldn’t be researched and all this other stuff. But those same people, Hilgers and Ricketts, are against President Trump’s move to reschedule marijuana as a Schedule III, which opens up research opportunities. So, if they really were concerned about the safety and legitimacy of cannabis for medicinal purposes, then they should be encouraging research, because they could see if it actually does have medicinal value.”
Connely said he sees this as a non-partisan issue, but an issue of whether Nebraska leaders really care about the will of the people.
“I’ve talked to people that voted against medical cannabis, they were like ‘I don’t want it, I’m not in favor of it,’ and they’re like, ‘ultimately it passed, so for [elected officials] to not listen to that is ridiculous,’” Connely said.
Nebraska is the 48th state to institute a medical marijuana program.Gretna Media has reached out to the offices of Jim Pillen, Pete Ricketts and Mike Hilgers, as well as “Coalition Rx,” one of Omaha’s anti-drug advocacy groups, to get their perspectives and stances. None was able to provide an interview or a quote. There are, however, other media sources that have had opportunities to speak with both Ricketts and Hilgers, and
both pointed out the potential dangers that marijuana brings.
“. . . (M)arijuana is easily abused and is not safe to consume even under medical supervision,” Ricketts and Hilgers said in their article in their Omaha World-Herald Midlands Voices column from March of 2025. The state leaders also have issues with the separation between medical and recreational marijuana.
“The only difference between medical marijuana and recreational marijuana is word choice,” Ricketts said in a political advertisement. “Doctors can’t prescribe it, and pharmacists can’t provide it because it’s not medicine.”
Perhaps the biggest point of argument against medical marijuana for critics of its legalization is its potential effect on youth.
“If you legalize marijuana, you’re gonna kill your kids. That’s what the data shows from around the country,” Ricketts said in a press conference back in 2021. In contrast, Connely said that some people with painful ailments need things like marijuana to keep themselves going.
“There are people that are suffering, and that are going to continue to suffer the longer that the state withholds medical cannabis access for people. There are people with seizures and people in hospice and people with M.S. and A.L.S. and cancer, all sorts of things, that are going to continue to suffer because of what the state is doing to continue to uphold [current restrictions] and scratch away at the will of the people,” Connely said.
Connely said he believes that Nebraska is unique in its opposition to medical marijuana.
“Forty-seven other states have medical cannabis programs. They’re not all blue states, they have republicans that are working on this issue, and I will tell you, behind the scenes, a lot of republican leaders and officials in this state do believe that this is something we should have access to, but when it comes time to vote they’ll vote the other way for their party or to please their donators,” Connely said.
Medical cannabis remains a topic in the Unicameral during this year as well.
“As for bills, there are two bills in the legislature. So, obviously, we’re opposing the bill (State Sen.) Rick Holdcroft brought LB 1235, which would strip away patient protections that were passed at the ballot,” Connely said. “And then there are two bills that we’re supporting: LB 933 and LB 934. They were both brought by State Sen. John Kavanaugh, and one of them would protect healthcare practitioners that write protections for medical cannabis because currently they’re not protected.”
LB 1235 has been presented to Gov. Jim Pillen and is being reviewed by his office. LB 933 and 934 are still in the process of getting approved at lower levels before being shown to Pillen.
Gretna High School’s resource officer, Deputy Lance Shickert, has not spoken specifically about his vote or political opinions, but he said s that marijuana, with restrictions, is not a problem.
“When it comes to situations where the harmful parts are removed, and it only has the positive effects like increased appetite and such, that’s perfectly fine,” Shickert said last year.
Shickert also said that there has not been a change in arrests made since the original bill was passed.
