Someone’s plan to harvest dozens of marijuana plants believed to be growing on the grounds of the Wisconsin State Capitol has gone awry.
Plants are sprouting in the tulip garden outside the parliament building. WMTV-TV reported Thursday.
Tatiana Warrick, a spokeswoman for the state Department of Administration, told The Associated Press in an email Friday that officials removed the plant, but her agency could not determine whether it was marijuana or cannabis.
Both are types of cannabis, but only marijuana has the compound that gets people high.
Warwick did not answer questions about how the plants got into the garden.
Shelby Ellison, a botanist at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, told the station that she inspected the plants for WMTV before they were removed.
But she told The Associated Press on Friday that she couldn’t say for sure whether they were marijuana or cannabis.
She said there were dozens of plants in the garden, suggesting someone planted them intentionally.
“The only coincidence is that there were a lot of plants,” Ellison said.
Marijuana in all forms remains illegal in Wisconsin.
Congressional Republicans introduced a bill to legalize marijuana for medical purposes in the last Congress, but the bill was never considered because it failed to gain support from state senators.
