The prospect of marijuana reform in Iowa is becoming realer.

Five Republicans and five Democrats are requesting a study on the feasibility of medical marijuana in Iowa. If the request wins approval from the full Iowa Senate and the heads of the two legislative chambers – Senate Majority Leader Mike Gronstal, D-Council Bluffs, and House Speaker Kraig Paulsen, R-Hiawatha – state analysts will conduct a study on the topic in the legislative interim.

What’s more, the outgoing chairman of the Iowa Republican Party published a Des Moines Register guest-op this weekend calling for medical marijuana legalization: “Quite simply, it’s time to allow doctors and patients to use medical marijuana if they determine it is the best course of treatment.”

And new polling data show the issue is hardly at question among Iowa voters: 81 percent support allowing doctors to prescribe the substance to patients.

Gov. Terry Branstad still opposes reform, but he doesn’t seem like he couldn’t change his mind. The biggest roadblock to reform is actually Iowa Rep. Clel Baudler, a Republican who leads an important House committee and who so hates the idea of medical marijuana that he illegally lied to a Colorado doctor and got a phony pot prescription just to prove the system can be gamed.

Baudler, by the way, is up for re-election this fall in a district where no-party voters outnumber Republicans and Democrats, according to fellow Iowa blogger John Deeth’s 2014 run-down.