Previous efforts to legalize recreational marijuana in Delaware failed to gain traction. But with nearby states moving toward legalization, the First State is feeling some pressure to move on it now.
Delaware Public Media’s Roman Battaglia reports a bill to legalize recreational cannabis is coming to the legislature – and this time could actually pass.
Delaware Public Media’s Roman Battaglia reports on recreational marijuana legalization in Delaware.
Delaware’s lawmakers have been trying to legalize recreational marijuana since 2017, but have lacked enough support at Leg Hall.
State Rep. Ed Osienski (D-Brookside) is now the lead sponsor on recreational marijuana.
“So I’m hoping this is the year for us to get my bill passed. It actually started several sessions ago with Senator Henry and Rep. Keeley and I picked it up in 2019,” Osienski says. “But we’ve come up a couple of votes short so I’m hoping this year is different.”
Legal marijuana isn’t completely new to the state. Delawareans might notice one of six compassion centers throughout the state, which offer cannabis to medical patients.
A bill legalizing medical marijuana passed ten years ago now, and signed by then Gov. Jack Markell. But, according to Zoë Patchell from the Delaware Cannabis Advocacy Network, that didn’t mean smooth sailing for medical marijuana users.
“We formed in 2013 just after that measure had passed; however, the state was still not fully implementing the 2011 law,” she says. “They began issuing medical cannabis cards to patients however no dispensaries opened for the patients to have safe, legal access to their medicinal cannabis. So one of the first things that we address was trying to fully implement that program, get the dispensaries open and get the consumer safety protections for the medical cannabis patients.”
The state’s medical marijuana law stalled just after it was signed. Markell held off on actually implementing the law and permitting dispensaries to open. He cited a federal Justice Department memo suggesting it would prosecute anyone associated with the sale of medical marijuana, even in states approving the practice.
So — marijuana users were able to get cards from their doctors, but there was no way for them to access the drug.
The state’s medical marijuana industry remained in limbo for almost 3 years, before Markell finally started the process of opening dispensaries after the Justice Department backed off from enforcing marijuana legalization.
The first dispensary opened the summer of 2015, First State Compassion opened in Wilmington and more soon followed.
And as of last year, there are over 16 thousand medical marijuana users in the First State — a number that continues to grow every year.
The state also decriminalized the drug back in 2015, albeit with concessions. Decriminalizing meant most marijuana possession cases turned into civil fines.
But for many cannabis advocates, medical marijuana and decriminalization are just stepping stones on the way to full legalization of the drug for everyone.
Almost all states that legalized marijuana started out with medical cannabis, and many decriminalized the drug.
Advocates such as the Cannabis Advocacy Network have been pushing state lawmakers to bring recreational…
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