What a move to greener pastures might look like.
Will bipartisan talks in Harrisburg finally spark recreational marijuana legalization, or is the latest effort to go green destined to go up in smoke?
With neighboring states including Maryland, New York and New Jersey establishing their own private adult-use cannabis markets, Pennsylvania may be feeling peer pressure to act. The General Assembly has taken steps this year to learn more about recreational cannabis legalization through a series of public hearings in Senate committees, and a pair of bipartisan proposals suggest the commonwealth may be closer to legalization than ever before.
“I think that there is a growing sentiment in the Pennsylvania General Assembly that it’s not whether we legalize cannabis, but when,” state Sen. Sharif Street, a Democrat from Philadelphia, told City & State. Street, alongside state Sen. Dan Laughlin, an Erie County Republican, introduced Senate Bill 473, an adult-use marijuana legalization proposal, last year.
The proposed legislation calls for a “rational framework” for legalization. It would allow adults 21 and older to purchase and possess up to 30 grams of cannabis, allow medical patients to grow up to five plants at home for personal use, ban marketing toward children, provide workplace and intoxication rules and emphasize social equity by creating equity licenses and expunging criminal records for anyone with a non-violent cannabis conviction.
Street and Laughlin aren’t the only ones with a proposal, however. State Sen. Mike Regan, chair of the Senate Law and Justice Committee, has been spearheading the hearings process as he prepares to introduce his own bipartisan legalization bill. Regan has said his interest in legalization stems from his experience as a U.S. marshal, where he said he witnessed organized crime and drug cartels benefit from the illicit market.
Legalization has been a hot topic in the commonwealth for the past few years, with Gov. Tom Wolf and Lt. Gov. John Fetterman joining Democratic legislators’ calls for the Republican-controlled General Assembly to consider proposals for adult-use marijuana. This time around, experts say, it feels different, with Republican lawmakers holding serious conversations as surrounding states reap the tax benefits of a regulated market.
“I think there’s a growing awareness across the country about the need for reform in this area,” Jeremiah Mosteller, senior policy analyst for criminal justice reform at Americans for Prosperity, a libertarian-conservative political advocacy group that has expressed support for legalization, told City & State.
Mosteller said AFP began to get involved in the issue as public support for legalization grew and evidence revealed prohibition was not working.
“We’re actually seeing adult-use continue to go up. The black market continues to thrive regardless of what we do, and that brings along with it lots of other violent and nonviolent crimes that actually have victims,” he said, adding that law enforcement “is only solving about 42% of violent crimes and 15% of property crimes. We believe that is leaving too many victims without justice and jeopardizing public safety because we’re investing so many resources into the prohibition of cannabis and not actually achieving a positive…
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