Pennsylvania Lawmaker Expects Vote On Marijuana Legalization Bill In ‘Early Spring’ 2025
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A Pennsylvania lawmaker says he’s expecting a vote on a bill to legalize marijuana that he’s sponsoring “sometime early spring”—though questions remain as to whether the legislature would be willing to get behind the push to end cannabis prohibition, especially through the state-run sales model he is proposing.
Reps. Dan Frankel (D) and Rick Krajewski (D) announced earlier this month that they planned to file the legislation, emphasizing that there’s “moral obligation” to repair harms of criminalization while also raising revenue as neighboring state markets mature.
“It’s about time we find a way to prioritize public health, social justice, and revenue for the state instead of just letting an illegal marketplace flourish,” Frankel told KDKA News in a new interview. “The toothpaste is already out of the tube. Weed is everywhere. We need to find a way to make it safe.”
“My expectation is that we could probably see a vote sometime early spring,” he said.
There’s increased optimism about the prospect of ending prohibition in Pennsylvania in the 2025 session. But not everyone is confident that there will be an appetite in the legislature for the proposed state-run retail model.
Krajewski addressed the issue in a separate interview with PhillyVoice, emphasizing that the legislation takes a “hybrid” licensing approach that would be regulated under the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board.
“The way that we are thinking through legislation is you have a state store system as a means of primary retail, but you also have opportunities for small business retail as well,” he said.
“All of the money we get from state stores is public revenue that can be used toward community reinvestment programs that support people to engage in the industry,” the lawmaker said. “It can go toward community programs for people who have been impacted by past criminalization. It can go toward violence prevention and affordable housing.”
Krajewski, who led a series of hearings on cannabis reform over the past year alongside Frankel, said there are “a lot of businesses that struggle to actually compete against large, multi-state operators that take on a lot of capital and equity in the industry.”
He reasons that a state-run model could help mitigate those issues.
“A lot of people are not given the support they need to be entrepreneurs in the space, so they fail that way,” he said. “Running a business of any kind is hard, and I think a lot of states don’t do enough to offer support in a very volatile market.”
However, Krajewski acknowledged that the conversation around legalization next year is “going to be a negotiation, as with everything in Harrisburg with a divided legislature.”
“We’re going to have a starting proposal with what we can do around a cannabis legalization framework and we’re going to go to the other side to have a conversation about what can be done,” he said. “We’re surrounded by states that have legalized cannabis, so I think it’s an inevitability.”
ResponsiblePA spokesperson Brittany Crampsie cast some doubts about the state-run model. She said she “cannot foresee a situation where the House sends the Senate a cannabis bill with the state expanding liquor stores and Senate Republicans jump to do it.”
“There’s a lot of discussion on how we build out this model instead of whether we should do it at all,” she told PhillyVoice. “Three, four sessions ago, it was a little bit more amorphous. I would expect to see more bipartisan consensus legislation introduced, as well. Even being stuck on the details is such a better place than rancorous debates about ‘Just Say No’ and War on Drugs kind of stuff.”
Chris Goldstein, a NORML regional organizer, said Pennsylvania arguably has one of the most effective existing medical cannabis programs and asked: “Why would we want to close down those dispensaries when the model in every other state is to grandfather them in and have them start selling adult-use products?”
“I’m not sure that the state of Pennsylvania is really in the business of selling cannabis. It really has been in the business of prohibition for nearly 100 years,” he told the local news outlet. “I think flipping the switch for the state to do that job is pretty far-fetched.”
Meanwhile, another Pennsylvania lawmaker has announced his intent to file bill to decriminalize marijuana possession in the 2025 session—a modest reform as other legislators plan to step up their push for broader legalization of the adult-use cannabis market.
Additionally, in September, bipartisan Reps. Aaron Kaufer (R) and Emily Kinkead (D) formally introduced a bipartisan marijuana legalization bill, alongside 15 other cosponsors.
Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) is on board with ending prohibition in the Keystone state, and he said this month that he plans to once again call for the reform as part of his next budget proposal.
In July, the governor said his administration and lawmakers would “come back and continue to fight” for marijuana legalization and other policy priorities that were omitted from budget legislation he signed into law that month.
Meanwhile, a top GOP Pennsylvania senator who has long expressed concerns about marijuana legalization told advocates recently that she’s against arresting people over cannabis, noting that the policy change could protect her son and disclosing that if it weren’t for marijuana, she might not have met her husband, according to an activist who spoke with her.
As Pennsylvania’s legislature reconvenes amid rising pressure to enact legalization, advocates view the comments from Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward (R) as a positive sign that the dam on cannabis reform measures might be weakening in the commonwealth.
As for medical marijuana, the governor in October signed a bill to correct an omission in a law that unintentionally excluded dispensaries from state-level tax relief for the medical marijuana industry.
About three months after the legislature approved the underlying budget bill that Shapiro signed containing tax reform provisions as a partial workaround to a federal ban on tax deductions for cannabis businesses, the Pennsylvania legislature passed corrective legislation.
Separately, at a Black Cannabis Week event hosted recently by the Diasporic Alliance for Cannabis Opportunities (DACO) in October, Street and Reps. Chris Rabb (D), Amen Brown (D), Darisha Parker (D) and Napoleon Nelson (D) joined activists to discuss their legislative priorities and motivations behind advancing legalization in the Keystone State.
Other lawmakers have also emphasized the urgency of legalizing as soon as possible given regional dynamics, while signaling that legislators are close to aligning House and Senate proposals.
Recent data has also underscored the urgency of enacting cannabis reform, revealing that more than 12,000 people were arrested for cannabis possession in the Keystone state last year.
Meanwhile, a report commissioned by activists projected that Pennsylvania would see up to $2.8 billion in adult-use marijuana sales in the first year of implementing legalization, generate as much as $720 million in tax revenue and create upwards of 45,000 jobs.
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Sen. Sharif Street (D) was also among advocates and lawmakers who participated in a cannabis rally at the Pennsylvania State Capitol in June, where there was a significant emphasis on the need to incorporate social equity provisions as they move to advance legalization.
Sen. Dan Laughlin (R), another longtime advocate for reform, also said an event in May that the state is “getting close” to legalizing marijuana, but the job will only get done if House and Senate leaders sit down with the governor and “work it out.”
Warren County, Pennsylvania District Attorney Robert Greene, a registered medical cannabis patient in the state, filed a lawsuit in federal court in January seeking to overturn a ban preventing medical marijuana patients from buying and possessing firearms.
Two Pennsylvania House panels held a joint hearing to discuss marijuana legalization in April, with multiple lawmakers asking the state’s top liquor regulator about the prospect of having that agency run cannabis shops.
Also in April, members of the House Health Committee had a conversation centered on social justice and equity considerations for reform.
At a prior meeting in March, members focused on criminal justice implications of prohibition and the potential benefits of reform.
At another hearing in February, members looked at the industry perspective, with multiple stakeholders from cannabis growing, dispensing and testing businesses, as well as clinical registrants, testifying.
At the subcommittee’s previous cannabis meeting last December, members heard testimony and asked questions about various elements of marijuana oversight, including promoting social equity and business opportunities, laboratory testing and public versus private operation of a state-legal cannabis industry.
Last year, Shapiro signed a bill to allow all licensed medical marijuana grower-processors in the state to sell their cannabis products directly to patients.
Separately, Pennsylvania’s prior governor separately signed a bill into law in July 2022 that included provisions to protect banks and insurers in the state that work with licensed medical marijuana businesses.
Wisconsin GOP Senate President Is Hopeful About Legalizing Medical Marijuana In 2025, But Says Assembly Leader Poses ‘Obstacle’
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