Pennsylvania Attorney General Wants To Be ‘Voice For Potential Public Safety Risks’ Of Marijuana Legalization, As GOP Leaders Downplay Prospects

Pennsylvania’s Republican attorney general says he wants to be a “voice for potential public safety risks” of enacting the Democratic governor’s proposal to legalize adult-use marijuana—though he says his office would be ready to enforce the new law if lawmakers did vote to pass it. GOP leadership in the legislature, meanwhile, is again downplaying the idea that there’s enough support to advance the issue this year.

State Attorney General Dave Sunday (R)—as well as Pennsylvania Supreme Court justices—were asked about the prospect of legalizing cannabis at budget-focused hearings before the House Appropriations Committee last week.

While some of the officials generally gave neutral testimony on their personal views about Gov. Josh Shapiro’s (D) latest pitch to legalize as part of his budget request, Sunday argued that cannabis enforcement under current law is a relatively low priority, with marijuana prosecutions representing “in the realm of 5 percent” of the state’s caseload.

“Considering that the attorney general’s office goes after typically high-level and mid-level drug traffickers, I can’t say that it would have an impact on a lot of the work that we do, because we focus on fentanyl, methamphetamines, cocaine and things of that nature,” he said.

However, Sunday said he’s concerned about an increase in cases involving drug-impaired driving and said, “very simply, I want to highlight that risk and just make sure people are cognizant of it as a legislature is processing everything else that goes into this and making that decision.”

The attorney general—who also recently raised concerns about the “potential harm that could be caused criminally” by enacting the reform—was also pressed on the governor’s projections for tax revenue from marijuana sales. He demurred, saying “that’s not something that I would feel comfortable speaking to” given that his background isn’t in economics.

“What I can say is this: Laws in Pennsylvania—and in this body, you all understand this better than probably most citizens—it’s not meant to make laws quick,” he said. “It’s not supposed to be easy to just make a law. And I say that solely through the lens of, when I think about recreational marijuana, there has to be voices from everyone who potentially could be impacted by that, because once that’s done, it’s done.”

“And so very simply, through the course of this process, I would like to be a voice for potential public safety risks or potential risks with children, and I just want to make sure that there’s a voice that’s heard,” Sunday said. “And if, at the end of the day, the legislature in its wisdom decides, ‘we’ve listened to you, we’ve taken that into consideration, but we do think that there should be recreational marijuana,’ then clearly, like every other law in Pennsylvania, we would certainly abide by it and do what we had to do to enforce. And so that’s my position.”

The official also declined to say whether he anticipates needing additional funding for district attorneys if legalization is implemented, stating that he’d like to review “fresh” reports and studies from other states before making that assessment. And also he disclosed that, “up until this point,” he has not discussed the issue with counterparts in those states in his capacity as attorney general.

As far as the proposed expungement provisions of the legalization plan is concerned, Justice P. Kevin Brobson said that “there’s a technological toll to that,” as they’ve seen through the implementation of other record clearing legislation.

“To the extent the expungement becomes a law or an initiative passed by the General Assembly and signed by the governor, we certainly would hope that there be some consideration to the additional costs that the judicial branch will have to absorb—and the State Police, for that matter, would have to absorb—for purposes of implementing that,” Brobson said.

“We just ask that some consideration be given in the legislation of both both expense and time—give us enough lead time to work the systems out and make sure we can implement it in a way that makes sense and follows the will of the General Assembly,” he said.

However, justices appearing at the hearing generally declined to share their perspective on one GOP member’s various concerns about potential consequences of legalization, including possible resource burdens for police as it concerns drug testing, parental custody complications and landlord-tenant issues.

“I think the problem we’re having articulating an answer to the question is, as judges, we just don’t think like that,” Brobson said.

“I am very confident that the General Assembly and the governor are going to be able to talk about these collateral consequences and reach some sort of agreement on or not,” he said. “But we deal with collateral consequences when they’re presented to us, and we just haven’t dealt with these hypotheticals.”

Whether there will be an agreement, however, is yet to be seen. For example, Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R) told The Washington Examiner in a recent interview that the bulk of the Republican caucus is against the governor’s cannabis plan.

“My obligation as majority leader is to try to make sure I understand where the prevailing view of our caucus is, and I do not yet see that prevailing view within our caucus,” he said.

“You know, I’m not a believer that revenue from vices should be a driver in the conversation,” he said.

The GOP Senate leader also called on Shapiro to provide a more detailed legalization plan for lawmakers to consider.

“When we deal with an issue such as this, that is nuanced and of such a great magnitude, I think the governor first owes us words on paper that clearly show what his vision for such an initiative is,” Pittman said, adding that he doesn’t think it should provide for expungement.

“I certainly am not in the mindset that we need to be going back into expungements of convictions that have already occurred,” he said.

House Minority Leader Jesse Topper (R), meanwhile, said that Republican support for the legalization proposal is “fairly limited” in the chamber that’s only narrowly controlled by Democrats, adding that the governor’s plan includes a “gimmicky tax” that will not meaningfully impact the state’s budget deficit.

Topper said that marijuana’s ongoing federal Schedule I status and the industry’s resulting banking access issues is “one of the largest stumbling blocks” to reform.

“If that were to change, and these businesses would be able to actually have capital,” he said. “I think that would clear the way for more support.”

As things stand, Topper believes legalization support demonstrated in public opinion polls is somewhat overstated, though he acknowledged that “there’s no doubt that the culture has changed” on the issue.

Meanwhile, the governor’s legalization plan has been a key topic of interest among House and Senate appropriators, with a variety of officials facing questions about the proposal at hearings over recent weeks.

For example, Pennsylvania’s agriculture secretary told lawmakers that he’s fully confident that his department is in a “really good” position to oversee an adult-use marijuana program if lawmakers enact the reform.

At that Senate Appropriations Committee hearing, Sen. Sharif Street (D), who is planning to introduce bipartisan cannabis legalization legislation again this year, also discussed the reform proposal he recently announced in partnership with a Republican senator.

Meanwhile, last month, top Pennsylvania police and health officials told lawmakers they are prepared to implement marijuana legalization if the legislature moves forward with the reform—and that they stand ready to work together as the details of legislation to achieve it are crafted.

Separately, amid the growing calls for marijuana legalization in Pennsylvania, a GOP state senator says prohibition has been a “disaster,” and a regulated sales model for cannabis—similar to how alcohol and tobacco are handled—could serve as an effective alternative.

Voters are ready to see that policy change, according to a poll released earlier this month.

The survey, commissioned by the advocacy group ResponsiblePA, found that nearly 7 in 10 voters in the state support the reform—including a majority of Republicans. And 63 percent want to see the legislature enact the reform this year, rather than delaying it.

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While Shapiro once again included a proposal to enact cannabis legalization in his latest budget request, there’s been mixed feedback from legislators—some of whom want to see the governor more proactively come to the table to discuss possible pathways for reform and others skeptical about the possibility of advancing the issue this session.

Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Scott Martin (R), for example, said this month that he doesn’t “see any path whatsoever” to enacting legalization in line with the governor’s plan.

At the same time, the state secretary for the Department of Revenue has predicted that Shapiro’s proposal could be passed during the current budget cycle, indicating that he feels reform could start to be implemented within months.

House Majority Leader Matt Bradford (D), meanwhile, said following the governor’s budget speech that “there is real diversity of opinions among our members,” likely referencing split perspectives on regulatory models, with some lawmakers pushing for a state-run cannabis program.

He also said recently that he feels the time is ripe to advance marijuana reform this session, saying “it strikes me as abdicating our responsibility to protect our communities and our children, and at the same time, we are losing revenue that is going to go into our neighboring states.”

Key lawmakers have expressed skepticism about the governor’s ability to see through the cannabis reform he’s proposing, however.

“The governor needs to lead on something. If he wants something done, he needs to lead on it,” Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward (R) said. “He can’t throw an idea out there—which he did last year—and say, ‘Let the legislature figure it out. I’ll sign it. Then I’ll go do press conferences all over the state.’”

Topper, the House minority leader, was also asked about the prospect of enacting various of the governor’s budget proposals, including marijuana. And he said while he’s “not going to speak for the governor,” there’s “one person that has the ability to bring those deals together—and that is the governor.”

He referenced recent remarks from Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R) who said there are logistical challenges to advancing legalization that he’s unsure lawmakers will be able to overcome.

The feedback from GOP lawmakers is reminiscent of earlier criticism from the caucus about the governor, who they’ve claimed has made the call for reform without meaningfully engaging with the legislature about how to get it done.

The Republican chair of a key Senate committee recently said he’s expecting to take up legislation this year that would make Pennsylvania the 25th in the U.S. to legalize adult-use marijuana. He also thinks that more of his GOP colleagues could get on board with the reform soon than have in the past.

While many legalization advocates and observers think Pennsylvania is among the most likely states to pass a recreational marijuana law this session, the devil is in the details. One lawmaker has floated a relatively simple bill to decriminalize personal possession, while two others plan to introduce more sweeping legislation that would legalize through a state-run system of stores.

Laughlin last spring introduced a bill meant to remove state barriers to medical marijuana patients carrying firearms. While it didn’t move forward, the lawmaker said in the recent interview that he believes political support for legalization more broadly has been building.

The senator said an event last 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.”

Reps. Dan Frankel (D) and Rick Krajewski (D) announced in December that they planned to file legalization legislation, emphasizing that there’s a “moral obligation” to repair harms of criminalization while also raising revenue as neighboring state markets mature.

Frankel said sponsors hope for a vote on the bill “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.

A separate decriminalization measure, meanwhile, from Pennsylvania Rep. Danilo Burgos (D), would make simple possession of cannabis a summary offense punishable by a $100 fine without the threat of jail time. Currently, low-level possession is considered a misdemeanor, carrying a penalty of up to 30 days in jail, a maximum $500 fine or both.

Additionally, in September, bipartisan Reps. Aaron Kaufer (R) and Kinkead formally introduced a bipartisan marijuana legalization bill, alongside 15 other cosponsors.

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.

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.

As for cannabis and gun ownership, Laughlin had been looking at the issue for more than a year before introducing last year’s bill, writing last February to the state’s acting police commissioner to “strongly encourage” he review a federal ruling that the U.S. government’s ban on gun ownership by people who use marijuana is unconstitutional.

Since then, further federal court cases have questioned the constitutionality of the federal firearm ban. A federal judge in El Paso, for example, recently ruled that the ongoing ban on gun ownership by habitual marijuana users was unconstitutional in the case of a defendant who earlier pleaded guilty to the criminal charge. The court allowed the man to withdraw the plea and ordered that the indictment against him be dismissed.

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Photo courtesy of Mike Latimer.