Pennsylvania Senate Committee Rejects Marijuana Legalization Bill That Was Approved By House
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A Pennsylvania Senate committee has rejected a bill to legalize marijuana with state-run stores that narrowly passed the House last week.
On Tuesday, the Senate Law and Justice Committee defeated the legislation from Reps. Rick Krajewski (D) and Dan Frankel (D) in a 7-3 vote.
“I really expected a little bit of back-and-forth discussions and work on these bills if we are going to truly put a product on the governor’s desk, we are not going to get there—with this model, at least,” Sen. Dan Laughlin (R), who has championed separate bipartisan legalization legislation, said.
The GOP senator also called out Gov. Josh Shapiro (D), who supports legalization, for allegedly not doing enough to build consensus on legislation to enact the reform.
“I believe that, if there’s a path to getting adult-use cannabis passed, the governor himself is going to have to roll his sleeves up and help do some of the work,” he said. “I have not seen that yet, but hopefully we can get there—and I know it’s going to be a vigorously discussed process, so I look forward to working…to try and get a passable version through the Senate, through the House and off to the governor.”
The speedy process by which the bill advanced through the House gave lawmakers, particularly on the GOP side, heartburn—a complaint that was reiterated in the Senate committee.
GOP members have also raised various concerns about the policy change itself, such as potential impaired driving and workplace intoxication. The procedural and policy-specific concerns were amplified in the Senate panel, though members did not propose any amendments to the legislation.
Sen. Lisa Boscola (D) pressed Laughlin on why he didn’t file an amendment to replace it with his earlier legalization bill, which would have established a conventional private sales model for cannabis. He said simply “we’re not ready.”
Laughlin also commented on the state-run cannabis shop provisions of the bill, saying “the state being involved in selling potentially cannabis and alcohol is just a wrong message to send to our citizens.”
“We also have objections from the beer, wine and distilled spirit stakeholders, he said. “And while the alcohol industry is generally supportive of the legalization of cannabis, the idea of sharing already-limited shelf space for the federally illegal product is sure to be met with logistical and business-related objections.”
This story is developing and will be updated.
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Photo courtesy of Philip Steffan.
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