A marijuana bill remains alive in the legislature after the House Judiciary Committee voted 6-5 Friday for a significantly scaled-back version.
The vote came after the committee narrowly rejected a proposal to table the legislation entirely.
The bill that passed the committee does not legalize marijuana, as the Senate voted to do, but would establish a study commission to prepare for eventual legalization, said Judiciary Committee vice chair Willem Jewett (D-Ripton).
Committee members who voted for the bill were: chair Maxine Grad (D-Moretown), Jewett, Barbara Rachelson (D-Burlington), Martin LaLonde (D-South Burlington), Chip Conquest (D-Newbury) and Bill Frank (D-Underhill).
Those voting against were: Betty Nuovo (D-Middlebury), Tom Burditt (R-West Rutland), Gary Viens (R-Newport), Vicki Strong (R-Albany) and Marcia Martel (R-Waterford).
The bill, a complete revision of the Senate’s S.241, is expected to go next to the House Ways and Means and Appropriations committees.
It’s unclear whether the measure will reach the full House before the legislature adjourns next month. If it passes the House, it would head to a conference committee to negotiate vast differences between the two chambers’ versions.
For legalization supporters, Friday’s vote is a faint victory because it keeps the bill — and the legalization debate — alive. Supporters knew the bill faced tough odds in the House Judiciary Committee.
Because it’s a rewritten Senate bill, rather than a new House bill as had been considered, it won’t have to go through the Senate Rules Committee. That gives the bill one less hurdle.
The House version calls for increased spending on drug prevention education and police training for detecting drugged driving. But Jewett acknowledged that without a source of revenue those portions could run into trouble in the Appropriations Committee.
It would also lower the threshold for drunken driving when marijuana is also detected and would prohibit chemical extraction to make hash oil.
The committee defeated a proposal by Grad to decriminalize home-growing of up to two marijuana plants, also by a 6-5 vote.
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Every time there is news of politicians starting a “task force” to”study” marijuana legalization, in reality they are just prohibitionists going to Colorado to try to find “problems” with it.
When they realize they can’t find the “Doomsday Scenarios” they so very desperately hoped to find, they just fabricate their own “problems” with marijuana legalization.
So now they can go back to their constituents in their home states feeling confident that they can now deceive the public with the same old scare-tactics and anti-marijuana propaganda they have always used. Because these politicians feel that by now claiming to have “studied” the effects of marijuana legalization first hand, they may appear more credible when trying to scare the public away from marijuana legalization.
Give it up prohibitionists. This tactic will not deceive the public!
The public is no longer as gullible as prohibitionist politicians hope we are.
Marijuana Legalization Nationwide is an inevitable reality that’s approaching MUCH SOONER then prohibitionists think and there is NOTHING they can do to stop it!
The people have spoken!
Legalize Marijuana Nationwide!
Politicians who continue to demonize Marijuana, Corrupt Law Enforcement Officials who prefer to ruin peoples lives over Marijuana possession rather than solve real crimes who fund their departments toys and salaries with monies acquired through Marijuana home raids, seizures and forfeitures, and so-called “Addiction Specialists” who make their income off of the judicial misfortunes of our citizens who choose marijuana, – Your actions go against The Will of The People and Your Days In Office Are Numbered! Find new careers before you don’t have one.
The People have spoken! Get on-board with Marijuana Legalization Nationwide, or be left behind and find new careers. Your choice.
Legalize Nationwide!
Marijuana consumers deserve and demand equal rights and protections under our laws that are currently afforded to the drinkers of far more dangerous and deadly, yet perfectly legal, widely accepted, endlessly advertised and glorified as an All American pastime, booze.
Plain and simple!
Legalize Marijuana Nationwide!
Guess VT supports the black market and doesn’t need any new revenue.
Let’s be clear that the lack of action to end prohibition is a acknowledgment of an active support of deported militarized violence that is mostly out of your view. Not only are you supporting violence but you are also pushing your community, friends, and family with addiction issues into the shadows and creating communication walls that I consider much more dangerous than chronic pot use. For those of you that don’t think this is an important issue, or support prohibition, please reconsider this viewpoint because I believe this goes beyond legal pot. It’s a statement on how our society addresses problems. Do we have the courage to challenge failed policies by taking new, sometimes scary directions or are we just going to fold and just muddle through our lives together and be a victim of our fears.