As a Vermont House committee continued to hear testimony Tuesday on a bill to legalize marijuana, Senate leaders indicated that the prospects of such legislation passing this year are increasingly slim.
“I don’t know how on Earth we can do anything,” said Sen. Jeanette White (D-Windham), a leading advocate of legalization.
With the legislative session expected to end in about three weeks, some Senate committees, including Judiciary, are shutting down for the year to focus on budget bills.
Even if the House voted out its legalization bill in the next week, Senate President Pro Tempore Tim Ashe (D/P-Chittenden) said its chances of passing in his chamber are virtually nil. “It’s hard to see that happening,” he said.
The bill that the House has debated for three-plus months would legalize possession of up to an ounce but would not allow for sale of the drug.
Democratic leaders continue to work toward solidifying votes for that plan, said House Assistant Majority Leader Tristan Toleno (D-Brattleboro).
The Human Services Committee heard Tuesday from legalization advocates and could vote this week to send the plan — similar to one in place in Washington, D.C. — to the full House. First, Toleno said he must firm up support for a floor vote.
“We’ll know in the next day or two,” he said. “I don’t know if the messaging in the Senate will get in the way of the conversations I’m having.”
But Senate leaders deliberately chose to make it increasingly clear that they don’t consider the House bill a step forward in the march towards legalization.
“I don’t think that’s the baby step to take,” White said. “It does nothing to decrease the black market.”
Senators prefer a full legalization plan under which marijuana could be sold and taxed. In fact, the Senate last year voted for such a plan, but the bill failed in the House.
Ashe said the Senate might consider other options on marijuana legalization this year, including passing something similar to its 2016 proposal. Another option is a bill that would create a commission to implement marijuana legalization.
Whether either of those would fly in the House is questionable.
Disclosure: Tim Ashe is the domestic partner of Seven Days publisher and coeditor Paula Routly. Find our conflict-of-interest policy here: sevendaysvt.com/disclosure
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Just keep buying on the black market.
You snooze you loose, there are states all around you that are in process of legalization. The early states will pull money out of your potential tax base, the longer you wait the more money you loose.
So how many in the Legislature make a profit from illegal drugs? LOL. Mustn’t kill that golden goose.
Is Vermont corrupt or not? So funny to watch this sham.
So they’re concerned about this bill doing nothing about the black market, and in response they will literally do nothing. Cool, guys.
The latter point raised by Sen. White seems to be incorrect, insofar as the proposed legalized cultivation allows Vermonters to gift cannabis to each other, as occurs in Washington D.C., which then might disrupt extralegal cannabis markets (seemingly entirely beneficial, though perhaps with accompanying negative impact, e.g., were merchants to substitute highly damaging rather than beneficial products). Only prohibited persons (e.g., minors) would then have incentive to extralegally obtain cannabis–perhaps best resolvable with relatively harsh disincentives to their possession/consumption of cannabis. The bill has the advantage of avoiding government endorsement of, let alone direct provision of or profit from, a potentially damaging product, avoiding conflict of interest and moral repugnance. This tentative analysis assumes that the bill distinguishes sale and distribution per se. It may not (presumably to preclude selling via convoluted subterfuge), though that’s likely rectifiable by legalizing distribution and receipt up to a fixed amount per month, with at most minimal compensation, perhaps under oversight of a largely indemnified cannabis club or co-op. Then, the government simply promulgates guidelines for the private watchdogs, sanctioning nothing more than Vermonters having and sharing any excess growth of a plant widely agreed to therapeutically benefit some individuals, merely shifting the determination of licit benefit from government to individual conscience (ideally with advisory assistance). On moral and medical grounds prudence calls for safeguards to ensure that use is holistically relatively benign for an individual, e.g., requirements for a current “cannabis permit” from a medical/club/state official, disincentivized strictly recreational use (vs. cultivation) perhaps eventually allowed though only in-club, and/or requirement of at least nominal therapeutic purpose (e.g., as an herbal supplement, with curative claims limited to doctors). The only missing component is potency testing (a matter for private innovation). These points are presented here in a necessarily partial and tentative way.
Shame on them. Listen to your voters – stop being so risk adverse. Legalize it.
Is cheaper on the black market than at the dispensaries