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If Democrats succeed in winning control of the state Senate in November, Pennsylvania voters can expect to see rapid movement toward legalization of recreational marijuana, a group of pro-legalization lawmakers said Friday.
The Democratic-led House approved an adult-use cannabis bill last year, but the measure died in a committee of the Republican-led Senate. Flipping three seats in the upcoming general election would give Democrats a Senate majority for the first time in nearly 50 years and ensure passage of a legalization bill, the legislators said.
“Pennsylvanians, in 39 days, could put us in a position where we can have that,” said Sen. Sharif Street, D-Philadelphia, during a panel discussion of state cannabis policy. “There is just a sea-change difference in what the House majority leadership is willing to do on this issue versus what the Senate majority leadership is willing to do on this issue.”
Street and other Philadelphia Democrats spoke at a policy summit held in Center City as part of Black Cannabis Week and the Cannabis Opportunities Conference, an annual series of events held to bring together Black business people, elected officials, regulators and researchers to discuss the nation’s burgeoning legal marijuana economy.
House Speaker Joanna McClinton, D-Philadelphia, said the party is targeting Senate races in Bucks, Montgomery and Lehigh counties, where its candidates are running in competitive races against vulnerable Republican incumbents.
“If we can change that landscape, we will be talking about something different when we are at the conference next year,” she said. “We will be talking about the laws being changed, opportunities for Black communities, which of course were heavily hit through mass incarceration.”
If cannabis is legalized in Pennsylvania, the state must also take steps to expunge past convictions for marijuana possession and use, prioritize Black communities and others for licenses to open dispensaries, and help provide access to capital and technical assistance for entrepreneurs from those communities, the legislators said.
Pennsylvania legalized medical marijuana 2016 for patients with qualifying medical conditions and prescriptions from approved physicians. A number of cities, including Philadelphia and Pittsburgh, have decriminalized the drug, making possession a civil offense punishable by a ticket and fines. However, possessing and using marijuana remain crimes in many Pennsylvania counties, as well as at the state and federal levels.
Republicans who opposed last year’s adult-use bill cited the health consequences of illegal drug use, questions about the legality of expunging convictions and the disadvantages of launching a system of state-run dispensaries, as the bill proposed.
