Kenney says legal pot should be sold in Pennsylvania liquor stores

Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney says he knows how to make sure pot sold legally would benefit the city and Pennsylvania. 

Speaking on WHYY’s “Radio Times,” Kenney said legal, recreational marijuana should sold in state-run liquor stores.

“To me, we have the perfect system to set up the legal recreational use of cannabis through a controlled state store system, allowing the state to capture all the income that is going to the underground,” he said.

Kenney says putting sales completely under state control would maintain the integrity of the process.

“The hardest place to get served underage in Philadelphia when I was growing up was a Pennsylvania state liquor store,” he said. “You could get a bartender to look the other way and sell you a six-pack when you are 19, but when you went into a state store, they wanted to see a license, your license. They didn’t care.”

Kenney says revenues from pot sales could be directed to public education.

While Pennsylvania has enacted a medical marijuana law, the drug is not yet available.