Pennsylvania will legalize adult-use marijuana if Democrats flip 3 state Senate seats in November, legislators say

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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.

Street said a number of Republican senators already support legalization, but the majority leadership has blocked measures from coming to the floor for a vote. Republican supporters include Sen. Dan Laughlin, R-Erie County, who co-sponsored a bill with Street last year that would allow private dispensaries overseen by a new Cannabis Control Board.

Gov. Josh Shapiro has repeatedly included legal marijuana sales in his budget proposals as a source for new state revenues, but they have been removed during budget negotiations. Street said some Republicans are frustrated by the stalemate and may push the issue when they choose their Senate leadership early next year, regardless of the election outcome.

The tax revenue and economic activity that other states are seeing from recreational marijuana sales have broadened the appeal of legalization, the lawmakers said.

“It is the finances that’s going to finally drive the conversation,” said state Rep. Jordan Harris, D-Philadelphia. “Regardless of how we personally feel, at the end of the day, it’s going to be about the money, and I think that money is going to drive us to actually legalizing adult use very soon in the commonwealth.”

Harris chairs the House Appropriations Committee, which plays a key role in crafting the state budget.

State Rep. Chris Rabb, who is the Democratic nominee for Congress in Pennsylvania’s 3rd Congressional District, said the financial argument could trump what he described as reflexive opposition by some legislators to any bill perceived as beneficial to Philadelphia and Black people.

“It’s not popular in Harrisburg to frame anything as ‘Blackety Black.’ But the basis for this argument is, if you help Ray Ray and them on the corners, you help everybody. There’s a strong economic justification to framing it in that way,” he said.

McClinton and others noted that Pennsylvania has become a virtual “island” with regard to cannabis policy following the legalization of recreational marijuana in Delaware, Maryland, New York, New Jersey and Ohio in recent years. Of the bordering states, only West Virginia has not legalized cannabis for adult use.

However, some speakers at Friday’s event cautioned that legalization is a complex process that does not automatically provide economic opportunities for communities impacted by past drug enforcement or a guaranteed ongoing windfall for a state.

John Kagia, who oversees New York’s 720 dispensaries as executive director of his state’s Office of Cannabis Management, urged Pennsylvania officials to take a go-slow approach.

Policymakers should begin community engagement first, he said, to make sure women, minorities, veterans and people from communities disproportionately affected by the criminal justice system are able to become dispensary licensees. In addition, he advised that the state should minimize the lag time between legalization and the opening of dispensaries, to avoid a surge in illegal non-dispensary sales; and invest in research on use patterns and potential medical benefits.

He also noted that states that were early to legalize the drug, like Colorado, have seen drops in tax revenues as marijuana prices gradually declined over time, and he warned against high expectations for state budget relief.

“While I understand that tax revenue ends up being an animating part of this conversation [as] one of the ways to get conservatives and fiscal conservatives into this, I think there are a lot of other very good reasons to legalize without pinning it on the tax revenue,” he said. “This is a dynamic market, and you don’t want the expectation about tax revenues to meet the realities of program implementation.”