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By BRIAN WITTE, The Associated Press
ANNAPOLIS, Md. (AP) — Maryland is becoming the latest state to legally sell recreational marijuana to adults 21 and older, as businesses aim to tap into July Fourth festivities to kick off sales.
About 100 stores that already have been licensed to sell cannabis for medicinal purposes will be able to begin selling it recreationally Saturday, more than five years after the state started selling medical marijuana.
“This is cannabis’ kind of Independence Day — over Independence Day weekend — and so it’s nice to be able to pull something together that makes it more of a celebratory occasion,” said Brandon Barksdale, co-CEO of Remedy Maryland, which has a superstore in Columbia.
You don’t have to live in Maryland to buy there: Any adult with a valid ID, such as a driver’s license or passport, can buy recreational marijuana there, the Baltimore Sun reports. Maryland is the fourth Pennsylvania border state, along with Delaware, New York and New Jersey, to legalize recreational marijuana. (Medical marijuana is legal in Pennsylvania.)
However, as the Hanover Sun reports, it’s not legal to take the drug across state lines: “Possessing marijuana is a crime in Pennsylvania, even though some municipalities, including York, Lancaster, Harrisburg and Steelton, have decriminalized it.”
An employee at the Gold Leaf store in Annapolis, Md., holds a package of cannabis on Monday, June 26, 2023. (AP Photo/Brian Witte)AP
The Maryland law creates a “personal use amount” for people 21 and older to possess up to 1.5 ounces of cannabis flower, 12 grams of concentrated cannabis or a total amount of cannabis products that does not exceed 750 mg THC.
People also can grow marijuana at home, including up to two plants out of public view. Medical patients will be able to cultivate up to four plants at home.
Recreational cannabis isn’t legally sold in any of Maryland’s neighboring states, boosting business owners’ hopes that Maryland’s market will be lucrative.
“I definitely do think with the states around us not being recreational yet that that’s absolutely going to drive all of the traffic to Maryland,” said Brianna Anderson, marketing manager for Gold Leaf, which has a store in Annapolis.
Business owners also hope having legal sales in a state next to the nation’s capital will help encourage a change in federal policy, which still considers marijuana to be illegal.
Nearly half of the states nationwide have approved selling marijuana.
“I think once you get to the point that we’re at right now — about the halfway mark — you start to feel a lot of momentum, a lot more trust from consumers, a lot more trust from patients, a lot more trust from investors that have to help fund all of these operations,” said Chantelle Elsner, senior vice president of commercial operations for TerrAscend, which has a cannabis location in Cumberland, with stores expected to open soon in Salisbury and Parkville.
In Maryland, cannabis products will be subject to a 9% sales tax, which is the same as the state’s tax on alcohol. State regulators have estimated recreational marijuana could generate as much as $600 million in sales for the first year.
Maryland lawmakers also approved legislation this year providing that the odor of cannabis alone is not grounds for a police search and reduces the penalty for public smoking from a $250 fine to a $50 fine for a first offense.