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State lawmakers continued their exploration of how best to go about legalizing recreational marijuana in Pennsylvania by gathering information from experts on possible guardrails that could minimize its negative public health and safety effects.
House Health and Liquor Control committees on Thursday held a joint hearing to solicit input from researchers who have studied the impacts of legalized weed in other states and Canada as well as heard from the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, which some see as providing potentially viable outlets where recreational weed could be sold.
It was the sixth in a series of hearings that the Health Committee or a subcommittee has held as it moves forward with developing legislation that would make Pennsylvania the 25th state where it is legal to buy recreational cannabis. Gov. Josh Shapiro’s 2024-25 budget proposal anticipates legalization to commence in January.
All but one of Pennsylvania’s neighboring states have enacted laws to legalize recreational weed. Recreational marijuana legalization has drawn bipartisan support in the Senate but there also are vocal opponents who either see it as dangerous or best left to Congress to implement.
PLCB officials said they were open to bringing cannabis sales into the state liquor stores if that’s what the legislature decides but noted there are differences between alcohol and cannabis. For one, most liquor sales are credit card sales; cannabis is a cash business. It would require strict security. And unlike liquor, at this point it is labeled as a Schedule 1 drug by the federal government.
“We are your creation. You tell us what to do,” Rodrigo Diaz, PLCB’s executive director, said. “What we’re asking you though is to be cognizant of these issues that you’re raising and addressing so that we’re not just making it up. We have to get clear guidance as to how you want us to address those kinds of issues.”
Rep. Valerie Gaydos, R-Allegheny County, expressed disappointment that the PLCB officials weren’t able to provide more definitive information about what would need to be done to bring cannabis sales into the state stores. Diaz responded, “We have expertise in alcohol. I can give you what I would think are good solid answers if you have alcohol questions. I’m not going to pretend I have experience in cannabis. So it’s going to be a learning experience.”
Lawmakers heard from experts who have studied Canada’s marijuana legalization efforts with a lot of attention focused on Quebec where its provincial government controls the sale of marijuana and is more restrictive than other provinces in that country.
For example, Quebec has a higher minimum legal age (21 years old) for cannabis purchases than other provinces where the legal minimum age is 18 or 19. It also has fewer stores and stronger restrictions on advertising products. Vaping products are not sold there. THC content — the substance that produces a high — in products is limited to 30%. Finally, the type of edible products sold is limited to reduce the appeal to youths.
“When you think cannabis edibles, most people think about you know candies, gummies, cookies, brownies,” said David Hammond, a research chair in the University of Waterloo’s School of Public Health Sciences. “In Quebec, they don’t sell any of that. They sell dried cauliflower, dried beets and I always say I’ve never caught my kids sneaking beets or cauliflower out of the fridge.”
Similarly, François Gagnone, senior researcher and special policy advisor for the Canadian Center on Substance Use and Abuse, said ways to make vaping products less appealing to youth is to limit flavors that conceal the cannabis taste. Hammond added childproof packaging is another.
As for the location of the cannabis stores, some provinces are more prescriptive than others, they said. In Alberta, where the market is entirely in private hands, there are no efforts to space them out. Hammond said most provinces have set up rules to keep them a distance away from schools. Some provinces allow municipalities to restrict them near detoxification centers or encourage them to be located near subway stations for convenience, Gagnone said.
In Quebec, Gagnone said 100% of revenue from cannabis, excluding the sales tax, goes to fund cannabis prevention or reduction and treatment or research. Rep. Paul Schemel, R-Franklin County, said afterward that if Pennsylvania were to follow the Quebec model where 100% of the profits go to treatment, “it begs the question why would the state get involved in the sale of the product that 100% of the proceeds have to go into treating the ill effects of the product.”
On the topic of revenues, Hammond said there was a “fair number of upfront costs, and some of those upfront costs have been sort of underappreciated just in terms of the work that’s involved, regulatory, managing license fees but certainly the revenues have been substantial. It’s safe to say that the revenues have far outstripped the costs.”
Rep. Tim Bonner, R-Mercer County, said the major concern he has about the legalization of marijuana is whether the government is heading down the same path it did with tobacco and finding itself 20 to 30 years from now discouraging people from using it. Hammond admitted that is a big unknown but said that likely will be determined by how it’s regulated and whether it is implemented in a thoughtful way.
Dr. Ken Finn, a Colorado pain doctor and vice president of the International Academy on the Science and Impacts of Cannabis, said one of the mistakes Colorado made was not having tighter control on access and the products sold, adequate tracking, and stronger penalties to those who provide cannabis products to youth. Other changes he sees as needed in his state’s program are mandatory drugs testing on all violent crimes, recommending consumers register on-site at dispensaries for potential recall or contamination, and cannabis screening of mothers and fathers due to known negative impacts from cannabis on the unborn.
What’s more, he said, “The black market is alive and well in almost every single state that has already gone down this road. I think it’s very important that you also take a hard look on how you’re going to manage and control the black market.”
If Pennsylvania goes with a private model, Jennifer Unger, a professor of population and public health sciences at the University of Southern California, encouraged lawmakers to devote significant resources to enforcement to shut down unlicensed retailers and give careful consideration to where licenses are awarded to avoid an over-saturation in low-income and minority areas.
Dr. Lynn Silver, a California pediatrician and senior adviser to the Public Health Institute, suggested Pennsylvania consider going with a government-run model like Quebec’s to give it more control over products, packaging, potency and production to avoid vast overproduction that can feed the illicit market. She also recommended lawmakers start by automatically expunging non-violent past criminal records to provide equity benefits.
“What you decide here will affect the health and well-being of Pennsylvania residents, both youth and adults for generations to come,” Silver said. “If you do it wrong it can take as long to untangle as the harms of the tobacco industry.”
Rep. Kathy Rapp, R-Crawford County, said lawsuits may be the only way to roll back the push to legalize marijuana. Finn said the lawsuits are coming.
“Maybe that’s what it’s going to take to wake up legislators across this great country,” she said. “I fear we’re going to rush into this like other states.”
House Health Committee Chairman Dan Frankel, D-Allegheny County, took exception to that comment, pointing out that the committee has heard from experts suggested by members on both sides of the aisle.
“We are taking this seriously as we develop a piece of legislation to look at adult use,” he said.
Jan Murphy may be reached at jmurphy@pennlive.com. Follow her on X at @JanMurphy.