Pennsylvania Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R) said Monday at a press conference that he does not expect the state to legalize marijuana before the current legislative session ends. “I don’t see it coming before this session ends,” Pittman said when asked about the prospects of cannabis legalization.
Pittman, the top Republican in the state Senate, also said Pennsylvania should not move ahead on legalization without changes at the federal level. “People tend to forget that recreational marijuana, for better or worse, is a scheduled narcotic at the federal level,” he said.
“And I think we would all be well served to have some more national direction on how to deal with this issue,” Pittman added.
His comments come as Democrats in the state step up their push for legalization. Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) has repeatedly called on lawmakers to send him a legalization bill and has included the reform in his budget requests for the last several years.
A recent poll shows Pennsylvania voters overwhelmingly support marijuana legalization, and the largest share of voters blame Republican lawmakers for the state’s failure to enact the reform.
Pittman criticized the Democratic-controlled House for passing a legalization bill last year that would have put marijuana sales in state-controlled dispensaries. He said the proposal displays a “lack of seriousness on this issue” by the House majority party.
“They sent us a recreational marijuana legalization proposal that would have marijuana in the state stores. Now, come on,” Pittman said.
“I mean, we’re not going to put weed in state stores, number one, because they can’t functionally do it because they couldn’t comply with federal law,” the top GOP senator said.
Pittman also questioned the state’s ability to manage a recreational program, citing a recent Pennsylvania auditor general report critical of the current medical cannabis system. “The Department of Health has not exactly done a bang-up job on medical marijuana, so I don’t have a whole ton of confidence in our ability, even if we were to legalize recreational marijuana, to do it well,” he said.
The state’s Independent Fiscal Office reported in February that legalizing cannabis would generate nearly half a billion dollars in annual revenue by 2028.
The speaker of the Democratic-controlled House said last week that the state could legalize recreational marijuana next year if Democrats win a handful of seats in November and take a Senate majority.
A Democratic senator recently filed a discharge resolution seeking to bring a bipartisan cannabis bill out of committee.
On the Republican side, gubernatorial nominee Stacy Garrity, who is running against Shapiro, pledged to veto a legalization bill if one reached her desk, though she said she doubts the reform would get that far.
Her running mate for lieutenant governor, Jason Richey, claimed legalization would be “catastrophic” for the state, arguing it would grow the illegal market, undermine job creation and harm public health.
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