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Rhode Island\u2019s House speaker says lawmakers are \u201cvery close\u201d to introducing a bicameral negotiated marijuana legalization bill, and a top Senate leader saying he\u2019s optimistic that it will pass \u201coverwhelmingly\u201d in both chambers when it comes up for a vote early in 2022.<\/p>\n
Legislators have been in talks for months to reconcile competing legalization proposals that have been brought forward by the House, Senate and governor\u2019s office. Negotiations have been productive, and draft legislation will be introduced within weeks, \u201cin the month of January,\u201d House Speaker Joseph Sherkarchi (D) told Providence Business News.<\/p>\n
The bill\u2019s filing \u201cwill begin a robust public hearing and vetting process,\u201d he said. But it appears the plan is to get those legislative proceedings done quickly, as Senate Majority Leader Michael McCaffrey (D) said the goal is to get the measure approved in the House and Senate by February.<\/p>\n
\u201cOnce it goes through the hearing process, I think that it will pass in both chambers overwhelmingly,\u201d he said<\/a>.<\/p>\n While lawmakers have made progress in reaching agreements on various provisions that kept legalization from being enacted in 2021, the main sticking point concerns who should be in charge of regulating the cannabis program.<\/p>\n \u201cThe Senate wants to have a separate independent commission to regulate the cannabis industry,\u201d McCaffery said, while the House wants the state Department of Business Regulation (DBR) to hold that responsibility.<\/p>\n \u201cWe have been working with the House on some language that hopefully everyone can live with,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Shekarchi, for his part, said earlier this month that he\u2019d be open to a compromise on the matter<\/a> and floated the idea that there could ultimately be \u201csome combination thereof or some hybrid version of it.\u201d<\/p>\n Sen. Josh Miller (D), sponsor of one legalization proposal\u00a0that was approved in the Senate earlier this year<\/a>, similarly said in October that regulatory responsibility remained to be a sticking point in negotiations.<\/p>\n It appears that another outstanding issue related to how many marijuana business licenses should be approved has been resolved, given the speaker\u2019s recent comments. Miller\u2019s bill proposed as many as 150 cannabis shops, whereas Gov. Dan McKee\u2019s (D) plan<\/a>\u00a0called for 25 and Rep. Scott Slater (D) wanted just 15 in his separate House bill.<\/p>\n Negotiators\u00a0also recently reached an agreement<\/a>\u00a0to place a temporary moratorium on approving additional cannabis cultivator licenses. Some have protested adding cultivators beyond the existing medical marijuana licensees because they say there\u2019s already a sufficient supply to meet demand in the adult-use market.<\/p>\n \u2014 Senate President Dominick Ruggerio (D), for his part, said in September that\u00a0lawmakers are \u201cvery close\u201d to reaching a deal<\/a>\u00a0on a marijuana legalization bill<\/p>\n \u201cWe sent legislation\u2014which we think is a very good piece of legislation\u2014over to the House before we left in June,\u201d the senator said, referring to the legalization bill that his chamber approved\u00a0in June. \u201cThey are working on that legislation with some of the House people at this point in time.\u201d<\/p>\n What remains to be seen is whether the negotiated legalization bill that\u2019s ultimately produced will satisfy advocates and progressive lawmakers, some of whom have\u00a0rallied behind an agenda for reform<\/a>\u00a0that emphasizes the need for bold social equity provisions.<\/p>\n While each of the competing bills contain components meant to address the harms of marijuana criminalization, the coalition led by Reclaim Rhode Island says they\u2019re insufficient. Advocates and supportive lawmakers have laid out specific items that they want to see incorporated such as setting aside half of cannabis business licenses for communities most impacted by prohibition.<\/p>\n \u201cWe can\u2019t reverse the harm of the war on drugs, but we can start to repair it by passing automatic expungement and waiving all related fines, fees and court debt,\u201d Rep. Karen Alzate (D), chair of the Rhode Island Legislative Black and Latino Caucus, said in September. \u201cThis bold legalization plan offers us the chance to turn a new leaf for the Ocean State, and it\u2019s time we take it.\u201d<\/p>\n Ruggerio said he does feel that the legalization bill that was approved in the Senate contained \u201cvery strong social justice provisions\u201d and the expungements provision is \u201cas close to automatic as practical.\u201d<\/p>\n He also said in July that he\u2019s not disappointed the House hasn\u2019t advanced legalization legislation<\/a>\u00a0yet and that \u201cwhat we really wanted to do was send it over and have them take a look at it\u201d\u00a0when his chamber passed its cannabis reform measure.<\/p>\n A coalition of 10 civil rights and drug policy reform advocacy groups\u2014including the Rhode Island chapters of the ACLU and NAACP\u2014recently demanded that lawmakers move ahead with enacting marijuana reform<\/a>\u00a0in the state before the end of 2021.<\/p>\n Lawmakers have noted that neighboring states like\u00a0Connecticut and Massachusetts have enacted legalization<\/a>, and that adds impetus for the legislature to pursue reform in the state.<\/p>\n Shekarchi, meanwhile, said in July that he doesn\u2019t intend to let regional pressure dictate the timeline for when Rhode Island enacts a policy change. Social equity, licensing fees, labor agreements and home grow provisions are among the outstanding matters that need to be addressed, the speaker said.<\/p>\n The House Finance Committee\u00a0held a hearing on Slater\u2019s legalization measure<\/a>\u00a0in June.<\/p>\n The governor previously told reporters that while he backs legalization it is \u201cnot like one of my highest priorities,\u201d adding that \u201cwe\u2019re not in a race with Connecticut or Massachusetts on this issue.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cI think we need to get it right,\u201d he said, pointing to ongoing discussions with the House and Senate.<\/p>\n The House Finance Committee discussed the governor\u2019s proposal to end prohibition\u00a0at an earlier hearing in April<\/a>.<\/p>\n Both the governor and the leaders\u2019 legalization plans are notably different than the proposal that former Gov. Gina Raimondo (D) had included in her budget last year. Prior to\u00a0leaving office to join the Biden administration<\/a>\u00a0as commerce secretary, she\u00a0called for legalization through a state-run model<\/a>.<\/p>\n McKee gave initial insights into his perspective on the reform in January, saying that \u201cit\u2019s time that [legalization] happens\u201d and that he\u2019s \u201cmore\u00a0leaning towards an entrepreneurial strategy<\/a>\u00a0there to let that roll that way.\u201d<\/p>\n Shekarchi, meanwhile, has said he\u2019s\u00a0\u201cabsolutely\u201d open to the idea of cannabis legalization<\/a>\u00a0and also leans toward privatization.<\/p>\n Late last year, the Senate Finance Committee\u00a0began preliminary consideration of legalization<\/a>\u00a0in preparation for the 2021 session, with lawmakers generally accepting the reform as an inevitability. \u201cI certainly do think we\u2019ll act on the issue, whether it\u2019s more private or more state,\u201d Sen. Ryan Pearson (D), who now serves as the panel\u2019s chairman, said at the time.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, the governor in July\u00a0signed a historic bill to allow safe consumption sites<\/a>\u00a0where people could use illicit drugs under medical supervision and receive resources to enter treatment. Harm reduction advocates say this would prevent overdose deaths and help de-stigmatize substance misuse. Rhode Island is the first state to allow the facilities.<\/p>\n The Senate Judiciary Committee also held a hearing in March on legislation that would\u00a0end criminal penalties for possessing small amounts of drugs<\/a>\u00a0and replace them with a $100 fine.<\/p>\n US\u2019s First Safe Drug Consumption Sites Are Already Saving Lives By Stopping Dozens Of Overdoses In Less Than A Month, NYC Officials Say<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Photo courtesy of WeedPornDaily<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n The post Top Rhode Island Lawmaker Expects Marijuana Legalization Bill To Pass \u2018Overwhelmingly\u2019 By February<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Rhode Island\u2019s House speaker says lawmakers are \u201cvery close\u201d to introducing a bicameral negotiated marijuana legalization bill, and a top Senate leader saying he\u2019s optimistic that it will pass \u201coverwhelmingly\u201d in both chambers when it comes up for a vote early in 2022. Legislators have been in talks for monthsContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":51900,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51899"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/458"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=51899"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51899\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":51901,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/51899\/revisions\/51901"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/51900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=51899"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=51899"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=51899"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: Top Rhode Island Lawmaker Expects Marijuana Legalization Bill To Pass \u2018Overwhelmingly\u2019 By February<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"