{"id":55103,"date":"2022-06-07T14:20:45","date_gmt":"2022-06-07T22:20:45","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2022\/06\/07\/delaware-house-upholds-governors-marijuana-legalization-veto\/"},"modified":"2022-06-07T17:45:27","modified_gmt":"2022-06-08T01:45:27","slug":"delaware-house-upholds-governors-marijuana-legalization-veto","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/2022\/06\/07\/delaware-house-upholds-governors-marijuana-legalization-veto\/","title":{"rendered":"Delaware House Upholds Governor\u2019s Marijuana Legalization Veto"},"content":{"rendered":"<\/p>\n

The Delaware House of Representatives on Tuesday voted to uphold the governor\u2019s veto of a marijuana legalization bill<\/a>\u2014a disappointment for advocates that comes on the same day that a rally was held outside the State House to push to overturn the veto.<\/p>\n

The chamber failed to override Gov. John Carney\u2019s (D) action in a 20-20 vote, with one member not voting. The bill had initially passed with 26 votes\u2014more than the supermajority threshold needed to override a veto\u2014though some members were evidently hesitant to contradict the governor even though they support the reform as a matter of policy.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019re missing an opportunity,\u201d Rep. Ed Osienski (D), the sponsor of HB 371, which would legalize possession and gifting of cannabis without a sales component, said on the House floor before the chamber\u2019s vote. \u201cEighteen states around the United States have passed this legislation\u2026and nobody\u2019s come back to say this was a mistake. Nobody has come back and said we need to repeal this.\u201d<\/p>\n

After the legislature sent the measure to the governor\u2019s desk last month, he announced that he was refusing to sign it, a move that wasn\u2019t entirely unexpected given his past comments on the issue but still stands in stark contract to the policy positions of virtually every other Democratic governor in the country.<\/p>\n

\u201cI respect the Legislative Branch\u2019s role in this process, and I understand that some hold a different view on this issue,\u201d the governor\u00a0said at the time. \u201cHowever, I have been clear about my position since before I took office, and I have articulated my concerns many times.\u201d<\/p>\n

Osienski also sponsored a complementary bill to set up regulations for an adult-use cannabis market that advanced through the committee process alongside HB 371,\u00a0only to be narrowly defeated in the House last month<\/a> by one vote. Under a procedural maneuver that the sponsor executed, that measure could have been brought back up for another vote and could have passed since one of its supporters was absent for the prior roll call\u2014but that seems in serious doubt now that the companion possession bill has failed.<\/p>\n

Osienski made the calculated decision to break up the measures after an earlier proposal that included both components\u00a0was rejected in the House<\/a>\u00a0because it also failed to get a required three-fifths majority. Because the simple possession bill did not deal with revenue-raising, it only needed a simple majority but still cleared both chambers with supermajority support.<\/p>\n

Carney made his first comments on the legalization legislation last month, saying that he agrees that using cannabis shouldn\u2019t be a \u201ccriminal offense,\u201d<\/a>\u00a0but he still signaled that he still had concerns with the policy change and declined to say at the time whether he intended to sign either measure.<\/p>\n

\u201cUnless there are major changes to the composition of the Delaware House, prohibition will almost surely continue in Delaware until there\u2019s a new governor in 2025,\u201d Karen O\u2019Keefe, state policies director for the Marijuana Policy Project, told Marijuana Moment. \u201cIn the meantime, Delawareans\u2014disproportionately Black and Brown Delawareans\u2014will continue to be subjected to thousands of unnecessary, intrusive searches and stops because Gov. Carney vetoed HB 371, and several members of the House didn\u2019t have the courage of their convictions to vote to override his veto.\u201d<\/p>\n

Ahead of the failed override vote, activists with the Delaware Cannabis Policy Coalition and allied organizations rallied outside the State House on Tuesday, alongside Osienski and Rep. Eric Morrison (D), imploring lawmakers to pursue an override vote given both the support the reform bill received in the legislature and the overwhelmingly popularity of the issue among Delaware voters.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot, nor should not, ignore the will of this body, nor the will of the people who voted to sent us to Dover,\u201d Osienski said at the rally ahead of Tuesday\u2019s vote, referring to voter support for legalization as demonstrated by polls. \u201cWe must override the veto of HB 371.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Morrison, for his part, said that the \u201cgovernor\u2019s veto of House Bill 371 is unfortunate and is not reflective of what the majority of Delaware legislators or the majority of Delawareans want.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cNow, it is time for the state legislature\u2014the men and women who walk in these halls and sit in these chambers\u2014to take the next appropriate step in that same democratic process and override,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

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Here\u2019s what Delaware\u2019s\u00a0HB 371<\/a> would have done if enacted:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

The bill would amend state statute by eliminating penalties associated with the possession of up to one ounce of marijuana by adults 21 and older.<\/p>\n

It would further add a section stipulating that adults 21 and older could share up to an ounce of cannabis \u201cwithout remuneration.\u201d<\/p>\n

That section clarifies that marijuana could not be \u201cgifted\u201d as part of a contemporaneous \u201creciprocal transition\u201d or if the gift is contingent on a separate transaction for non-cannabis products or services.<\/p>\n

Here are the main provisions of the complementary\u00a0HB 372<\/a>:\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

A marijuana commissioner would be appointed under the state Division of Alcohol and Tobacco Enforcement. The official would be tasked with regulating the industry and overseeing licensing of retailers, cultivators, manufacturers and laboratories.<\/p>\n

Licenses would be granted through a scored, competitive process, with advantages given to those who pay workers a living wage, provide health insurance or meet certain other benchmarks.<\/p>\n

After 19 months of the bill\u2019s enactment, regulators would need to approve 30 retailer licenses, half of which would go to social equity applicants. Social equity applicants would be defined as entities majority-owned by people with past cannabis convictions or who live in an area disproportionately impacted by the drug war.<\/p>\n

Those applicants would also be allotted one-third of the planned 60 cultivation licenses, one-third of manufacturing licenses and two of five licenses for testing laboratories. They would also qualify for reduced application and licensing fees as well as technical assistance from the state.<\/p>\n

Retail marijuana sales would be subject to a 15 percent tax. No tax would be levied on medical cannabis sales.<\/p>\n

Seven percent of the tax revenue would be used to support a new Justice Reinvestment Fund that would provide grants, services and other initiatives that focus on issues such as jail diversion, workforce development and technical assistance for people in communities that are economically disadvantaged and disproportionately impacted by the drug war. The money would also be used to help facilitate expungements.<\/p>\n

Home cultivation for personal use would continue to be prohibited.<\/p>\n

The legislation would allow individual municipalities to establish their own regulations for marijuana business operating times and locations, and they would also be allowed to ban cannabis companies altogether from their jurisdictions.<\/p>\n

The bill provides explicit legal protections for state employees who work with the state-legal market. And it would also allow marijuana businesses to claim tax deductions at the state level\u2014something they\u2019re prohibited from doing at the federal level under a tax code known as 280E.<\/p>\n

The tax-and-regulate bill is materially the same as the measure defeated in the state House in March.<\/p>\n

Vermont lawmakers followed a similar approach to what Osienski pursued by first passing a noncommercial legalization bill in 2018 and then following that up with separate legislation to tax and regulate sales in 2020.<\/p>\n

The\u00a0governor said last year that he doesn\u2019t support legalization<\/a>\u00a0in part because he believes marijuana can be a gateway drug to more dangerous illicit substances.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe spend all this time and money to get people to stop smoking cigarettes and now we want to say it\u2019s okay to just smoke marijuana recreationally,\u201d he said at the time. \u201cLook, I don\u2019t want to sound like a prude about it, I just don\u2019t think it\u2019s a good idea.\u201d<\/p>\n

The governor also said that his assessment of other states that have enacted legalization is that \u201cit just doesn\u2019t seem to me to be a very positive thing from the strength of the community, of the economy in their states. Is it the worst thing in the world? No, of course not.\u201d<\/p>\n

An even earlier legalization\u00a0bill\u00a0from Osienski cleared committee last year. However,\u00a0disagreements over social equity provisions<\/a>\u00a0stalled that version, keeping it from the floor. At the time, Osienski pledged to\u00a0bring a revised bill for the 2022 session<\/a>\u00a0that could earn broad enough support to pass.<\/p>\n

When the sponsor\u2019s earlier bill was being considered last year, he said he was caught off guard when he was informed that the inclusion of a social equity fund meant the bill would require 75 percent of legislators in the chamber to approve it.<\/p>\n

The lawmaker tried\u00a0to address the problem through an amendment, but some members of the Black Caucus opposed the changes, and the measure failed.<\/p>\n

Osienski has worked with the Black Caucus in the ensuing months to build support and move toward more passable legislation. And a clear sign of the progress is that Reps. Rae Moore (D) and Nnamdi Chukwuocha (D) signed on as cosponsors to the since-rejected bill after pulling their support for the 2021 version over equity concerns. They\u2019re also listed as cosponsors for the new HB 372.<\/p>\n

In 2019, Osienski was the chief sponsor of a legalization bill that\u00a0cleared a House committee<\/a>\u00a0but did not advance through the full chamber. That bill would have allowed medical cannabis dispensaries to begin selling marijuana to adults 21 and older while the rest of the adult-use industry was still preparing to launch, a provision that was removed from later versions.<\/p>\n

Four of the state\u2019s six medical marijuana companies came out publicly against that change and\u00a0testified in opposition to last year\u2019s bill.<\/a>\u00a0In response,\u00a0Delaware activists\u00a0mounted a boycott against those operators<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Portions of the most recent version of the cannabis regulations bills on expungements were removed this session, as they were made redundant by the enactment of separate legislation last year.<\/p>\n

Meanwhile, despite his wariness about adult-use legalization, Carney did previously sign two pieces of marijuana expungement legislation. In 2017 and 2018, a state task force met to discuss issues related to legalization, and the governor hosted a series of roundtable meetings about cannabis.<\/p>\n

A legalization bill previously\u00a0received majority support on the House floor in 2018<\/a>, but it failed to receive the supermajority needed to pass.<\/p>\n

An analysis from State Auditor Kathy McGuiness (D) released last year found that Delaware could\u00a0generate upwards of $43 million annually in revenue<\/a>\u00a0from regulating marijuana and imposing a 20 percent excise tax. The legal market could also create more than 1,000 new jobs over five years if the policy is enacted, according to the report.<\/p>\n

\n

White House Intern Applicants Will Be Asked About Marijuana, Biden Administration Clarifies<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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The post Delaware House Upholds Governor\u2019s Marijuana Legalization Veto<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n


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The Delaware House of Representatives on Tuesday voted to uphold the governor\u2019s veto of a marijuana legalization bill\u2014a disappointment for advocates that comes on the same day that a rally was held outside the State House to push to overturn the veto. The chamber failed to override Gov. John Carney\u2019sContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":0,"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\/55103"}],"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=55103"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55103\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":55104,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/55103\/revisions\/55104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=55103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=55103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=55103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}