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The top Pennsylvania House lawmaker says legalizing marijuana is one way to create a \u201cvery important\u201d revenue source for the state, and it\u2019s an achievable reform if only legislators could find \u201cthe will to do it.\u201d<\/p>\n
In an interview with City & State that was published on Monday,\u00a0House Speaker Joanna McClinton (D) was asked about the need to bolster revenue and what options might be on the table heading into the 2026 session.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt\u2019s very important. When we talk about the needs for schools, for transit, for roads and bridges, we have to have a way to pay for everything\u2014not just today, but in three years, in six years,\u201d she said. \u201cThe only way we can do that is by creating new revenue.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cSome of the ways the governor requested that we create the revenue was through legalizing marijuana, raising the minimum wage, regulating skill games. So we have ways to do it,\u201d the speaker said. \u201cWe\u2019ve sent some of those to the Senate, but we haven\u2019t been able to get any of those bills to the governor\u2019s desk.\u201d<\/p>\n
To that point, the House passed a marijuana legalization bill earlier this year<\/a>, with a novel proposal to have sales take place at state-run stores, but it was promptly rejected by the GOP-controlled Senate.<\/p>\n \u201cI think any of [the revenue options] would be palatable; we just have to have the will to do it. We should do them all,\u201d McClinton said<\/a>. \u201cWe should raise the minimum wage. We should legalize cannabis. We should regulate skill games. We should do them all, because we don\u2019t want to get to a point where we were when I entered into the legislature in 2015 where the deficit was astonishing and large and vast.\u201d<\/p>\n Bipartisan Pennsylvania lawmakers who\u2019ve been working to enact adult-use legalization over recent sessions without success so far have also recently said that President Donald Trump\u2019s federal marijuana rescheduling order could grease the wheels<\/a> in the new year.<\/p>\n \u201cI think that having President Trump, in particular, sign this executive order really gives permission for a lot of Republican lawmakers who may have been reticent about actually admitting that they supported it some cover to be able to actually support it,\u201d Rep. Emily Kinkead (D) said. \u201cI am even more optimistic than I was that we are going to get legalization of recreational cannabis done in Pennsylvania in 2026.\u201d<\/p>\n Rep. Dan Frankel (D), chair of the House Health Committee and another champion of reform in the legislature, also said the rescheduling move will \u201cbolster the existing medical marijuana marketplace.\u201d<\/p>\n While there may be some disagreement among lawmakers about rescheduling or broader reform, Trump\u2019s executive order marks a \u201cstep toward common-sense drug policy reform,\u201d Sen. Dan Laughlin (R) said.<\/p>\n For what it\u2019s worth, another top GOP senator\u2014Sen. Scott Martin (R), chair of the chamber\u2019s Appropriations Committee\u2014said earlier this month that\u00a0he was skeptical about the prospects of enacting legalization in the 2026 session<\/a>, in part because of the federal classification of cannabis that\u2019s now expected to change. Of course, marijuana would still be federally illegal under Schedule III, so it\u2019s unclear if a simple loosening of the law would move the needle enough from his perspective.<\/p>\n \u2014 A top aide to Pennsylvania\u2019s governor said in September that\u00a0lawmakers should stop introducing new competing legalization bills<\/a>\u00a0and instead focus on building consensus on the issue\u2014while emphasizing that any measure that advances needs to contain equity provisions if the governor is going to sign it into law.<\/p>\n Laughlin, for his part, said in August that the House \u201cneeds to pass the language in my bill and send it to my committee<\/a>\u201d after which point he \u201ccan negotiate with the Senate and the governor.\u201d<\/p>\n The senator separately said recently that supporters are \u201cpicking up votes\u201d to enact the reform this session<\/a>.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, bipartisan Pennsylvania senators in October introduced a bill that would\u00a0allow terminally ill patients to use of medical marijuana in hospitals<\/a>.<\/p>\n Separately, the leading Republican candidate in the race to become the next governor of Pennsylvania\u00a0dodged a question about her stance on legalizing marijuana<\/a>\u2014saying she doesn\u2019t have a \u201cpolicy position\u201d on the issue and arguing that the sitting governor\u2019s proposal for reform \u201cway, way overstated\u201d potential revenue.<\/p>\n The candidate, Pennsylvania Treasurer Stacy Garrity (R), pointed to neighboring Ohio, which launched its own adult-use cannabis market this year, saying \u201cthey generated about $115 million in revenue.\u201d<\/a>\u00a0And while the populations of both states are relatively comparable, Shapiro\u2019s budget\u00a0projected $536.5 million in cannabis revenue in the first fiscal year<\/a>\u00a0of implementation.<\/p>\n She did, however, say that if Pennsylvania moves forward on enacting the reform, she\u2019ll \u201cmake sure that it\u2019s banked appropriately.\u201d<\/p>\n Meanwhile, a Pennsylvania Democratic senator recently said that federal marijuana rescheduling\u00a0would be \u201cvery influential\u201d in advancing legalization in his state<\/a>, giving \u201cpolitical cover\u201d to GOP members on the fence about reform.<\/p>\n Polls have shown bipartisan support for legalization among voters, but the reform has consistently stalled in the legislature, due largely to GOP opposition. But not all Republican members are against the policy change\u2014and one recently said she felt her party should\u00a0seize the \u201copportunity to snatch\u201d the issue from Democrats<\/a>.<\/p>\n Photo courtesy of Chris Wallis \/\/ Side Pocket Images.<\/em><\/p>\n The post Marijuana Legalization Could Boost Pennsylvania\u2019s Revenue, House Speaker Says, If Only Senate Could Find \u2018The Will To Do It\u2019<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
The top Pennsylvania House lawmaker says legalizing marijuana is one way to create a \u201cvery important\u201d revenue source for the state, and it\u2019s an achievable reform if only legislators could find \u201cthe will to do it.\u201d In an interview with City & State that was published on Monday,\u00a0House Speaker JoannaContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":84966,"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\/84965"}],"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=84965"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84965\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":84967,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/84965\/revisions\/84967"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/84966"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=84965"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=84965"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=84965"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: Marijuana Legalization Could Boost Pennsylvania\u2019s Revenue, House Speaker Says, If Only Senate Could Find \u2018The Will To Do It\u2019<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"