Legal marijuana in Pennsylvania is not in the state budget this year

Legalized recreational marijuana was not included in Pennsylvania’s budget, delaying a deal that marijuana advocates had hoped lawmakers would reach before a summer fiscal bill filing deadline.

Medical marijuana is legal in Pennsylvania, though the state lags behind states like New Jersey, where the adult-use marijuana industry has boomed since its legalization in 2021.

A legal marijuana industry could bring Pennsylvania $41 million in taxes in its first year, a study suggests, and could generate hundreds of millions of dollars annually by the end of the decade. Legalization advocates and lawmakers alike see legalization as an untapped economic driver.

Lawmakers had until June 30 to finalize the bill before the budget deadline. But while passage of the $47.6 billion spending package has been delayed by more than a week, House members who support the proposal said there still isn’t enough time for representatives to agree on what the bill should include.

“We are listening to all stakeholders, including our caucus,” said Rep. Dan Frankel (D., Allegheny), chairman of the House Health Committee. “There are a lot of members who have different priorities.”

Frankel said the final version of the bill would not only legalize recreational marijuana, which would be for adult operate only, but would also include provisions that address public health, criminal justice and social justice concerns.

Democratic lawmakers have introduced proposals that are aimed primarily at creating opportunities for Black and brown entrepreneurs to enter the industry, such as by lowering fees and offering interest-free loans to people earning less than $75,000 a year.

Frankel said previous proposals “made sense” but “ultimately reflected the interests of the industry.”

Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro has promised to sign a bill legalizing recreational marijuana, going so far as to include it in his 2024 budget proposal in February. With the exception of West Virginia, all of Pennsylvania’s neighboring states have legalized marijuana.

Legislation to legalize marijuana would need to pass both the House of Representatives, where Democrats hold a one-seat majority, and the Republican-controlled Senate, where many members have long opposed legalization. Still, Frankel suggested that a deal could be struck on both sides of the aisle.

“My Republican colleagues have been to our hearings, and I would say they are generally very thoughtful about this issue,” Frankel said. “Many of them, I wouldn’t say all of them, have a realistic view — that toothpaste is out of the tube” as other states legalize it.

Interim Senate President Kim Ward (R., Westmoreland) said legalizing recreational marijuana is one of several issues Shapiro raised in his budget speech but did not support at the negotiating table.

“He talked about it in his budget speech,” Ward said. “We never heard anything more about it. It’s a lot of show but not much ‘action,’ as far as I’m concerned.”

But Senate Republicans quickly rejected marijuana legalization after Shapiro’s budget speech. And Shapiro said at a news conference Thursday night that he would not discuss private conversations that were not included in the budget.

“As I said before, everybody had to compromise and we didn’t always get what we wanted, but we’re all going to come back and continue to fight for the things that we believe in,” Shapiro added. “The things that I put in my budget, I still believe in and we’re going to continue to fight for them in the future.”

Meredith Buettner Schneider, executive director of the Pennsylvania Cannabis Coalition, said she hopes lawmakers can agree on a bill during the fall session. Extended budget negotiations in 2023 left them with little room to reach an agreement on the bill, she said, contributing to this year’s delay.

“Trying to craft comprehensive legislation that can succeed in two different chambers controlled by two different parties is certainly an uphill battle,” Buettner Schneider said.[Shapiro] “In the next few months, we will sit down at the table and it will be crucial to achieve something,” she said.

Meanwhile, House of Representatives black lawmakers met in Harrisburg on Wednesday to push for a marijuana bill that would invest in communities that have seen disproportionately high rates of incarceration due to past drug policies.

Rep. Napoleon Nelson (D-Montgomery), the chairman of the House caucus, said legalizing recreational marijuana “while the lives, livelihoods and even liberties of thousands of Pennsylvanians are being disrupted by the brutal war on marijuana” is “unthinkable.”

Nelson said the faction would not accept a bill that does not include provisions for the exoneration and expungement of prior marijuana-related charges, including parole violations, as well as restitution for those wrongly convicted of marijuana-related offenses.