A Look At PA’s Bipartisan Bill To Legalize Marijuana
It is exciting to see, for the first time, a bipartisan bill that will fundamentally change the way we approach marijuana in our commonwealth. The bill presented by Sens. Sharif Street, D-Philadelphia, and Dan Laughlin, R-Erie, is comprehensive in its approach to the legalization of one of the most used, and least dangerous, drugs in the entire world.
Specifically, from a legalization standpoint, the bill creates reasonable age restrictions around the use of marijuana. Like, alcohol it allows for people over the age of 21 to purchase and use the substance while also banning marketing to anyone under legal age. Additionally, it empowers law enforcement to adjudicate driving under the influence and enhances police department’s pursuit of any illicit or black-market sales. This helps create an effective and legal marketplace that will generate somewhere between 400 million to one billion dollars in new tax revenue to the state, according to the Pennsylvania Independent Fiscal Office. In addition to generating revenue, the creation of a legal marketplace will create thousands of jobs across the agriculture and retail sectors of Pennsylvania. To further help the growth and development of this new marketplace, the state will create a loan and grant program to encourage the growth of new cannabis-based small businesses.
In addition to the legalization of marijuana, the bill also advances the need to retroactively address the impact criminalization of marijuana has had on our judicial system and our residents. Namely, it “expunges non-violent marijuana convictions and decriminalizes marijuana up to a certain limit.” This is an important shift since, according to the ACLU, 52% of all drug arrests were related to marijuana and in a 10 year period, over 7 million people were “busted” for marijuana. To put that in perspective, that is more than the entire population of Los Angles and only a million fewer people than NYC. It is, without question, that decreasing the number of marijuana related offenses will decrease pressure on our judicial system and save our commonwealth millions in prosecuting cases involving recreational users of marijuana.
It should also be noted that African Americans are almost four times more likely to be brought up on charges related to marijuana, despite the use of the drug being nearly equally for all races.
Medical use of marijuana has already been widely accepted by many states — including Pennsylvania —— across the country, and has helped people struggling with everything from chronic pain to PTSD. The legalization of recreational use will destigmatize their treatment and help more people seek non-opioid/non-narcotic solutions to their pain management needs.
Make no mistake, the opioid crisis is a massive concern across the country, and if marijuana can help keep people off opioids, we should find a way to help make that happen.
It is past time that, as a state, we really embrace the idea that marijuana can be managed as a legalized substance like alcohol. Every day, millions (maybe billions) of people make reasonable decisions around their use of alcohol. There is no reason why we cannot approach marijuana from a similar perspective and stop stigmatizing a drug that is less dangerous than tobacco and on par with beer, wine, and spirits which are sold by the case every day.