For decades, state law enforcement officials sought to combat the prevalence of marijuana, prosecuting a war on drugs that resulted in millions of arrests but little other measurable progress.
A bill that won approval in the Pennsylvania House before dying Tuesday in a Senate committee would have reversed that approach to cannabis. Instead of seizing marijuana and arresting dealers and users, the bill would put the state in charge of recreational marijuana sales.
The measure, sponsored by Rep. Rick Krajewski (D), would give authority to run a recreational marijuana market to the state Liquor Control Board. Residents would be able to purchase cannabis products at state-run stores, the same way Pennsylvanians purchase alcohol.
“This bill is about building a legal marketplace that puts working Pennsylvanians first, delivering hundreds of millions to the neighborhoods most devastated by criminalization and preventing a harmful corporate takeover of the market,” Krajewski said in a statement.
Many other states that have legal recreational marijuana systems modeled those systems on alcohol laws. Most give authority to oversee and regulate the marijuana market to the same state commissions or boards that oversee alcohol sales. Supporters of recreational marijuana use that framework in many of the ballot measure campaigns that have led to legalization — efforts recently dubbed the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol.
But Pennsylvania, where state liquor laws remain a relic of the state’s German-speaking immigrants who settled the area beginning in the 17th century, would have been the first state in the nation to actually sell marijuana itself.
Supporters of legalization say allowing the state to make recreational sales would bypass problems other states have experienced in setting up a marketplace. Some states have struggled to create consistent laws across municipalities and counties; others have seen marketplaces collapse because of too much competition, fees that are too high and onerous permitting regulations.
“Harnessing the existing state store system helps Pennsylvania make up for the grades it skipped,” said Steven Schain, a Philadelphia-based cannabis lawyer. “Issues like lack of available real estate and investment capital, creating, launching an application, an application evaluation, an application appeals system are mooted” if the state maintains control.
There is an added political benefit: Pennsylvania’s state-run liquor store employees are unionized. Building on the existing infrastructure would support, and likely expand, those union positions.
But it’s not clear whether a state can operate in an industry still considered illegal at the federal level, Schain said. And a state-run system runs the risk of stifling industry innovations that have been profitable in other states, from wholesales to home delivery and consumption lounges. One statewide set of rules could also limit the rights of municipalities and counties to opt against allowing sales in their back yards.
After winning approval on a party-line vote in the House, the measure faced a Republican-controlled Senate, where lawmakers have been less receptive to efforts to legalize recreational marijuana.
Senate President Kim Ward (R) and Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R) have not made their views on marijuana legalization clear. But other lawmakers said before Tuesday that there was little chance the measure would advance in its current form.
“As someone who has advocated for a responsible approach to legalization, I have repeatedly made it clear that there is zero chance that the state store model will make it through the Senate,” Sen. Dan Laughlin (R) said in a statement. Laughlin chairs the Senate Law and Justice Committee, which heard the bill.
The marijuana industry itself is not wholly behind a state-run system, which would largely lock them out of opportunities to profit.
Still, Schain said, there could be an economic benefit to a state-operated system. Allowing the state to make sales would lend legitimacy to an industry that still suffers from a shady image.
“Cannabis is still hobbled by stigma,” Schain said. “Many soccer moms won’t enter a dispensary, but are frequent fliers at their state stores.”