As Pennsylvania lawmakers prepare for another push to legalize adult-use marijuana this session with the governor’s support, the new Republican state attorney general is raising concerns about the “potential harm that could be caused criminally” by enacting the reform.
Asked to share his thoughts on the legalization push from certain legislators, Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday (R) first said that “99 percent, if not more” of cannabis possession cases in the state are handled by district attorneys rather than his state office. He then pivoted to talk about his concerns with the idea of legalizing marijuana.
“From a policy perspective, what I can say is—and this is something that I said all throughout the campaign—regardless of what policy issue we’re talking about… you have to have voices from from from all parts of the community on this, and I would be remiss as a prosecutor and now as a chief law enforcement officer for Pennsylvania if I wasn’t a voice outlining the potential harm that could be caused criminally as a result of that,” he told NBC10.
“It’s clearly up to the citizens to take that information in to digest it [and] the legislators to take it in and digest it and ultimately make their decision on how they want to move forward,” Sunday said. “But I do think that I would not be doing my job as a chief law enforcement officer if I didn’t explain” concerns about potential consequences.
The official offered an example, pointing out that, in Pennsylvania, “over half of our DUIs now are either drug DUIs or drug and alcohol combined.”
“I am a firm believer, as I think most people should be in the legislative process, [that] our laws are the will of the people, as exhibited through the ballot box, and I appreciate, recognize, understand and support that,” he said. “And so to that point, what I will do as this conversation progresses is explain facts and things that I know that could be harmful.”
“We just have to take that into consideration as we’re moving down this path. And I will obviously respect the will of the legislature, regardless of the decision they make,” he said.
To that end, the Republican chair of a key Senate committee in Pennsylvania recently said he’s expecting to take up legislation this year that would make the state the 25th in the U.S. to legalize adult-use marijuana. He also thinks that more of his GOP colleagues could get on board with the reform soon than have in the past.
Sen. Dan Laughlin (R), a proponent of cannabis reform in past sessions, chairs the Senate Law and Justice Committee and told a local news outlet that he expects the panel to “be one of the most active committees in the state” in the forthcoming session.
While many legalization advocates and observers think Pennsylvania is among the most likely states to pass a recreational marijuana law this session, the devil is in the details. One lawmaker has floated a relatively simple bill to decriminalize personal possession, while two others plan to introduce more sweeping legislation that would legalize through a state-run system of stores.
Laughlin, a longtime legalization advocate, last spring introduced a bill meant to remove state barriers to medical marijuana patients carrying firearms. While it didn’t move forward, the lawmaker said in the recent interview that he believes political support for legalization more broadly has been building.
The senator said an event last May that the state is “getting close” to legalizing marijuana, but the job will only get done if House and Senate leaders sit down with the governor and “work it out.”
Reps. Dan Frankel (D) and Rick Krajewski (D) announced last month that they planned to file legalization legislation, emphasizing that there’s a “moral obligation” to repair harms of criminalization while also raising revenue as neighboring state markets mature.
Frankel said sponsors hope for a vote on the bill “sometime early spring,” though questions remain as to whether the legislature would be willing to get behind the push to end cannabis prohibition, especially through the state-run sales model he is proposing.
A separate decriminalization measure, meanwhile, from Pennsylvania Rep. Danilo Burgos (D), would make simple possession of cannabis a summary offense punishable by a $100 fine without the threat of jail time. Currently, low-level possession is considered a misdemeanor, carrying a penalty of up to 30 days in jail, a maximum $500 fine or both.
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Additionally, in September, bipartisan Reps. Aaron Kaufer (R) and Emily Kinkead (D) formally introduced a bipartisan marijuana legalization bill, alongside 15 other cosponsors.
Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) is on board with ending prohibition in the Keystone state, and he said last month that he plans to once again call for the reform as part of his next budget proposal.
In July, the governor said his administration and lawmakers would “come back and continue to fight” for marijuana legalization and other policy priorities that were omitted from budget legislation he signed into law that month.
Meanwhile, a top GOP Pennsylvania senator who has long expressed concerns about marijuana legalization told advocates recently that she’s against arresting people over cannabis, noting that the policy change could protect her son and disclosing that if it weren’t for marijuana, she might not have met her husband, according to an activist who spoke with her.
As Pennsylvania’s legislature reconvenes amid rising pressure to enact legalization, advocates view the comments from Senate President Pro Tempore Kim Ward (R) as a positive sign that the dam on cannabis reform measures might be weakening in the commonwealth.
As for medical marijuana, the governor in October signed a bill to correct an omission in a law that unintentionally excluded dispensaries from state-level tax relief for the medical marijuana industry.
About three months after the legislature approved the underlying budget bill that Shapiro signed containing tax reform provisions as a partial workaround to a federal ban on tax deductions for cannabis businesses, the Pennsylvania legislature passed corrective legislation.
Separately, at a Black Cannabis Week event hosted recently by the Diasporic Alliance for Cannabis Opportunities (DACO) in October, Street and Reps. Chris Rabb (D), Amen Brown (D), Darisha Parker (D) and Napoleon Nelson (D) joined activists to discuss their legislative priorities and motivations behind advancing legalization in the Keystone State.
Other lawmakers have also emphasized the urgency of legalizing as soon as possible given regional dynamics, while signaling that legislators are close to aligning House and Senate proposals.
As for cannabis and gun ownership, Laughlin had been looking at the issue for more than a year before introducing last year’s bill, writing last February to the state’s acting police commissioner to “strongly encourage” he review a federal ruling that the U.S. government’s ban on gun ownership by people who use marijuana is unconstitutional.
Since then, further federal court cases have questioned the constitutionality of the federal firearm ban. A federal judge in El Paso, for example, recently ruled that the ongoing ban on gun ownership by habitual marijuana users was unconstitutional in the case of a defendant who earlier pleaded guilty to the criminal charge. The court allowed the man to withdraw the plea and ordered that the indictment against him be dismissed.
Photo courtesy of Chris Wallis // Side Pocket Images.
The post Pennsylvania’s GOP Attorney General Warns Of ‘Potential Harms’ Of Marijuana Legalization Amid Bipartisan Push For Reform In 2025 appeared first on Marijuana Moment.
