Legislative Committee Will Consider Bill Legalizing Marijuana Thursday. HMPQ "ROCKET TIME"
20180207Legislature
Cody Roberts, center, and Joseph Toth, right, advocates for the legalization of marijuana, walk through the tunnel that connects the state Capitol to the Legislative Office Building, past state Sen. Craig Miner, on opening day of the 2018 legislative session. (Mark Mirko / Hartford Courant)
By Matthew Ormseth•Contact Reporter
March 13, 2018, 11:40 AM
The idea’s been floated before, but recreational marijuana’s backers have so far been unable to convince the Land of Steady Habits to legalize a new one.
The legislature’s General Law Committee will weigh a new bill legalizing the retail sale of marijuana at a public hearing. The hearing, originally scheduled for Tuesday, was postponed until Thursday because of the snowstorm.
The bill, No. 5458, would allow people 21 or older to purchase up to an ounce of marijuana from a retailer or “marijuana lounge,” where customers would smoke or consume their purchase on-site. Anyone 21 or older would also be allowed to grow up to six plants for personal use.
In the past, legislative leaders and Gov. Dannel P. Malloy have opposed proposals to legalize marijuana in Connecticut, despite other New England states legalizing its recreational use. When he presented his budget this year, Malloy listed legalizing and taxing the sale of marijuana as an “option” if legislators opposed his proposals for raising new revenue.
House Speaker Joe Aresimowicz called legalizing marijuana “one of those tough crossover issues that brings both a social and economic aspect with it,” but said that, given a growing segment of the state supports its legal use, it’s one the legislature should address.
“With a number of states in the region having either already approved legalization and regulation, or are trending this way, it’s clearly something that deserves to be looked at,” Aresimowicz, a Democrat, said. “There is also a growing momentum here based on Connecticut’s highly successful medical marijuana program and decriminalization policy that has been in place for a few years now.”
In submitted testimony, West Haven resident Christopher Brown asked lawmakers to “please be on the right side of history and do what’s right for our state.”
“No one should lose their job, their family or their life over cannabis,” Brown wrote to the committee. “It’s wrong that we continue to lock away good people over a harmless plant.”
The bill calls for lawmakers to create a Marijuana Control Commission that licenses and oversees a new range of marijuana facilities, including retail stores, marijuana lounges and cultivation centers. All facilities would be subject to Department of Consumer Protection oversight, including regular inspections and spot checks. Any facility that grows, handles or sells marijuana would have to install alarms and video systems and maintain a physical security presence.
Kebra Smith-Bolden, a registered nurse who founded CannaHealth, a New Haven center that conducts medical marijuana evaluations, called the proposed lounges “a beautiful thing.”
“When you legalize and you don’t offer options for people to consume, it’s not responsible,” she said. “We want people to be responsible, and not smoke in the street or around children.”
The bill would allow towns and municipalities to bar any marijuana establishment from their limits, either through an ordinance or a simple town meeting. Marijuana transactions carried out by anyone not employed by a marijuana retailer or lounge would be illegal.
Ronnie Kronen, who described himself in submitted testimony as a cancer survivor and medical marijuana patient, criticized the riches he said dealers and medical dispensaries are reaping from the state’s prohibition on pot.
“This weed costs pennies to grow and we should be allowed to grow it,” he wrote.
