The bill would impose a 16 percent tax on the sale of cannabis products, with potential for an additional 2 percent local option tax. A state Cannabis Control Board would be responsible for regulation and licensing of all stages of the supply chain for legal weed. The bill calls on the board to prioritize Vermont businesses owned by women and minorities as it considers license applications.
Licenses for growers would be issued by December 2020, and separate licenses for processing facilities, wholesalers and retailers would be phased in over the following months.
The Senate has repeatedly passed similar legislation in recent years, but none of those proposals has made it through the Vermont House. Lawmakers in the latter chamber agreed last year to legalize cannabis cultivation and use by adults but refused to endorse a plan that would allow the sale of weed.
Representatives who favor a regulated market say they’re optimistic that last year’s elections put enough proponents in the House to approve a tax and regulate model.
Rep. Sam Young (D-Glover) has introduced his own bill to tax and regulate marijuana, but he said he expects the House to focus on the Senate bill instead of his. Young’s legislation would allow existing medical marijuana dispensaries to conduct retail sales to the public in January 2020, but members of the Senate Judiciary Committee declined to add a similar provision because of concerns that doing so would create an unfair market.
“I wanted to see some money up front, but we’ll let the committees that deal with it make those decisions,” he said.
Whichever proposal ends up before the 150-member House, Young said it’s likely to have support from a majority of his colleagues.
Asked how many would back the bill, Young said, “I feel like we’re in the 80s. It’s always going to be the little details that make people decide whether they want to support it or not, but I feel like we have a strong majority.”
Republican Gov. Phil Scott has pledged to veto legislation that fails to direct funds to youth prevention or set specific policies to enhance road safety. The Senate bill includes neither provision.
If the legislation passes both chambers and Scott issues a veto, lawmakers could override it with the support of two-thirds of each chamber. Though the bill passed by voice vote on Friday, the Senate voted 23 to 5 to advance it in a procedural vote Thursday, suggesting that at least the Senate could override a veto.
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“Republican Gov. Phil Scott has pledged to veto legislation that fails to direct funds to youth prevention or set specific policies to enhance road safety.”
Sure–divert some of those taxes to educate youth (and all of us) what some of the “risks” are to marijuana use.
There are NO policies that will actually “enhance road safety” regarding identifying cannabis as a source of impairment. Identifying its presence in the body doe not do this. What attempts at “public safety” using roadside and other testing have done–as is being documented by other states–is to waste a lot of public money to make a lot of errors that, in many of those cases, impinge upon the human rights of those involved.
Vermont can be careful and smart in developing policies by learning from the mistakes of others.
Careful, Renee. You’re making too much sense.
Congratulations to the Vermont Senate as well as Representative Sam Young. They see the light on this issue, as I’m sure that the number of “in the 80s” that Rep. Young mentioned do as well. The roadside stuff is is just a ruse so that the police can keep making more money on pot busts
There are way too many people that don’t understand marijuana. They want to do drug testing to determine if THC is in your system. You could smoke pot three weeks earlier and you would have THC in your system but that doesn’t mean you are high for three weeks.
The only real risk of smoking pot is driving.
So as it stands now, we would have to wait until the end of Q1 / 2021 before towns could even THINK about holding a referendum to restore freedom, while people in other states are setting up shop as we speak? It seems like Vermont is bound and determined to reject every potential advantage and every opportunity for prosperity which happens to come its way. It’s the economic equivalent of self-flagellation.