[F]armers, lobbyists and pro-legalization advocates packed a hearing room at the Statehouse on Tuesday to testify about pot.
It’s not a new topic for the Senate Government Operations Committee. The committee has taken upward of 50 hours of testimony on the issue, according to the chair.
This month, the five-person panel is preparing to draft a bill to regulate a legal market for marijuana in Vermont.
The extra-session hearing picks up where the committee left off earlier this year. Government Operations dedicated its Friday afternoons to hearings on frameworks for legalization throughout the 2015 legislative session.
A growing number of Vermonters support legalizing marijuana, including Gov. Peter Shumlin and House Speaker Shap Smith. A poll by Castleton Polling Institute last month pegged support for legalization in the Green Mountain State at 56 percent.
One witness at Tuesday’s hearing, Bill Lofy of the Vermont Cannabis Collaborative, said that now is the time to move forward.
“Waiting doesn’t necessarily give us other options,” Lofy said. “2016 is the year to do it.”
Sen. Jeanette White, D-Windham, who chairs the committee, has a similar view.
“This is the time to do it,” White said during the lunch break of the full day of testimony.
White expects the committee will draft a bill this month. While the draft will draw on the input of the members, it will not be a committee bill — in other words, individual lawmakers can decide whether they wish to sponsor it.
The bill will be introduced on the Senate floor shortly after lawmakers return to the capitol in January, then will need to pass a vote in the committee. After that, it could work its way across the tables of numerous other committees — starting with Senate Judiciary.
White told attendees Tuesday that the committee does not intend to tackle the question of whether Vermont should legalize pot, but, were it to be legalized, what it would look like.
Should the bill get the stamp of approval in both chambers, and receive the governor’s signature, it would legalize the use of recreational marijuana.
Unlike the states that have legalized marijuana in other parts of the country, Vermont will not decide on the issue by voter initiative. In Vermont lawmakers can design the framework for legalization before making the decision to make pot legal, which, White believes, is a “better approach.”
“We’re trying to do it with the thought going into it first,” she said.
In May, the panel put out a four-page sketch of what may be included in a regulatory bill. Lawmakers are firm that any legalization action would strictly be for adults. Like alcohol, possession by people under age 21 would be prohibited.
Major issues remain up in the air. The committee will tackle questions of how licensing would work, how to regulate the safety and quality of products on the market and how home growers would be regulated.
Sen. Joe Benning, R-Caledonia, has long been a supporter of legalization. Now, Benning said, it’s time to put together a proposal.
“I feel like we’re getting to a point where we’ve heard pretty much all there is to hear, and we need to start working on actual language,” Benning said.
Benning said that he expects lawmakers will be able to tackle some of the biggest questions about legalization when they begin crafting a proposal. His priorities include ensuring products on the market are safe, ensuring law enforcement is on board and setting up structures of regulation and taxation.
However, while the testimony lawmakers heard Tuesday was overwhelmingly pro-legalization, others remain skeptical, if not staunchly opposed.
“I think it’s a mistake to legalize marijuana and give companies First Amendment rights in order to market to our children,” Dr. Catherine Antley, an anti-legalization advocate, said Tuesday.
Antley said that many medical professionals, including herself, are against legalizing marijuana. She questioned arguments that legalizing cannabis would allow the state to raise money that could then go to education and prevention efforts.
“The costs of this drug, and of dealing with the education, the social the health care, mental health costs far outweigh what we’re going to be getting,” Antley said.
For Sen. Brian Collamore, R-Rutland, questions remain about public safety.
“I’m trying to keep an open mind, but I do have serious issues about it,” Collamore said.
One of Collamore’s main concerns is how to deal with driving under the influence of marijuana. Vermont has not set guidelines for what constitutes illegal impairment. Moreover, there’s no technology that provides accurate roadside testing to see if a under the influence of pot.
Collamore said that he’s heard from many of his constituents on the issue, and the majority of them oppose the idea of legalizing marijuana.