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Gov. Peter Shumlin supports legalization of the sale of marijuana, but he has no interest in smoking pot.
“Been there, done that,” Shumlin told reporters at a press conference on Tuesday.
The governor, long a proponent of marijuana legalization, says he smoked pot well into his 20s, but the drug lost its allure as he got older and took on more responsibilities. Shumlin said he couldn’t remember the last time he smoked pot. “It was a while ago, I’m old,” he said.
“I’ll be honest with you about this, a lot of Vermonters of my generation feel like I do about marijuana, which is it is something we smoked when we were young,” Shumlin said. “As I got into my 20s, it didn’t have the same desirable effect on me, and I stopped smoking because as I took on more responsibilities in my late 20s, I found it wasn’t as much fun any more.”
The comments wound up the governor’s answers to a series of questions about the time frame and logistics of legalization in Vermont.
Shumlin says he wants Vermont to learn from other states like Colorado and Washington that have already made it legal to purchase smokable and edible marijuana from retail outlets.
“My bias is toward legalization, but I’m in no hurry to go there because I really do feel that Washington state, Colorado and other states entering into legalization can figure out what works and what doesn’t work, and I’d just as soon they be the pioneers on this one.”
Edibles are a “real challenge,” in Colorado, the governor said. There have been widely reported cases of child drug overdoses that have led to emergency room visits.
The Rand report released earlier this month gives Vermont “a road map of the choices we could make should we move to legalization,” Shumlin said.
The report said the state could raise up to $75 million a year in tax revenue from the legalized sale of marijuana.
“I don’t think we should be driven by tax revenue,” Shumlin said. “I think we should be driven by doing the right thing for Vermonters in a way that is better than the current system, which forces an illegal market that isn’t regulated, that isn’t controlled, and anyone can have access to including kids.”
Washington state and Colorado legalized marijuana through a referendum. No state legislature has passed a law to legalize pot, which remains listed as a Schedule I drug under the U.S. Controlled Substances Act. Schedule I drugs have “no currently accepted medical use with a potential for abuse.” Other Schedule I drugs include heroin and peyote.
