A bill that would legalize the recreational use of marijuana in Vermont is heading to the House floor Thursday after clearing a preliminary step on the first day of the 2018 legislative session.
The House Judiciary Committee on Wednesday morning passed H.511, a measure that would allow for the possession of small amounts of marijuana and the cultivation of a few plants by adults 21 or older.
If approved by the full House, the bill would then head back to the Senate, which approved essentially the same language in June.
The House committee voted 8 to 1 to approve the measure. Rep. Gary Viens, R-Newport, cast the lone vote against. Reps. Eileen Dickinson, R-St. Albans Town, and Barbara Rachelson, D-Burlington, were absent.
The committee is expected to convene at 9 a.m. Thursday to consider any amendments to the legislation. The matter is then expected to be taken up by the full House about 9:30 a.m.
The bill is the same one that came up in a one-day veto session in June. But the House didn’t agree to consider it in such an expedited manner.
“This is usually something we do at the end of the session,” Judiciary Chair Maxine Grad, D-Moretown, said in an interview Wednesday after the panel’s action. “It just so happens that because of the veto session and everything that we ran out of time.”
Rep. Janssen Willhoit, R-St. Johnsbury, a committee member, said after the panel’s vote that he had little doubt the legislation would gain approval in the full House and then the Senate.
“I think everyone has made kind of a gentlemen’s agreement, if you will, that we’re not going to fool with this anymore, we’re just going to pass it and move on to other things,” Willhoit said.
The bill represents a compromise reached by the heads of the Senate and House Judiciary committees and Gov. Phil Scott’s administration last session after the governor vetoed a different bill that would have permitted recreational marijuana use in the state.
The compromise bill kept the initial possession and cultivation provisions of the earlier legislation but added measures to address concerns Scott raised. For example, the latest bill creates criminal penalties for using pot in a vehicle with children and increases penalties for providing marijuana to anyone under age.
Scott has said he would stand by the commitment he made during negotiations last session that he would sign the compromise bill if the Legislature passed it.
The committee passed H.511 on Wednesday morning with little discussion. Prior to the vote, Michele Childs from the Office of Legislative Council spent about 30 minutes walking the committee through various provisions of the legislation.
The bill legalizes the possession of 1 ounce or less of marijuana and two mature and four immature marijuana plants for people 21 or older.
Other provisions include:
• Prohibiting consumption of marijuana in public and anywhere it’s not permitted to use a lighted tobacco product, tobacco product or tobacco substitute, with violations subject to civil penalties.
• Limiting the number of marijuana plants in a dwelling unit to two mature and four immature plants regardless of how many people 21 or older live there.
• Making a new misdemeanor for a person 21 or older to provide marijuana to a person under 21.
• Creating a fine-only misdemeanor for using marijuana in a vehicle with a child younger than 18 present.
• Establishing a fine-only misdemeanor for cultivating or using marijuana in a licensed or registered family child care home, licensed child care center or after-school program.
The House panel made only one change to the measure Wednesday morning, agreeing to drop a provision creating a commission to look at setting up a regulated marijuana market.
That measure was eliminated in light of Scott’s executive order last summer creating a commission to focus on that issue as well as others, including marijuana-impaired driving and youth access to pot.
The commission is expected to issue its final report by Dec. 15.
The legislation being considered would go into effect July 1.
In the committee session Wednesday afternoon, Rep. George Till, D-Jericho, a physician, proposed an amendment to the pot bill that would raise the legal tobacco smoking age from 18 to 21.
Till argued that the threshold for tobacco use shouldn’t be different from the current drinking age or the age the legislation would set for marijuana use.
He has been pushing for the smoking age to be raised for years. He said it was “hypocritical” to have a lower age for tobacco than marijuana or alcohol.
Several committee members said that although they were sympathetic to Till’s cause, the pot bill wasn’t the place to address it. The panel voted to turn away the amendment as “unfriendly.”
Till said he probably will propose the amendment when the bill hits the House floor Thursday.
As the Judiciary panel’s afternoon session drew to a close, Willhoit asked Grad if the full House might be meeting into the night Thursday to take up the pot bill and additional amendments.
Grad told Willhoit it was difficult to predict how long the debate over the bill would take. She said there’s a chance it could pass before the end of the morning House session.
House Judiciary Committee members on Wednesday and again in a session early Thursday morning rejected several amendments to the legislation, saying they feared any substantial changes to the bill would endanger the support the governor has voiced for the measure.
That included discussion of establishing a regulated marijuana market, pending a final report not due until Dec. 15, 2018, from a commission established by the governor looking into that issue, as well as other matters associated with marijuana legalization.
