[T]he Senate passed legislation Friday that would establish a taxed and regulated market for cannabis sales in Vermont.
The bill, S.54, would clear the way for dispensaries to set up shop as soon as 2021, and for sales of the drug to be taxed at a combined 18 percent tax rate—a 16 percent excise tax and a two percent local option tax.
The bill, which now heads to the House, is the sixth tax and regulate proposal the Vermont Senate has passed in recent years, according to Sen. Dick Sears D-Bennington, the chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee.
In previous legislative sessions, proposals to create a legal market for the drug have struggled to gain traction in the House. But now, after the state legalized adult possession and limited personal cultivation of cannabis in 2018, many believe the lower chamber could be poised to advance the legislation as well.
The Senate gave the bill final approval on a voice vote Friday. On a preliminary vote Thursday, it advanced with a vote of 23-5.
Senators behind the measure framed the tax-and-regulate bill as a consumer protection initiative to ensure Vermonters can safely obtain cannabis and to provide the state with a tool to cut the demand for substance on the black market.
Some have stressed however, that contrary to what many may think, a taxed and regulated cannabis market would likely not serve as a major source of revenue for the state.
Projections from the Joint Fiscal Office show that in the third year of operation, a legalized market would likely generate between $8.6 and $16.6 million in tax revenue for the state.
Gov. Phil Scott has said he will not support a taxed and regulated system unless it comes with funding for education prevention efforts to help curb youth drug usage, and public safety programs that could help prevent impaired driving on the roadways.
But crafters of the legislation decided against funding such programs in the bill, arguing that departments could advocate for additional funding through the normal budgeting process.
“We felt it would be better to put the money in the general fund and let it compete with a lot of needs,” Sears said on the Senate floor Thursday.
The Senate Health and Welfare committee has passed a separate piece of legislation that would consolidate and expand the state’s addiction prevention and education programs, which would likely rely on revenue from cannabis sales, according to the committee’s chair, Sen. Ginny Lyons, D-Chittenden.
Some officials, including Scott and House Speaker Mitzi Johnson, D-South Hero, have also said that if the state moves forward with a cannabis market, they would like to also legalize roadside saliva testing for law enforcement officers.
But senators rejected saliva testing over questions about the efficacy of the test, which can only detect whether the drug is in a person’s system. No scientifically approved test is currently capable of determining if a person is under the influence of cannabis at the time it is taken. Traces of tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, the psychoactive chemical in marijuana, can stay in the human body for weeks.
Supporters of the Senate legislation argued that with many people already using cannabis in Vermont, the problem of roadway safety already exists and needs to be addressed separately from the decision over whether to establish a legal market.
“Until the day arrives when we actually have a roadside testing device that can actually tell us that the individual is impaired, until we have that device, holding this up is not going to hold up the problem we are experiencing today on our roadsides,” Sen. Joe Benning, R-Caledonia, said on the Senate floor Thursday.
More than 40 representatives in the House have already proposed a separate bill to create a taxed and regulated cannabis market, which looks somewhat different than the Senate’s version.
The House bill would set a 22 percent combined tax rate, higher than the Senate’s proposal, and would pave the way for medical dispensaries to start selling cannabis to general consumers in 2020.
