CHAMBERSBURG – Could legal marijuana use for adults be coming to Pennsylvania?
The Cannabis Health Safety Act would legalize adult-use of marijuana and it has made it out of committee in the PA House of Representatives.
It now goes to the full House for a vote.
Pat Ryan of NewsTalk 103.7FM suggested, “These guys are going to regret going down this path here, but I’ll bet you it gets to the finish line.”
Attorney Clint Barkdoll agreed, “I do, too. The votes are there to pass recreational marijuana. Now, the one wrinkle to watch on this, these House versions of legalized marijuana, they’re talking about making the state liquor stores the venue that would sell recreational marijuana in Pennsylvania. The Senate, and including this group of Republicans in the Senate that’s also pushing for recreational marijuana, they’re saying, no, they do not want this sold in state liquor stores. They want recreational marijuana to be available in the dispensaries, whether that would be existing medical marijuana dispensaries or new licensees that would be allowed to sell this. Another thing in this bill, it would clear criminal records for convictions of cannabis-related offenses, and we know that’s also been a big controversy over the years that has been bootstrapped into this recreational marijuana legislation.”
What does clearing criminal records for cannabis mean?
Barkdoll said, “If, let’s say, you had a conviction for possession of small amount of marijuana or possession of drug paraphernalia that was related to marijuana and that’s on your criminal record, this bill would essentially expunge those records, meaning that employers, housing application situations, they would not see those convictions on your record.”
Michele Jansen of NewsTalk 103.7FM pointed out, “This is what bothers me about this bill. This is a stakeholder bill. This is where they bring in experts and activists from all different sides of this issue, and let them have more sway over releasing a substance that more and more research is showing to be incredibly dangerous to use, but we have to have restorative justice. We have to have money for Shapiro’s budget. Those are the things they’re putting ahead of the safety of Pennsylvanians and the unintended, so called negative consequences of this, I think they actually know what they might be, but they’re just ignoring them. They’re conveniently ignoring that so that we can have restorative justice and get the right people out of jail, according to certain activist groups. I’m not saying there isn’t some validity to that argument, or validity to money that might come in, except that I do believe, and we are seeing it from other states, the costs of making this recreational marijuana available are going to outweigh what is brought in by tax money, except maybe in the very beginning stages. This is also catering to certain business groups that think they can make a ton of money off of this. This is disgusting to put all of these things ahead of the research that’s showing, I’ll give you just a couple of the headlines. Cannabis users face substantially higher risk of heart attack. We’ve had multiple studies showing how heart attack is very, very raised. It’s a huge risk for people who use it. Schizophrenia resulting from cannabis use, other mental problems. How anxiety is actually increased with cannabis use, because it’s a feedback loop. You stop using cannabis, your anxiety builds. You need to use more cannabis. That’s an addiction. We have so many things showing how this is hurting, especially young people, the development of their minds, oh, but it’s only for adults. No, we know that more kids will get used to this and exposed to it once we normalize it and make it so called safe. I am really appalled by our governmental leaders and representatives who are ignoring all of that for the other things I just mentioned.”
Barkdoll said, “I think this is like the casino situation back in the 90s. You started seeing these arguments that A, we need the money, and B, all of our neighbors are doing this, so we better get on board, because we’re losing that money, with very little analysis about the societal costs of these programs, and you’re seeing that on this marijuana issue. It’s no coincidence that this is moving now because they want to do this in conjunction with the budget. We know that part of Shapiro’s budget, there are projections on revenue that these licenses and sales would generate. I’ve not seen the projections on what the costs would be, whether that’s medical treatment or mental health treatment or whatever. Look, we know here locally, I often use the example of a recreational marijuana dispensary in Hagerstown by the Valley Mall, drive by there sometimes. That place is packed, and it’s a lot of out-of-state cars. They have traffic police that work there, there’s so much traffic around that building, and I think that’s what these legislators are looking at. They’re seeing the money that all of these bordering states are bringing in with this, and they now want Pennsylvania to get in on the action without recognizing, though, there could be all these other costs down the road.”
