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House Co-Sponsorship Memoranda
House of Representatives
Session of 2021 - 2022
Regular Session
MEMORANDUM
| Posted: | June 21, 2021 03:20 PM |
|---|---|
| From: | Representative Jake Wheatley, Jr. and Rep. Dan Frankel |
| To: | All House members |
| Subject: | The Cannabis Regulatory Control Act (Adult-Use Cannabis) |
| Over the last decade, several states proposed or enacted legislation to legalize the adult use of marijuana (cannabis), including one border state, New Jersey, where adult use of marijuana was legalized in January 2021. Consequently, I, joined by my colleague from Allegheny County, Rep Dan Frankel, will introduce a proposal to legalize the possession of up to 28.38 grams of cannabis and up to 5 grams of a cannabis product in solid, liquid or concentrated form for personal use in the Commonwealth by adults twenty-one years of age or older. Building on the Commonwealth’s current medical marijuana infrastructure, our proposal will create a legal and regulatory framework structured to control and regulate the cultivation, processing, transportation, distribution, delivery and sale at retail of cannabis and cannabis products. Accordingly, a 7-member legislatively appointed board, the Cannabis Regulatory Control (CRCB), would serve as the primary overseer of the Commonwealth’s regulated cannabis industry. Initially, the CRCB would adopt temporary regulations, issue expedited approval cannabis entity licenses to medical marijuana organizations under the Medical Marijuana Act, and adopt a schedule for the review, approval and issuance of cannabis cultivator, cannabis processor, cannabis microbusiness, cannabis retailer and cannabis transporter licenses. Our legislative proposal would lay the foundation for enhancing social and economic equity for individuals and communities that have been and continue to be adversely impacted by the criminalization of marijuana and the aggressive enforcement of simple marijuana possession laws in marginalized communities. The proposal would provide for direct participation in the cannabis industry by individuals who live in these communities and by small diverse and disadvantaged businesses. Moreover, since cannabis is a crop and has the potential of achieving significant status as a major Pennsylvania agricultural crop, my proposal would require significant involvement by the Department of Agriculture and provide for participation by disadvantaged farmer-owned small businesses, including farmers and agricultural enterprises engaged in agricultural production in the Commonwealth for no less than two seasons in the past five years. Other key provisions of the proposal would: establish a small business recovery grant program and a communities reimagined and reinvestment program; impose a 7% cultivator and processor privilege tax, and a 13% cannabis excise tax on the purchase of cannabis at retail; authorize the imposition of a municipal tax at a rate of no more than 2% on the retail sale of cannabis and cannabis products in a municipality; and, for the benefit of all municipalities, impose either a 1% or 2% tax on the sale or transfer of cannabis and cannabis products by a cannabis cultivator, cannabis processor or other person engaged in a regulated activity to a cannabis retailer. Although the Commonwealth would reap significant revenue from the legalization of cannabis for adult use, a primary objective of our proposal is to keep cannabis out of the hands of children and profits out of the hands of criminals and criminal enterprises. Therefore, I thank you in advance for joining Rep Frankel and I as a sponsor of this legislative proposal. |
Introduced as HB2050