HARTFORD — Democratic leaders of the state House of Representatives Wednesday stripped out a controversial Senate amendment on legalizing marijuana, and headed toward a vote on an earlier version of adult-use cannabis that was endorsed by Gov. Ned Lamont.
After a multihour caucus, Speaker of the House Matt Ritter and House Majority Leader Jason Rojas said that rather than court a promised veto from Lamont, House members would amend the Senate bill and reinsert the original language from last week that would narrow the number of people who would be eventually eligible for cannabis licenses.
Approval of the legislation would send the issue back to the Senate for a third vote.
While the House agreed unanimously to take out Tuesday’s Senate amendments, the long-awaited, multihour debate and vote on adult-use cannabis sharply divided the chamber, which Democrats control 97-54. A initial Republican amendment failed 82-52 around 5 o’clock, with 16 lawmakers missing a week after the end of the regular legislative session.
Rojas said while at the committee level, majority Democrats approved legislation to allow those convicted of drug crimes to become eligible for licenses, he described the deletion of the proposal an example of the negotiation process. Lamont wants so-called social-equity candidates for licenses to have grown up or still live in lower-income neighborhoods that had been targets of the failed war on drugs.
The amendment offered in the middle of the Senate debate Tuesday night by Sen. Gary Winfield, at the request of another New Haven lawmaker, state Rep. Robyn Porter, would expand eligibility to people from virtually anywhere in the state who had previous cannabis convictions.
That broke what was a handshake agreement among Lamont and proponents, including Democratic leaders and the Black and Puerto Rican Caucus.
“I’ve never seen anything like that before,” said state Rep. Juan Candelaria, D-New Haven, a longtime proponent for legal cannabis who said he was stunned by the 11th-hour Senate amendment that threatened months of work before it was stripped out in the House. “We had a deal.”
The House debate began shortly after 1:30 p.m, when Rep. Steve Stafstrom, D-Bridgeport, co-chairman of the Judiciary Committee, introduced the bill, which he described as the product of as many as nine years of negotiations. He asked the House to reject the controversial Senate amendment.
By 1:50, the House had unanimously approved stripping out two Senate amendments, then voted unanimously to restore an anti-revolving door policy to ban members of the General Assembly from participating in the adult-use cannabis market for two years after leaving office.
Rep. Craig Fishbein, R-Wallingford, the top Republican on the Judiciary Committee, said that legalizing marijuana could violate the oath of office to uphold the United States Constitution. “It appears to me that we fought a Civil War over this,” Fishbein. “We’re saying to the federal government that we don’t care you passed a law. That’s a troublesome position to be in.”
“Does anybody here think that if we pass this legislation, the commercialization of pot won’t hurt our youth?” asked Rep. Tom O’Dea, R-New Canaan. “We’re turning marijuana into Big Tobacco. The addiction-for-profit industries addict the most vulnerable.” O’Dea’s amendment would have raised the age from 21 to 25. It failed 82 to 52.
Stafstrom suggested that O’Dea pursue a higher-age law next year, and possibly expanding it to include the purchase of alcoholic beverages and cigarettes.
“I’ve been sitting on the fence so long I have splinters,” admitted Rep. Jonathan Steinberg, D-Westport, co-chairman of the Public Health Committee. “I’ve come a long ways,” he said, stressing that potency guidelines in the current bill are too high. “I think the most important part of this is we’re creating a regulatory environment.”
Steinberg also praised the bill’s dedicated revenue stream for mental health programs and public awareness, but was critical of the eventual allowance of home-growing on July 1, 2023. Steinberg introduced an amendment to eliminate home-growing from the bill. “We can’t wipe out the black market, but we can do everything we can to create a responsible market in Connecticut,” Steinberg said. After a brief debate, he withdrew the amendment, however.
State Rep. David Rutigliano, R-Trumbull, a restaurateur, said that he has seen young employees use the drug over a number of years. He spoke in favor of a third GOP amendment that would have limited the bill to home-growing, similarly to the way Vermont approved the issue in 2018. That proposal was rejected 114-21.
Rep. Anne Hughes, D-Easton, said the state has an opportunity to build a new industry “literally from the ground up” while giving opportunity to people in neighborhoods that had been long-time targets in the war on drugs. “I want to invest in communities,” she said. “I want to see us invest in people.”
If approved, Connecticut would become the 19th state to approve recreational cannabis for adults 21 and over. People with past lower-level drug-possession arrests, under four ounces of cannabis, could have their records expunged.
The program would be administered by the state Department of Consumer Protection and a new Social Equity Council, a politically appointed group responsible for supervising 65 percent of tax revenue, which could exceed $73 million by the end of the 2025-26 budget year. An ambitious rollout scheduled could have retail cannabis available by May of next year.
The state’s four medical marijuana growers could get into the adult-use business by paying $3 million each. “Frankly we wanted to charge an amount significant enough,” said Rep. Michael D’Agostino, D-Hamden, co-chairman of the General Law Committee, which was involved in the drafting of legislation in recent years.
kdixon@ctpost.com Twitter: @KenDixonCT
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