New Hampshire Lawmakers To Move Forward With Marijuana Legalization Bill Despite Governor’s Opposition

A New Hampshire House committee plans to move forward with a bill to
legalize marijuana–even though members accept that it is unlikely to
advance beyond the chamber given opposition in the Senate and the threat of
a veto by the governor.

“We know where it’s going to go. Let’s send a virtue signal,” the sponsor
of the legalization proposal, Rep. Jared Sullivan (D), said during a House
Commerce and Consumer Affairs Committee hearing on Wednesday. “Let them be
the ones that are pissing off voters who care about this.”

The committee chairman, Rep. John Hunt (R), initially put forward what he
called a “brilliant idea to solve this problem” that he wanted to explore,
amending the legislation to make it so only cannabis beverages with up to
5mg of THC could be sold through the state’s government-run liquor stores.

“We would be treating it just like alcohol in terms of our regulatory
authority, so we’re not giving any special privilege to anybody to have
that on that marketplace,” he said.

The chairman argued that restricting sales to canned beverages could
mitigate one of the chief complaints from opponents regarding their
concerns about the smell of marijuana flower.

“But knowing full well that the governor is going to veto no matter what we
do, then is it really worth it to pursue this?” he asked.

Sullivan ultimately made a persuasive defense of moving forward with his
original bill, pointing out that the House has repeatedly passed similar
legalization legislation and that the chamber should stand its ground,
forcing the Senate and governor to again go on record with their opposition
to a policy popular among voters.

He told to the chairman that, if he wants to legalize THC beverages through
a separate legislative vehicle and regulate it in the way some states have
done with hemp, he’d be amenable to that discussion. But he didn’t want to
cede his bill to the opposition when the House has the votes to pass it.

“I think we should try to legalize it in some form similar to what’s in
this bill, which is basically very similar form to what we’ve already
passed the House already. And that’s what we should do,” he said. “Yes, the
governor and most likely the Senate are going to kill this bill, right?
Like, whatever, but that’s on them—and that’s on them to their voters.”

“Most people in this state want it, so our job is to not make the
governor’s reelection campaign easier. If this turns into an issue, that’s
not our job,” he said.

He also pushed back against the chairman’s position that cannabis odor is
the key reason for opposition in the Senate. After then-Gov. Chris Sununu
(R) made a surprising reversal on marijuana policy last session, calling
for legalization through a controversial state-run sales model, the Senate
passed a bill accordingly—and it was rejected by the House because “people
were disgusted by the model,” Sullivan said.

“The smoking fear is not the hurdle. The hurdle is the corrupt model that
would have been in place with that system—or what we thought would be
corrupt,” he said. “And so I think, I think if you like the idea of selling
things within the liquor commission, I think there’s a way to accomplish
your goal through a different avenue. But we shouldn’t dilute this bill,
which has passed the House already in very similar language and keep
sending the signal that this is what we want.”

The committee is expected to vote to send the legalization bill to the
House floor at a subsequent meeting in the coming weeks.


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Meanwhile, after the House added provisions to a Senate-passed bill that
would allow medical marijuana patients to grow cannabis at home, those
measures were stripped in conference.

Gov. Kelly Ayotte (R) also said last month that her position on marijuana
legalization would not change even if the federal government moved forward
with rescheduling the plant—a policy change President Donald Trump is
actively considering.

“If federal law changes, I have to comply with federal law,” Ayotte said.
“But my position has been, and continues to be, that we should not legalize
marijuana in the future.”

*Photo courtesy of Mike Latimer.*

The post New Hampshire Lawmakers To Move Forward With Marijuana
Legalization Bill Despite Governor’s Opposition appeared first on Marijuana
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