Pennsylvania Lawmakers Are ‘Getting Close’ On Marijuana Legalization Deal As Budget Deadline Looms, Key Senator Says

A key Pennsylvania senator says he’s working with bipartisan and bicameral
lawmakers to develop a passable marijuana legalization bill as the
legislature stares down a quickly approaching budget deadline—telling
supporters that “we’re getting close” and they shouldn’t “ease up” on the
fight.

“It is time to end the prohibition on adult-use cannabis in the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” Sen. Shariff Street (D) said during a
Cannabis Day at the Capitol event on Monday. “We’re going to make sure that
we do this in an equitable way.”

“There are some basic things that we know we need to have done,” he said.
“We need to make sure when we pass a recreational adult-use bill that we
seal and expunge the records of all those people who’ve been who’ve had
cannabis convictions in the past.”

“We need to make sure that we pass a bill that creates opportunities for
all folks. That means small farmers and small business people. And we need
to make sure we have a diversity of folks involved in the growing,
processing and also in the dispensary part of the business,” Street said.
“We need to make sure that we have a completely diverse supply chain.”

“Look, Black and brown communities were disproportionately affected by the
war on cannabis. We need to make sure that they equally benefit in the
cannabis legalization market, and that’s why we need to make sure we have
social equity licenses. We need to make sure that we have social equity
grants. We need to make sure that the communities that were closest to the
pain are closest to the profits as well. We need to get this done, because
it makes no sense that our revenue goes across the lines.”

“Almost all the states around us have already legalized adult-use cannabis,
and we know, even though it’s not federally lawful, people are driving
right across that border and consuming legal, adult-use cannabis,” he said.
“That revenue is going to all of our border states, and it’s not going into
the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania.”

“I want you to know we’re getting close. This is not the time to ease up.
This is not the time to back off,” the senator said. “We are closer now to
ever passing an adult-use cannabis bill and getting it on the governor’s
desk.”

Street thanked his bipartisan colleagues in the House—including Reps. Emily
Kinkead (D), Abby Major (R) and Amen Brown (D), who have championed their
own legalization proposals—for working with the Senate “in a collaborative
way.”

“We have a good core group of us who’ve been working to move this bill—to
move this concept forward—and I think we’re gonna get it done,” he said.
“We need your voices to stay engaged. We need to stay involved.”

The senator also stressed the need to allow medical cannabis patients to
grow their own medicine for personal use, saying that if it’s “a plant that
comes from the earth, and if people want to grow it in order to take care
of their own needs, that should be included as well” in a reform plan.

“So look, we’re moving forward,” he said. “But Pennsylvania law has not
caught up with the realities of our situation… We need to end the
prohibition of cannabis, adult-use cannabis, in Pennsylvania. Now we need
to do it in a fair and equitable way.”

Cannabis day at the Capitol. Watch live:https://t.co/4h9jPmnaF7

— Senator Sharif Street (@SenSharifStreet) June 23, 2025

Kinkead, also speaking at the Monday rally, said that while she and other
House Democrats recently passed a bill to legalize cannabis sales through a
system of state-run stores, “I disagree with that model, because I think
that a state that for generations has criminalized a substance should not
be the primary beneficiary of that substance when it’s legalized—it should
be the communities that we have been criminalized.”

“We cannot legalize marijuana without considering the impacts that we have
had on communities by the over criminalization of marijuana,” she said,
“and that has to be the first and foremost thought when we talk about
adult-use marijuana, we have to be putting investments back into the
communities that have been most negatively impacted by the failed war on
drugs.”

Rep. Chris Rabb (D-PA) similarly said that “the bill that we passed out of
the House will not be the bill that comes before us when we finally vote to
legalize adult-use cannabis.

“What we will ultimately vote on will look very different than what we’ve
considered thus far,” he said. “And there are a lot of great minds who’ve
come together on a number of pieces of legislation.”

“If we try to pass a bill that’s about generating tax revenue for other
purposes, we’ve lost. So folks who are talking about, ‘this will be a great
revenue generated to X, Y and Z’—that’s not how we should lead on this
subject. It should be around criminal legal reform. It should be around
racial justice. It should be around community safety, public health, social
impact—not about creating more money for politicians to support various
projects of theirs back home or what have you. If you’re putting an
egregious tax on weed, who’s going to buy it?”

Other lawmakers continue to emphasize the revenue generating potential of
legalization, however.

House Appropriations Committee Chair Jordan Harris (D) also weighed in on
cannabis policy issues in an interview with WHTM that aired on Sunday,
saying that the “states around us have already legalized adult-use
cannabis.”

“This is another opportunity for us to generate revenue. We’re leaving
money on the table, but not only are we leaving money on the table if you
talk to our friends in New York, if you talk to our friends in New Jersey,
what they’ll tell you, honestly, is ‘Thank you. Thank you,'” he said. “Tell
the Pennsylvanians who flood to New York and flood to New Jersey and spend
their money in their [legalized marijuana] market. Those are taxpayer
dollars that we should be having.”

Meanwhile, Senate Majority Leader Joe Pittman (R) recently said marijuana
legalization will not be included in the 2026 budget as lawmakers approach
a deadline he expects they will miss. But Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) is still
holding out hope that negotiators can “get it done.”

With the budget due by a constitutionally mandated deadline of June 30,
legislators appear to be at an impasse on certain key issues, including the
governor’s request to legalize adult-use cannabis via the legislation.
Pittman said he doesn’t see a path forward for the reform on that schedule,
however.

Shapiro, on the other hand, hasn’t quite thrown in the towel, saying at a
press briefing last week that “we all understand we have to compromise” on
a number of issues to reach a budget agreement.

“We also, I think, all understand the set of issues we have to work
through—and we’re going to continue to work through them,” he said. “We’re
each going to have to give a little bit. We’re going to make progress.
We’re going to get it done.”

Pittman, for his part, criticized House lawmakers for passing a marijuana
legalization bill that would have involved state-run shops. The legislation
was quickly rejected by a Senate committee.

Following that defeat, the governor said he still remained “hopeful” that
lawmakers could deliver a reform bill to his desk by a budget deadline at
the end of this month—and he urged the GOP-controlled Senate to “put their
ideas on the table.”

“We’ve had really good, honest dialogue about it,” the governor, who
separately criticized the Senate for abruptly derailing the House marijuana
legalization bill, said.

“Look, I think this is an issue of competitiveness,” he said. “Every state
around us, with the exception of West Virginia, has gotten it done. You go
visit some of these dispensaries along our border—in this case with
Maryland, [that] is probably the closest one here. Sixty percent of the
people walking into those dispensaries are from the Commonwealth of
Pennsylvania.”

Whether Pennsylvania legislators will advance legalization this session
remains to be seen. But two Democratic lawmakers—Street and Rep. Rick
Krajewski (D)—recently said they’re aiming to reach a compromise and pass
reform legislation before the budget deadline.

Also, last month Sen. Marty Flynn (D) announced his intent to file a new
bill to legalize marijuana in the state, calling on colleagues to join him
on the measure.

While the House legislation Krajewski sponsored alongside Rep. Dan Frankel
(D) was rejected in a Senate committee following its expedited passage
through the House along party lines, Street said he’s “cautiously
optimistic we’re going to be able to revive the bill and amend it and move
forward with a work product that allows us to get a bill on the governor’s
desk and realize revenue.”

That said, Sen. Dan Laughlin (R), who has sponsored legalization
legislation with Street, recently seemed to suggest that lawmakers should
pump the brakes on the push to enact the policy change amid resistance to
reform within his caucus and instead pass a bill to create a new regulatory
body that can begin overseeing medical cannabis and hemp while preparing to
eventually handle the adult-use market as well.

“I remain committed to crafting a cannabis bill that can pass the Senate
and be signed into law to benefit all Pennsylvanians,” Laughlin said. “That
starts with honest dialogue from everyone involved, including House
leadership and the governor, to develop a realistic approach–not political
theater.”

Following the Senate committee vote, lawmakers from both chambers who
support legalization have been trading criticisms about each other’s roles
in the stalled push to end prohibition.

Krajewski, for example, recently wrote in a Marijuana Moment op-ed that Senate
Republicans who killed his House-passed cannabis legalization bill are
“stuck in their prohibitionist views of the past” and are “out of touch
with the will of our Commonwealth.”

Prior to that vote, Pennsylvania’s Republican attorney general said that
while he doesn’t currently support the House-passed marijuana legalization
bill, he’s open to changing his mind about the policy change after
continuing to review the details.

For what it’s worth, a recent poll found that Pennsylvania voters say they favor
a model where cannabis is sold by licensed private businesses, rather than
through a system of state-run stores.

The governor has repeatedly called for adult-use marijuana legalization.
However, he hasn’t endorsed the specific idea of having a state-controlled
model.

GOP lawmaker Major—who is sponsoring another forthcoming legalization bill
that envisions a traditional private sales model alongside Democrat
Kinkead—said during the House floor debate on HB 1200 that she stands
opposed to the competing bill, emphasizing that she disagrees with the
state-run stores proposal.

While Democrats control the House and governor’s office, they will still
need to reach a deal with the GOP-controlled Senate to effectuate change.
And in addition to the conflicting perspectives among pro-legalization
legislators, another potential barrier to reform is exactly that political
dynamic.

Regardless of which direction Pennsylvania lawmakers do—or don’t—go on
marijuana legalization this session, a survey released in April shows a
majority of adults in the state support the reform—and opposition to the
policy change has fallen by nearly 50 percent over the last decade.

Kinkead has made the case in another recent interview that legalizing
cannabis in Pennsylvania will help the state mitigate public health and
safety concerns associated with the illicit market, including the fact that
unregulated products can be laced with fentanyl.

The lawmaker previously introduced a separate bipartisan marijuana
legalization bill, alongside 15 other cosponsors, last September. It did
not advance, however.

Meanwhile, Laughlin recently called for the creation of a state “legacy”
fund, using tax revenue from adult-use marijuana sales and gaming to make
long-term investments in the Commonwealth’s economy.

The senator argued that, beyond using any resulting tax revenue to fund
day-to-day projects and public services, the state should earmark a portion
of those tax dollars for a fund to “provide a sustainable source of
prosperity that lasts for generations.”

Another GOP Pennsylvania senator, Sen. Gene Yaw (R), is backing the push to
legalize marijuana in the commonwealth, pointing out that, historically,
prohibition “has not turned out well,” noting the country’s experience with
alcohol criminalization.

Pennsylvania House Speaker Joanna McClinton (D) recently said that Democrats
are ready to pass a marijuana legalization bill this session, but that the
party “will need Republican support” to get the job done—adding that it
will be a “heavy lift.”

Polls have shown bipartisan support for legalization among voters, but the
reform has consistently stalled in the legislature, owing in large part to
GOP opposition. But not all Republican members are against the policy
change—and one recently said she felt her party should seize the
“opportunity to snatch” the issue from Democrats.

Separately in March, the Pennsylvania House approved a bill sponsored by
Frankel that’s meant to strengthen safety standards and oversight of the
state’s medical marijuana program as lawmakers work to advance adult-use
legalization.

While Pennsylvania’s medical cannabis program was enacted nearly a decade
ago, lawmakers say the measure, which now heads to the Senate, is necessary
to improve testing compliance, product audits and lab inspections, among
other aspects of the industry.

Meanwhile, Pennsylvania Democratic lawmakers recently introduced a bill
that would allow farmers and other small agriculture operators to sell
marijuana they cultivate to existing growers and and processors if the
state moves to legalize adult-use cannabis.

Separately, an independent Pennsylvania agency is projecting more tax
dollars to be generated from adult-use marijuana sales compared to what the
governor’s office has estimated, although it expects significantly less
overall revenue from cannabis legalization due to differing views on
licensing fees.

Pennsylvania officials have also launched a new survey that invites legal
marijuana businesses across the country to provide information about their
operations to help the state better understand the cannabis industry as
lawmakers consider enacting adult-use legalization this session.


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Also, in a video interview released in March, the governor emphasized that the
state is “losing out” to others that have already enacted adult-use
legalization, while maintaining a policy that’s enriched the illicit market.

“I think it’s an issue of freedom and liberty. I mean, if folks want to
smoke, they should be able to do so in a safe and legal way,” he said. “We
should shut down the black market—and, by the way, every state around us is
doing it. Pennsylvanians are driving to those other states and paying taxes
in those other states.”

The state’s agriculture secretary separately told lawmakers that he’s fully
confident that his department is in a “really good” position to oversee an
adult-use marijuana program if lawmakers act.

Meanwhile, in February, top Pennsylvania police and health officials told
lawmakers they are prepared to implement marijuana legalization if the
legislature moves forward with the reform—and that they stand ready to work
together as the details of legislation to achieve it are crafted.

Amid the growing calls for marijuana legalization in Pennsylvania, a GOP
state senator said prohibition has been a “disaster,” and a regulated sales
model for cannabis—similar to how alcohol and tobacco are handled—could
serve as an effective alternative.

A Republican Pennsylvania senator also recently defended the push to
legalize and regulate marijuana, calling it “the most conservative stance”
on the issue.

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The post Pennsylvania Lawmakers Are ‘Getting Close’ On Marijuana
Legalization Deal As Budget Deadline Looms, Key Senator Says appeared first
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