Vermonters asking the Legislature “buddy, can you spare a dime?” for basic education, housing, food and employment assistance may wonder at a Legislature willing to front almost $1 million to create a legal industry surrounded by so much controversy and so many question marks.
Whether you’re for or against legalizing and the recreational use and sale of pot, injecting the issue of race and sex into this will only intensify feelings of resentment of injustice.
The Vermont Legislature Joint Rules Committee decided late this afternoon to ask staffers to prepare a resolution for its review tomorrow to recess the Legislature and close the State House for a week due to the coronavirus.
Although recreational marijuana has been legal in Massachusetts since voters approved it in 2016, the pot industry has experienced some serious pushback against dispensaries at the local level.
Lawmakers’ explanations of their votes of S.54, commercial cannabis, and H.926, the revision of Act 250, offer insight into why both of these bills drew both support and opposition from members of both the Democratic and Republican caucuses.
A national commercial cannabis group with funding ties to politically progressive billionaire financier George Soros and other wealthy activists on Tuesday announced a poll claiming 76% of Vermonters support commercial cannabis.
A bill passed the New Hampshire Senate that allows qualified patients and designated caregivers to grow up to three marijuana plants at a time.
As New Hampshire legislators returned to Concord earlier this month, they have been looking at a slate of bills pertaining to marijuana, including legalization and allowing medical patients to grow their own.
If someone were to ask you today what the Vermont Department of Health’s current position is on legal sales of marijuana, I venture many would say it has changed from opposition in the past to support today. I am happy to report that the department’s opposition to S.54 has not changed.
A Democratic member of the Vermont House of Representatives told fellow Democrats yesterday he strongly opposes S.54, the legalization of commercial cultivation, production, sale and taxation of marijuana.
Vermont Attorney General T. J. Donovan, legislative leaders and advocates gathered Thursday at the Statehouse to press for the adoption this year of a bill that would establish a tax-and-regulate system for commercial cannabis.
“As with all substance use, consumption of cannabis can be unhealthy. ‘Let’s Talk Cannabis’ gives Vermonters the information they need to make safe and informed choices,” Vermont Health Commissioner Mark Levine said.