Legalizing weed in Pennsylvania faces complicated demands

Pennsylvania lawmakers researching a bill to legalize recreational marijuana received a barrage of information Tuesday during a spirited, two-hour hearing in West Philadelphia.

They heard testimony espousing their instituting automatic and retroactive mass expungement of cannabis convictions and keeping the state’s “white cartel” of medical marijuana firms’ executives from taking over the recreational market.

And there were calls to just legalize it already — from a medical marijuana patient who said he spent time in jail partly because of marijuana charges.

The House Democratic Policy Committee hearing, convened by State Rep. Amen Brown, and other meetings held in Harrisburg recently by the Republican-led Senate Law and Justice Committee highlighted the multitude of demands that lawmakers have to satisfy — criminal and economic justice, work-related and driver safety, and more — to get a legalization bill passed.

Brown, a West Philadelphia Democrat, said after the hearing that the bill he is proposing with State Sen. Mike Regan, a Republican from central Pennsylvania who attended Tuesday’s hearing in Philadelphia, solves many of those concerns. It’s uncertain when they will introduce that legislation or whether it stands any chance in the state House of Representatives, where Republican leaders remain steadfastly opposed to legalization. [Read more at The Philadelphia Inquirer]