In addition to considering mounds of pending legislation and the annual act of balancing the budget, Massachusetts lawmakers launched a new initiative: creating the machinery to regulate the new recreational marijuana industry.
After voters last November approved the use of home-grown pot and the retail sale of commercially-cultivated weed, Senate President Stan Rosenberg and House Speaker Robert DeLeo launched the Joint Committee on Marijuana Policy. The standing committee will serve as a catch-all for the dozens of bills filed this session having to do with the drug, but more importantly, it will craft new laws regulating the growing, selling and taxing pot.
Odds are that the committee will rewrite the provisions voters approved in 2016. That ballot question was, if effect, written by the commercial marijuana industry.
“You have the overarching issue, but within that you’ve got 15, 20, however you want to divide it, of these subsection issues,” Rep. Mark Cusack (D-Braintree,) the House co-chair told WGBH News.
“Homegrown plants. THC levels of edibles. The taxation rate. The regulatory authority. Who’s going to get that and how’s it going to be structured?” Cusack said. “You peel back a layer and you find more and more layers. So it’s a whole host of issues in a short timeline.”
The members of the committee who spoke with WGBH News this week, including co-chairs Sen. Patricia Jehlen (D-somerville) and Cusack, agree that the mission of the panel is to enact “the will of the voters” and bring a safe and legal marijuana industry to Massachusetts.
The details of how exactly they accomplish that, however, almost certainly won’t be the same as what was approved by voters. Jehlen said she wants to listen to what the public and interested parties have to say before the committee moves to drastically alter what was passed by the people.
“I’m open minded, but I have to be convinced about any change that we would make,” Jehlen said.
Cusack, however, believes that voters simply want the state to implement a safe and legal trade and that the public is less committed to the exact language of the 21-page ballot measure. According to Cusack, the 53.7 percent approval for the measure statewide was a broader issue of 'yes or no.’
“You’re not going to convince me that a vast majority of the voters sat down, read all 21 pages, agreed with it all, understood it all and that’s why they supported this,” Cusack said.
Rep. David Rogers (D-Cambridge,) agrees that the Legislature has the authority to change the law before the marijuana industry opens its doors here.
“I think probably the broad swath of the electorate, if you will, has just voted in principle that they want a new approach to marijuana. They think it should be legal,” and that “people shouldn’t go to jail for it,” Rogers said.
“I don’t think necessarily that they voted for every detail,” Rogers said.
Some of those behind the successful ballot initiative in 2016 disagree that the Legislature should take it upon themselves to rewrite the law.
“There doesn’t need to be changes. The regulatory structure is built into the initiative. So this narrative that has started that this law needs to be improved by the Legislature, it simply isn’t true,” Jim Borghesani, one of the chief proponents of the ballot question, said.
Committee members insist that since the ballot initiative was proposed and written by advocates who could have a stake in the new marijuana industry, it’s fair game to alter it.
Unless lawmakers act this session to change the law, which the existence of a dedicated committee suggests they will, the state will implement the marijuana through the framework put forward in the ballot question.
That structure, written by marijuana advocates and not popular with Beacon Hill, calls for a three-person commission and 15-member advisory group to sort out regulatory matters. The ballot question language also calls for an effective tax rate of 12 percent on marijuana products, the lowest in the country.
Many lawmakers, including DeLeo and Rosenberg, have expressed concern that the low tax rate won’t be enough to pay for proper regulation. But the hidden cost of a high tax rate could be the flourishing of cheaper unregulated drugs continuing to be sold by illegal dealers.
“It will be a matter of trying to sort out what’s an adequate level to fund any activities that may be necessary. Not unnecessary bureaucratic activities, but necessary to carry out the will of the voters, and not to increase the tax rate so much that it drives people back into the black market,” Jehlen said.
The creation of the new committee wasn’t Democratic leaders’ first action on marijuana. First, they bought themselves more time by delaying implementation for six months and setting July 1, 2018 as the date for retail licensing to begin.
Jehlen and Cusack expect to hold at least three public hearings on marijuana issues, in the State House and in venues across the state. An omnibus marijuana bill putting forward regulations, taxation levels and safety policies is expected by legislative leaders to be ready for debate this summer.
On Thursday, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters President Trump will enforce federal marijuana laws banning the sale of the drug, even in states that have legalized it. According to reports, Spicer suggested that the Trump administration will take action against states where marijuana is sold, saying that it contributes to the opiate epidemic.
“I think you’ll see greater enforcement,” Spicer said, according to The Hill.
In statements Thursday evening, DeLeo and Rosenberg recommitted to putting a marijuana regulatory process in place.
“Mr. Spicer’s statements add complications that state policy makers understood before, during, and after the ballot question campaign . At this point I think we have an obligation to move forward even as we monitor activities at the federal level,” Rosenberg said in a statement.
“As Speaker DeLeo has stated repeatedly, the House will honor the will of the people regarding the ballot question,” Seth Gitell, DeLeo’s spokesman, said, adding that Cusack and the committee will continue their work.
