Harrisburg, PA − October 12, 2021 − State Senator Dan Laughlin (R-Erie) and State Senator Sharif Street (D-Philadelphia) introduced bipartisan legislation this week to legalize the adult use of marijuana in Pennsylvania.
The bill establishes rational and fair protocols for the legal sale, regulation, consumption, and taxation of cannabis while prioritizing safety, patients, community reinvestment, social and economic equity, and agriculture.
Senator Street described the end of cannabis prohibition as “An issue whose time has come,” calling it “an expensive failure of public policy which has criminalized patients, personal freedoms and impacted generations in a failed war on drugs that continues to burden taxpayers with growing costs to our criminal justice system. This bill makes both moral and fiscal sense and prioritizes the people of Pennsylvania.”
More than 60% of Pennsylvanians support adult-use marijuana legalization. The Pennsylvania Independent Fiscal Office says legalization would generate between $400 million to $1 billion of new tax revenue for the Commonwealth annually. The existing prohibition of cannabis continues to negatively impact Pennsylvanians at growing rates. Just last year the Pennsylvania State Police reported more than 20,000 adults arrested for marijuana-related violations in the Commonwealth, an increase from 2019.
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Harrisburg, PA − October 12, 2021 − State Senator Dan Laughlin (R-Erie) and State Senator Sharif Street (D-Philadelphia) introduced bipartisan legislation this week to legalize the adult use of marijuana in Pennsylvania.
The bill establishes rational and fair protocols for the legal sale, regulation, consumption, and taxation of cannabis while prioritizing safety, patients, community reinvestment, social and economic equity, and agriculture.
Senator Street described the end of cannabis prohibition as “An issue whose time has come,” calling it “an expensive failure of public policy which has criminalized patients, personal freedoms and impacted generations in a failed war on drugs that continues to burden taxpayers with growing costs to our criminal justice system. This bill makes both moral and fiscal sense and prioritizes the people of Pennsylvania.”
More than 60% of Pennsylvanians support adult-use marijuana legalization. The Pennsylvania Independent Fiscal Office says legalization would generate between $400 million to $1 billion of new tax revenue for the Commonwealth annually. The existing prohibition of cannabis continues to negatively impact Pennsylvanians at growing rates. Just last year the Pennsylvania State Police reported more than 20,000 adults arrested for marijuana-related violations in the Commonwealth, an increase from 2019.
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