The state House could, as soon as Wednesday, send Governor Wolf a bill to legalize medical marijuana in Pennsylvania.
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The house stripped out legalization from the bill and last Friday the Judiciary Committee passed a measure allowing a commission to study legalization and training for law enforcement. House officials haven’t given any assurances that the chamber will quickly pass this new version. Their support for both Mills’ medical marijuana bill and separate legislation reducing criminal penalties for possessing recreational marijuana were seen as crucial to passage previous year.
Dispensaries/producers will also have standards for tracking plants and licensing growers regulated by the PA medical marijuana bill.
Now, the language is written so that practitioners must be “registered” and medical marijuana organizations must receive a “permit”, while identification cards for patients and caregivers are “certified” by the Pennsylvania Department of Health.
“Marijuana is medicine and it’s coming to Pennsylvania”, state Senator Daylin Leach, a Democrat from the Philadelphia suburbs who was one of two prime sponsors of the bill, said following the vote. Backers said they expect a final Senate vote Tuesday, followed by a final House vote on Wednesday.
Those conditions include cancer, epilepsy, autism, Parkinson’s disease, post-traumatic stress disorder, sickle cell anemia, multiple sclerosis, AIDS, glaucoma and chronic or intractable pain. Patients wouldn’t be able to legally obtain marijuana in a form they could smoke.
House votes for medical marijuana in Pa.
“Colorado’s legal marijuana market now employs more than 20,000 people”, said Eric Casey, a regulatory analyst for 4Front Ventures, which researches the marijuana market and monitors marijuana regulatory issues.
The state will impose a 5 percent tax on the gross receipts of growers and processors, primarily to underwrite the regulation of the industry.
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Mills is assuming that will eventually happen and has introduced two bills this session seeking to tweak medical marijuana laws.
