Two Pennsylvania legislative panels held a joint hearing to discuss marijuana legalization on Thursday, with multiple lawmakers asking the state’s top liquor regulator about the prospect of having that agency run cannabis shops.

Members of the House Health Committee and Liquor Control Committee heard testimony from a series of experts who also discussed issues such as impaired driving, workplace drug policies and the need for product testing in a legal market.

Rep. Dan Frankel (D), chair of the Health Committee, has previously raised the possibility of pursuing legalization through a state-run model similar to the one Pennsylvania currently has for alcohol. Several lawmakers took the opportunity to ask Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board (PLCB) Executive Director Rodrigo Diaz about that concept at this latest hearing.

He was asked about the capacity of PLCB being able to manage enhanced ID checks, security, tax collection product approvals and more. Diaz signaled that the board would find a way to address the various concerns, but he stressed that “we don’t advocate—we will do what you tell us.”

“What we’re asking you though is to be cognizant of these issues that you’re raising and address them so that we’re not just making it up,” he said, adding that regulators want “clear guidance as to how you want us to address those kinds of issues.”

Frankel also said at the hearing that the panel has “wrestled with” how to navigate the workplace safety issue and ensuring that any future policies “create an environment where people are safe and not wrongly accused of being impaired.”

Another witness, Ryan Vandrey, who is a professor of behavioral pharmacology at Johns Hopkins University, walked the committee through alternatives to urine- or blood-based drug tests, including cognitive impairment tests. He also took another member’s question about how legalization could mitigate the prevalence of unregulated products in the market.

“That is one of the strongest arguments for broader legalization of regulated cannabis products, because there’s been a proliferation of unregulated cannabinoid products that are essentially the same and, in some cases, even stronger or more impairing than delta-9 THC,” he said.

“I don’t think they entirely go away and they’ll still exist as a market, but the market would be much smaller,” Vandrey said. “Research has showed that that’s happened—that those products are much less available and less likely to be used in states where adult-use cannabis has been legalized.”

Frankel said in closing remarks that the hearing “helped educate us in a very meaningful way, and we are taking this seriously as we develop a piece of legislation to look at adult-use.”

This was the latest in a series of legalization hearings in the Keystone State, though normally they are convened by the House Health Subcommittee on Health Care. About two weeks ago, members of that panel had a conversation centered on social justice and equity considerations for reform.

That took place days after Rep. Amen Brown (D) filed a marijuana legalization bill that he described as “grounded in safety and social equity.”

At a prior meeting last month, members focused on criminal justice implications of prohibition and the potential benefits of reform.

At another hearing in February, members looked at the industry perspective, with multiple stakeholders from cannabis growing, dispensing and testing businesses, as well as clinical registrants, testifying.

At the subcommittee’s previous cannabis meeting in December, members heard testimony and asked questions about various elements of marijuana oversight, including promoting social equity and business opportunities, laboratory testing and public versus private operation of a state-legal cannabis industry.

And during the panel’s first meeting late last year, Frankel said that state-run stores are “certainly an option” he’s considering for Pennsylvania, similar to what New Hampshire Gov. Chris Sununu (R) recommended for that state last year, though a state commission later shied away from that plan.

Meanwhile, the cannabis proposal the Brown filed in the House this month is an identical companion to a bipartisan Senate cannabis legalization measure that was introduced last year.

—
Marijuana Moment is tracking more than 1,400 cannabis, psychedelics and drug policy bills in state legislatures and Congress this year. Patreon supporters pledging at least $25/month get access to our interactive maps, charts and hearing calendar so they don’t miss any developments.

Learn more about our marijuana bill tracker and become a supporter on Patreon to get access.
—

While Pennsylvania lawmakers have put forward legalization bills in the past, it’s not clear what might serve as the vehicle for reform this year.

Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) once again proposed legalization as part of his budget request in February, seeking to establish a system that would be implemented starting this summer. But while he suggested certain parameters such as having the Department of Agriculture regulate the program, there’s not legislative text yet.

Last month, the Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) released a report that found the state stands to generate $271 million in annual revenue if marijuana is legalized and taxed according to the governor’s proposal—but it would have been more if the commonwealth hadn’t been lapped by other neighboring states that have already enacted the reform.

Meanwhile, House Appropriations Committee Chairman Jordan Harris (D) said in a recent interview that it’s “high time” to legalize marijuana and lay the groundwork for businesses in the state to export cannabis to other markets if federal law changes—and he sees a “real opportunity” to do so.

However, the committee’s minority chairman, Rep. Seth Grove (R), said he’s doubtful that the Democratic-controlled House will be able to craft and deliver legalization legislation that could advance through the GOP majority Senate.

Pennsylvania lawmakers also recently advanced a pair of bills meant to prevent police from charging medical cannabis patients with impaired driving without proof of intoxication.

A Republican senator in Pennsylvania introduced a bill last week meant to remove state barriers to medical marijuana patients carrying firearms after previewing the legislation and soliciting co-sponsors earlier this year.

In December, the governor signed a bill to allow all licensed medical marijuana grower-processors in the state to serve as retailers and sell their cannabis products directly to patients. Independent dispensaries could also start cultivating their own marijuana.

A poll released in February found that about two-thirds of Pennsylvania voters in the state support enacting marijuana legalization.

Key Congresswoman Says ‘Now Is The Time’ To Pass Marijuana Banking Bill, Despite McConnell’s ‘Concerns’

Pennsylvania is the ultimate battleground for 2024, with the White House, Senate, and House all poised to flip based on how voters here cast their ballots. In this series, Pining for Pennsylvania: Unlocking the crucial Keystone State, the Washington Examiner will look at the demographics, politics, and key areas that have made Pennsylvania the must-watch state of the year. Part six, below, looks at how the suburbs are a major concern for Donald Trump’s campaign.

Former President Donald Trump‘s struggles with suburban voters have plagued him throughout the 2024 primary cycle, continuing even when he is the only GOP candidate still in the race.

Trump’s trouble with the voting demographic was particularly noticeable in the Pennsylvania primary, where despite Trump winning nearly 84% of the vote, or 790,000 votes, Nikki Haley, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations, won more than 157,000 votes, or nearly 17%, roughly seven weeks after suspending her presidential campaign.

“There’s no question that there’s work that the former president has to do with suburban voters, particularly suburban women, particularly in the Philadelphia collar-county area,” Christian Nascimento, chairman of the Montgomery County Republican Committee, told the Washington Examiner.

ELECTION 2024: FOLLOW LATEST COVERAGE

Philadelphia’s collar counties include Bucks, Montgomery, Chester, and Delaware counties. The “collar counties” shifted more in Democrats’ favor in 2020, with Biden significantly expanding the margins by which then-Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton won the counties in 2016 against Trump before ultimately losing the state.

Trump won Pennsylvania in 2016 by just 44,000 votes, while Biden flipped the state in 2020 by over 80,000 votes. The thin margin by which the state has been won in the past two presidential cycles means that if enough Haley voters cross over to Biden in November or simply sit out the election, it could sink Trump’s chances to win the state back.

Haley’s top performances in Pennsylvania’s 2024 primaries were located in the Philadelphia collar counties, particularly in Montgomery and Chester counties, where she won 25% of the vote in both counties. 

The next top two Haley strongholds were in Delaware County and Cumberland County, where she won 23% of the vote in both counties. In nearby Bucks County, Haley won 19% of the vote. 

Biden won the majority of these counties, except for Cumberland, in 2020. 

Democratic pollster Matt McDermott called Tuesday’s results a “major red flag for Republicans.”

Republicans, however, tempered those warnings.

Nascimento told the Washington Examiner that Tuesday’s results were due to a “sleepy primary” but that it won’t lead to dire problems for Trump.

“I think the thing that he can do to work on that is focus on his policies and really shine a light on the differences between where we were when he was in office versus where things are under President Biden,” he continued.

In Dauphin County, another place Biden won in 2020, Haley won 21% of the vote. Dauphin County also includes Harrisburg, Pennsylvania’s state capital.

Haley won 20% of the vote in Erie County, another Biden 2020 county, and Lancaster County, which Trump won in 2020%. 

Haley also won 19% in Allegheny County, home to Pittsburgh, and 19% in Centre County, both of which went for Biden in 2020.

Joe Morris, Mercyhurst University senior political analyst and chairman of the political science department, spent a decade conducting polls in Pennsylvania and is conducting in-depth interviews with voters in Erie County.

In this northwestern part of Pennsylvania, the winner of the county has gone on to win the state and presidency in several elections.

An overwhelming majority of Erie County residents told Morris they were turned off by moments when Trump threw paper towels at people in Puerto Rico devastated by Hurricane Maria.

“We are a state that has a great deal of empathy. We’re socially conservative, but we have a great deal of empathy for people who are suffering,” Morris said. “That bombastic rhetoric probably doesn’t play as well in most of Pennsylvania as it does in other places.”

Morris claimed there is a playbook that Trump could take to win the Keystone State that doesn’t involve winning Haley supporters or Biden-sympathetic Republican voters.

“If you look back to 2016, Donald Trump’s strategy was not to go to Philadelphia and Pittsburgh and win votes,” Morris said. “He went to all of the other communities in Pennsylvania and really pushed turnout up really high, and that offset his performance in those other counties.”

“And if he is interested in doing as well in Pennsylvania, as he did in 2016, then I think that’s his best strategy,” he added.

Some political experts cautioned against assuming that Haley voters would abandon Trump in November.

“Some of those voters, they’re going to come home. There’s no need to win them over. They are going to be loyal to the Republican Party,” said Sam Chen, principal director of the strategy firm The Liddell Group and a former staffer to retired Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey. “This was an opportunity to put a protest up. But a lot of voters they need to be won.”

But Chen cautioned that in conservative Centre County, Trump’s margins were concerning. “That’s not a great number for Donald Trump in that part of the state,” he said referring to the northern and middle sections of the state known as the “middle T.”

“With the exception of Dauphin County, which is Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, the capital, that is a very, very red, very Republican area,” Chen said. “When Sen. Toomey won statewide twice, a big part of that was claiming that middle T.”

The Biden campaign did not resist slamming Trump for continuing to hemorrhage Haley voters.

“Across the battleground states, hundreds of thousands of *Republican* voters have come out AGAINST Trump,” wrote spokesman Ammar Moussa in an email sent out Wednesday afternoon. “Even though he’s been the presumptive nominee for seven weeks, he is not building the coalition necessary to win 270 electoral votes.” 

Yet the Trump campaign dismissed the attacks in a statement to the Washington Examiner.

“President Trump continued his winning streak and delivered a resounding primary win in Pennsylvania,” said Karoline Leavitt, national press secretary for the Trump campaign. 

“More importantly, President Trump continues to dominate Feeble Joe Biden in every battleground state poll including his home state,” Leavitt continued. “The Dishonest Biden campaign has spent millions in Pennsylvania gaslighting voters, but it is not enough to make everyone ignore Bidenflation and rising costs, Biden’s border bloodbath, and his war on American energy.” 

A Republican National Committee spokesperson referred the Washington Examiner to polls showing voter dissatisfaction with Biden’s handling of the economy, the border crisis, and foreign policy.

CLICK HERE TO READ MORE FROM THE WASHINGTON EXAMINER 

All of which Nascimento said Trump should highlight to Pennsylvania voters in the lead-up to the November election.

“He should talk about the Abraham accords and talk about what he did in the Middle East and how this type of situation that we have now, several situations, wasn’t happening under his watch,” Nascimento said of how Trump should discuss the multiple conflicts currently happening including the battle between Israel and Hamas.