A sixth committee in the Minnesota House of Representatives has passed legislation to legalize marijuana which has already been approved by four senate committees.
The House Agriculture Finance and Policy Committee passed measure through the committee in a voice vote, making it the sixth committee to pass the bill. A companion bill in the Senate has been passed by four committees. It will need to be passed by seven more House committees and 14 more Senate committees before it can receive votes by the full chambers.
“Minnesotans are ready for this”, said Representative Zack Stephenson, the bill’s prime sponsor in the House, prior to the committee’s vote. “Our current laws regarding cannabis are doing more harm than good. Minnesotans deserve the freedom and respect to make their own decisions about cannabis use.”
Stephenson says “We’ll take a very comprehensive approach to cannabis legalization regulation in Minnesota, with the aim of supplanting a currently unregulated illicit marketplace with a safe legal marketplace”.
“Prohibition of cannabis is a failed system that has not achieved the desired goals and has had incredible costs for our communities, especially for communities of color,” says Senator Lindsey Port, the prime sponsor of the bill in the senate. “We have an opportunity today to move forward in the process to undo some of the harm that has been done and to create a system of regulation that works for Minnesota consumers and businesses, while ensuring an opportunity in this new market for communities that have been most affected by prohibition”.
Port says “Our main goals are to legalize, regulate and expunge, and we’re working to ensure this bill does just that.”
The proposal and its house companion bill has now been passed by the following committees on its way to votes by the full house and senate:
- House Agriculture Finance and Policy Committee
- House Environment and Natural Resources Finance and Policy Committee
- House Commerce, Finance and Policy Committee
- House Judiciary Finance and Civil Law Committee
- House Labor and Industry Finance and Policy Committee
- House State and Local Government Finance and Policy Committee
- Senate Jobs and Economic Development Committee
- Senate Commerce and Consumer Protection Committee
- Senate Judiciary and Public Safety Committee
The proposed legislation would allow those 21 and older to possess up to two ounces of marijuana and grow up to eight plants for personal use. The measure would setup a regulatory framework for licensed retail marijuana outlets and would establish a state Cannabis Management Office to oversee the legal marijuana market. The measure would establish an 8% marijuana excise tax, which would be added to the state’s standard 6.8% sales tax.
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