The Senate Judiciary Committee plans to propose a bill that would legalize a market for cannabis sales in Vermont. The legislation does not, however, provide funding to bolster law enforcement or education initiatives that Gov. Phil Scott has said he wants to see as part of a retail system.
Under the proposal, which has been outlined but not formally drafted, cannabis sales would be taxed at 10 percent, with a 1 percent local option tax — far lower than the combined 26 percent tax rate the governor’s Marijuana Advisory Commission has recommended.
The commission released a report that also recommended the state find a consistent way for law enforcement to test drivers for cannabis impairment. It urged lawmakers to clear a path for police officers to use roadside saliva tests.
But Sen. Dick Sears, D-Bennington, who chairs the Judiciary Committee, said funding saliva testing or other law enforcement initiatives is not a priority in his tax and regulate bill.
Last year, Sears’ committee killed a bill that would have legalized saliva testing and raised questions about the efficacy of the test, which can only detect whether the drug is in a person’s system. The test cannot determine if the person is impaired. THC can stay in the human body for weeks.
“We don’t have a test that accurately tells us if the person is impaired as a result of the marijuana use,” Sears said. “Could be in their system last weekend, they’re not impaired at all and yet we’re asking for a cotton swab exam.”
The governor’s Marijuana Advisory Commission had recommended the state funnel millions in tax revenue from cannabis sales to departments including the Department of Public Safety and the Department of Health to pay for new enforcement, prevention and education efforts.
But Sears says the money from tax revenue shouldn’t be doled out to departments in the tax and regulate bill; in his proposal, the new revenue would go into the general fund, and departments could advocate for additional funding through the normal budgeting process.
“Any revenue that comes in as a result of having this should go through the appropriations process,” Sears said Friday. “It shouldn’t be earmarked for this program or that program, or any program.”
Sears expects the Senate will pass a tax and regulate bill before the month is up and send the legislation over to the House, where its path is more uncertain.
House Speaker Mitzi Johnson D-South Hero, has said she has reservations about how a regulated market could impact road safety and youth consumption of the drug.
The governor has said that if lawmakers don’t invest in robust law enforcement and educational programs to accompany a legal cannabis market, he would not support a tax and regulate measure.
Sears said he is pushing for a 10 percent rate because setting a higher rate wouldn’t discourage cannabis consumers from buying the drug on the black market.
Jake Perkinson, who served as chair of the governor’s marijuana commission, said he hadn’t reviewed the Senate’s proposal, but suspected a 10 percent rate would be too low.
“I would question initially whether 10 percent would be sufficient to cover the costs that a regulated market would impose on the state of Vermont in terms of regulation,” he said.
Perkinson said his commission’s report laid out “the minimum of what should be done” to regulate and tax cannabis in Vermont, and argued that investing in additional law enforcement resources is a necessary step in rolling out a legal market.
In California, where cannabis is legal, Perkinson an illegal cannabis market is still thriving because the state failed to make an investment in police resources.
The Senate’s proposal would establish the Cannabis Control Board — a five-member panel tasked with regulating a legal retail system. The board would be in charge of licensing cannabis dispensaries, cultivators, and testing facilities.
The bill would place the state’s medical dispensaries under the purview of the Cannabis Control Board instead of the Department of Public Safety, which currently regulates the industry. That change swap would occur in 2021, the same year proposed for the legalization of recreational sales.
Read the story on VTDigger here: Senate to propose simplified cannabis retail bill with 10 percent tax.
