A New Hampshire House panel has approved an amended version of a marijuana legalization bill, sending the measure next to a final floor vote before it heads to the opposite chamber. But some in the Senate, however, have warned that the proposal in its current form will be dead on arrival there.
On Tuesday the House Finance Committee voted 19–6 in favor of the bill, HB 1633, from sponsor Rep. Erica Layon (R). If enacted, it would allow 15 adult-use cannabis retailers to open statewide—one of a number of requirements that Gov. Chris Sununu (R) laid out last year—and strictly limit advertising and marketing. Products would be subject to a 10 percent state charge, though registered medical marijuana products would be exempt.
While some in the Senate, as well as Sununu, favor a state-controlled franchise model for the legal industry, Layon’s bill would establish stores through a so-called agency store model, which she’s described as a system “where the state requires agreement and compliance from private businesses granted limited licenses by the Liquor Commission beyond the traditional health and safety regulatory role of government.”
At Tuesday’s House Finance hearing, Rep. Peter Leishman (D), who chairs a subcommittee that voted to advance the bill the day before, explained that the current version of the measure adheres to that approach.”We pretty much stuck with the version that came out of the Commerce Committee,” he said, referring to another panel that had crafted the legislation earlier in the session.
“I know you all were aware of a lot of back and forth and suggestions that we accept some language that was suggested to us by members of the Senate,” he told the panel, “but we did stick with the House version.”
Before voting on the underlying bill, members of the panel voted 19–6 to adopt a handful of changes from both Layon and Leishman, which were approved in a finance subcommittee earlier this week.
As Leishman explained to colleagues, the changes give lawmakers oversight of any financial transfers over $75,000 instead of giving the state Liquor Commission full control over such transfers. Liquor Commission funds would also be used to establish the program rather than general state money, and all revenue received by the commission from the legal cannabis industry would go to the state’s general fund.
H/T: marijuanamoment.net
