New Hampshire’s House of Representatives has approved a bill to legalize and regulate marijuana in the state and set strict limits on advertising and marketing. The legislation, from Rep. Erica Layon (R), next proceeds to the Senate, where many expect it will receive a cold welcome for departing from a state-controlled model supported by Gov. Chris Sununu (R).
Layon has spent months workshopping and building support for the plan despite warnings from some in the Senate—most notably Sen. Daryl Abbas (R), who chaired a failed state commission on legalization late last year—that her proposal will be dead on arrival in that chamber unless it includes a state-run franchise system under which the government would control the look, feel and general operations of retail stores.
House lawmakers have so far decided to stuck with Layon’s original bill, though with some changes. Earlier this month, a House subcommittee rejected a sweeping amendment that would have replaced Layon’s plan with a franchise model.
On Thursday, the full House passed HB 1633 on a 239–136 vote. The body had given initial approval to the cannabis legislation in February, after which point it went to the Finance Committee before returning to the floor for final passage.
“I think this is an excellent bill,” Layon told colleagues ahead of the vote, “and quite frankly I think it’s time for us to go ahead and vote on this bill, and let the other body deal with it.”
It’s not yet clear how the situation will unfold as the proposal lands in the opposite chamber. Many expect senators to make significant changes, though it’s also possible they could greenlight Layon’s plan as-is or, alternatively, refuse to consider it at all.
If enacted in its current form, HB 1633 would allow 15 retail stores statewide and impose a 10 percent state charge on adult-use purchases. Medical marijuana would be exempt from the tax.
Layon has described her agency store approach 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.” She’s consistently warned that state-run sales or a franchise model through which the state exercises day-to-day control over marijuana businesses could put the state and its finances at risk of federal intervention or litigation.
“This meets just about every requirement—every requirement that was previously laid out in order to become law,” Layon said Thursday. “There was a last-minute change to require a franchise, where the language…seemed that the franchise agreements would be done in secret.”
“This bill makes it so that the agency model has strong control,” she added, “but those rules about how they operate would be done through administrative rules, so there’d be public comment. It also doesn’t set prices.”
A floor amendment adopted before the vote removed a single mention of the franchise approach from the bill. Layon told Marijuana Moment earlier this week that the language was used mistakenly and should have referred to agency stores. The amended bill still contains a definition for “franchise model,” but it would not establish one.
H/T: https://www.marijuanamoment.net
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