Pa. lawmakers introduce recreational marijuana bill
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Pennsylvania lawmakers have filed legislation to legalize recreational marijuana, a measure sponsors say is grounded in “safety and social equity” while emphasizing safe workplaces.
House Bill 2210, introduced Tuesday, would regulate the personal use and possession of cannabis.
There is companion legislation pending in the Senate.
The state legalized marijuana for medical purposes in 2016.
The proposal would also permit Pennsylvania’s medical marijuana patients to grow a limited number of cannabis plants at home for personal use, something currently prohibited.
The bill includes various workplace requirements regarding the use of the drug by employees and job applicants.
Employers would be allowed to adopt zero-tolerance, drug-free workplace policies, and companies would still be able to discipline or fire workers who are found to be impaired by marijuana while on the job.
In a co-sponsorship memorandum, the bill’s prime sponsor, State Rep. Amen Brown, a Philadelphia Democrat, said Pennsylvania is losing out on tax revenue due to legal marijuana sales in neighboring New Jersey and New York, which have implemented adult-use cannabis.
Failure to adopt legalization “risks permanently ceding hundreds of millions of dollars of new tax revenue as well as thousands of jobs” to other states, Rep. Brown wrote.
The bill was referred to the House Health Committee.
