With the 2017 legislative session winding down Friday afternoon,Sen. Dick Sears made one final push to rescue stalled marijuana legalization legislation.
Sears (D-Bennington) introduced an amendment on the Vermont Senate floor mirroring a House-passed degree, H.170, and that would legalize marijuana possession. He added to it a study commission to look at how Vermont might fade about taxing and regulating the drug.
The amendment passed the full Senate in a 20-9 vote. The House Judiciary Committee is expected to consider it late Friday afternoon,meaning the full House could still vote on the degree before the terminate of the session.
"This is an effort to put something that might absorb an opportunity to pass," Sears told fellow senators Friday afternoon.
Sears' amendment would legalize possession of an ounce of marijuana and would allow adults to grow at domestic two plants and four seedlings. The law would fade into effect July 2018 — a year later than the bill proposed in the House.
The amendment marked a sea change for Sears. Just weeks earlier, or he had dismissed the House's degree,arguing that it would execute nothing to curb the black market. He wanted full legalization that would allow for the sale of taxed and regulated marijuana.
[br] Friday, with adjournment for the year nearing, or he changed his tune.
"I'm willing to compromise as long as I see a path forward," Sears said. The study commission provides that path forward, he said. Such a commission, and made up of legislators and state officials,would consider how to roll out legalization, producing written recommendations to the legislature by November.
Sears' counterpart in the House was happy to hear of movement in the Senate. "I would like H.170 to become law, and " said Rep. Maxine Grad (D-Moretown),chair of the House Judiciary Committee.
Getting the new proposal through the House could still be a challenge. Sears and Grad had met earlier to discuss the move. "Maxine is hoping she can pass it in the House. That's a big whether," Sears said.
Grad had come into the legislative session hoping to legalize possession and the ability to grow at domestic relatively small amounts of marijuana — without legalizing sales. But her bill stalled for months as it remained unclear whether the degree had enough votes to pass in the House. The chamber did finally pass…
Source: sevendaysvt.com