While legislation to legalize cannabis for adult use in the state advanced in several committees last year, disagreements about certain provisions, such as how to allocate revenue, ultimately derailed those efforts.

When Connecticut’s Legislature convenes for its 2020 session next month, top lawmakers say marijuana legalization will be a priority.

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This time around, however, the General Assembly is positioned to build on those bills and craft a passable measure. That’s according to Senate President Pro-Tempore Martin Looney.


“We are revisiting legalizing recreational cannabis because we see that most of our neighboring states have already done it or want to do it this year,” Looney told CT Insider earlier this month. “We had three very detailed bills on this last year, so I think we’re well prepared to do that when the time comes. We clearly need additional revenue and anecdotally we hear about people who travel to Massachusetts to purchase it.”

“We’re very well prepared to enact the legalization bill because we have the statutory framework already drafted,” he said in a separate interview. “It’s absolutely essential, I think, that we move on this front. We need the revenue.”

Leaders of key committees met last week to discuss what a legalization push could look like this year, and the Senate Democratic caucus is expected to outline the contours of a new proposal on Thursday, according to the Hartford Courant.

There were some who felt the Legislature was only positioned to put the question of legalization to voters in the form of a proposed constitutional amendment on the ballot — a process that would mean legal sales wouldn’t go online until 2024. “At least a constitutional amendment would be forward movement,” Representative Josh Elliott told CT News Junkie.


But Governor Ned Lamont, who’s been having ongoing conversations with the governors of neighboring states about coordinating a regional legalization model, isn’t supportive of that process, with a spokesperson stating that the “administration doesn’t believe the Connecticut Constitution is the proper venue for these kinds of policy decisions.”

“Making changes in statute is the best venue for the path to the legalization of marijuana for adult use,” the spokesperson said.

Lamont is instead pushing the Legislature to pursue the policy change directly in the coming three-month session, and he’s stressing the importance of regulating cannabis to disrupt the illicit market.

“I think the idea that we’d be isolated by ourselves and the idea that you hand this over to the black market is dangerous,” the governor said in a recent TV appearance. “You have no idea what they’re doing, you want a carefully regulated market. How fast this happens in Connecticut — look, I’ve got to bring people along, I’ve got to talk to families, I’ve got to let them know that we’re going to do this in a very careful and thoughtful way.”

Social equity is likely to be a primary focus of discussion around legalization legislation this year. To that end, Representative Mike D’Agostino has pledged to create a commission designed to ensure that communities most harmed by prohibition stand to benefit from the policy change by being prioritized for licensing and receiving revenue from legal sales, for example.


Jason Ortiz, the Connecticut-based president of the Minority Cannabis Business Association, said he’s “excited to hear Rep. Dagastino will be making equity a priority for this session, because without it no bill would pass.”

“It shows that some of our Connecticut legislators are listening and do understand just how important doing right by communities of color really is,” he said. “Now it’s time for us to have this conversation with the governor so he fully understands the complexity of cannabis legalization, and the economic potential of getting it right.”

The Northeast is set to be a major player in the reform space this year.

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo renewed his call for reform in his State of the State address and included legalization language in a budget proposal to lawmakers this week. Rhode Island Governor Gina Raimondo included a proposal to legalize though a state-run model in her budget plan. New Hampshire lawmakers will pursue legislation for non-commercial cannabis legalization. New Jersey voters will decide on the issue in November’s election. And Vermont Governor Phil Scott seems more open to adding a regulated sales component to his state’s noncommercial legal marijuana law.


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