Pennsylvania Senate Panel Approves Bill To Regulate Marijuana And Hemp, With New Amendments

A Pennsylvania Senate committee has approved a bill to create a new Cannabis Control Board (CCB) to oversee the state’s medical marijuana program and intoxicating hemp products—for the third time, with new amendments. The body could also one day oversee recreational cannabis if it is legalized in the state.

The Senate Law & Justice Committee voted 7-4 on Monday to advance the legislation back to the floor for consideration. The panel had previously done so in March and, before that, in October—but its sponsor Sen. Dan Laughlin (R), who is also the committee’s chair, has repeatedly brought the measure back to be altered.

This time, senators adopted two amendments to the bill. One amendment, from Laughlin, specifies that the three members of the CCB who would be appointed by the governor would need to have certain backgrounds—one with law enforcement experience, another with expertise in dealing with addiction and a third with experience in “cannabis matters.”

Laughlin’s amendment also specifies that nothing in the bill “shall be construed to allow the board to authorize the sale of recreational marijuana absent approval by the General Assembly,” and additionally makes technical changes to the legislation. A separate amendment from Sen. Devlin Robinson (R) was also adopted by the committee. It specifies that regulators could award additional dispensary permits to companies that were medical cannabis grower/processors prior to April 12, 2024 and that meet other conditions.

Previously, in March, the panel amended the cannabis regulation bill to add new provisions banning the sale of most hemp THC products to align state law with a pending federal policy change that’s set to take effect in November.

“For too long, intoxicating hemp products, or ‘gas station weed,’ have been sold with virtually no oversight and far too few safeguards,” Laughlin said in a social media post on Monday. “Moving this bill out of committee puts us on the path to finally bringing order and accountability to this space.”

In a separate post, the senator criticized Democrats on the panel who are cosponsoring the bill but voted against it. Its not clear why those lawmakers voted the way they did, but the action on the cannabis regulatory bill, SB 49, comes amid a partisan dispute in the state over broader marijuana legalization.

Gov. Josh Shapiro (D) has repeatedly called on lawmakers to send him a marijuana legalization bill and for the last several years has included the reform in his budget requests to the legislature.

Stacy Garrity, a Republican who is running for governor and who currently serves as the state treasurer, recently said she would veto a cannabis legalization bill if lawmakers approved one—though she also shared her view that the legislature is “never going to pass it…not as long as Senate Republicans are in control of the Senate.”

Last month, the Democratic-controlled Pennsylvania House of Representatives passed budget legislation proposed by Shapiro that relies on revenue that would be generated from recreational marijuana sales, which has yet to be legalized in the state. The House of Representatives last year passed a bill to legalize marijuana and put sales in state-owned dispensaries, but the Republican Senate majority has criticized that plan while also not advancing a cannabis legalization model of its own.