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PROVIDENCE — Rhode Island appears a step closer to becoming the next state to legalize recreational marijuana use.
On Tuesday, two key lawmakers in the House and the Senate introduced identical legislation that resolved a major impediment to passage last year: They defined who would regulate the new industry.
The legislation creates an independent three-member cannabis control commission, which would eventually also assume oversight of the state’s medical marijuana program, currently overseen by the Department of Business Regulation. It also establishes a cannabis advisory board and a cannabis office within the DBR.
© Tom Mooney, Associated Press file A marijuana plant.
The Senate last year approved a version of legalization that called for a similar commission, but a House bill kept control of the retail market within the DBR.
How many marijuana dispensaries could there be?
The new legislation allows for up to 33 retail licenses distributed in six zones statewide, including at nine medical marijuana dispensaries that could be hybrid recreational and medical retailers.
Community leaders considering opting out of hosting a retail dispensary would have to place the question before voters on the November ballot. Those communities voting to opt out would be ineligible for any tax revenue from marijuana sales.
How much marijuana could be bought, and how would it be taxed?
The bill establishes a 10% state cannabis excise tax in addition to the 7% sales tax, plus a 3% local tax for the community hosting a retail center.
Effective Oct. 1, the legislation would also legalize the sale and possession of up to an ounce of marijuana for those age 21 and up, with no more than 10 ounces for personal use kept in a primary residence.
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It would also allow Rhode Islanders to grow a small amount of their own marijuana at home.
“The time for Rhode Island to move forward with cannabis legalization is now,” Sen. Joshua Miller, a longtime supporter of legalization, said in a statement. “This historic shift in public policy will create a vibrant new marketplace in our state and end the failed practice of prohibition, which has caused such harm to so many in our communities.”
Miller said that under this plan, the state is expected to see $20 million in sales in the first fiscal year. He said the first stores could open by the end of this year.
How would the bill seek to promote ‘social equity’?
To ensure all Rhode Islanders have the opportunity to share the economic benefits associated with legalization, “equity is a central focus of this legislation,” said Miller, of Cranston, who is chairman of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee.
The legislation uses licensing fees and penalties to fund technical assistance and grants to applicants and minority communities that have been harmed by the war on drugs, and reserves one license in each of the six districts for a “social equity” licensee, and another in each district for a co-op form of retail store.
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Rep. Scott Slater, who also has worked for years to legalize the drug, said, “We have been studying legalization proposals here for many years, and we now can look to our neighboring states’ experiences and see that taxing and regulating cannabis makes sense.”
“I’m especially proud that we have made a very deliberate effort to address social equity through this bill. We have to recognize the harm that prohibition has done to communities, particularly minorities and poor, urban neighborhoods, and ensure that those communities get the support they need to benefit from legalization.”
What happens next?
The two lawmakers noted that the bill’s submission was only the start of the legislative process “during which the bill will doubtlessly undergo changes.”
In a briefing with reporters Tuesday afternoon, Slater said how the commission choses who would get retail licenses hadn’t been fully worked out yet. It could be based on some form of merit system, perhaps a lottery, which was how the latest medical marijuana licensees were chosen. The advisory board would also have input.
A collection of groups that have advocated strenuously that any legislation address social-equity concerns applauded the bill, including what they said was a first-in-the-nation reservation of retail licenses for worker-owned cooperatives, which would benefit people disproportionately affected by the war on drugs and with limited financial resources.
But the groups — The Formerly Incarcerated Union of RI, the Working Families Party, Reclaim RI, and the Marijuana Policy Project — also vowed to push legislators to amend the bill and add improved language that assures “automatic expungement” and sealing of past criminal records related to marijuana.
The groups said states with automatic expungement policies, such as California and Illinois, are far more effective and provide relief to many more people compared with states that lack automatic expungement.
The adult recreational use of marijuana is legal in 18 states and the District of Columbia. Connecticut legalized recreational use last year, and Massachusetts in 2016.
Rhode Island and New Hampshire remain the only New England states that haven’t legalized some form of recreational use.
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The governor, the House speaker and Senate president would each appoint one member to the cannabis control commission created under the legislation.
The cannabis advisory board would be comprised of 11 voting members, with five appointed by the governor and three each by the House speaker and Senate president.
The advisory board members would have expertise in such fields as drug policy, criminal justice, substance-abuse treatment and public health, and would make recommendations to the commission, including how best to administer social equity resources.
Gov. Dan McKee has signaled support in his budget for legalizing recreational marijuana use, as he did last year, but he has not come out in support of the current legislation.
Miller said he didn’t think there were a lot of “outstanding obstacles” for the governor, whose staff has been in on discussions concerning the legislation.
Last year, McKee favored keeping oversight of a retail market within DBR.
Under his budget plan, the state would expunge past marijuana convictions for offenses that would no longer exist.
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The lawmakers’ legislation allows, “by written request, expungement for marijuana-related misdemeanor and felony possession-only convictions for amounts that have been decriminalized.”
Email Tom Mooney at: tmooney@providencejournal.com
This article originally appeared on The Providence Journal: When will marijuana be legal in Rhode Island? Here’s why the answer might be 2022
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