Maryland lawmakers clear the way for a legal cannabis market

April 9, 2023
AggregatedNews
Maryland
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Legislation sets up regulation, licensing and taxing for recreational cannabis sales, which begin in Maryland on July 1.

A bill that would launch the legal sale of recreational cannabis in Maryland this summer will head to Gov. Wes Moore’s desk after months of wrangling over how to tax the product, set up the market and who should profit.

With just one workday before adjourning on Monday at midnight, lawmakers passed House and Senate measures with relative ease, having hammered out critical points earlier after members of both chambers spent much of last year studying the pitfalls other states experienced standing up their legal markets. Legislators also drew from Maryland’s own botched rollout of its medical cannabis industry.

“We’ve been talking with our counterparts in other states saying, ‘If you had to do it all over again what would you do differently? What did you wish you had known when you set up your program?’” Senate Finance Chairwoman Melony Griffith (D-Prince George’s) said during a news conference. “We have great expertise here in Maryland, with our medicinal cannabis program, and have had tremendous success. So all of those ingredients, if you will, have been rolled into our cannabis framework.”

[Read More @ The Washington Post]

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