Connecticut Marijuana Legalization: Committee Won't Support It

By Jack Kramer, Patch Correspondent

HARTFORD, CT — It looks like Connecticut won’t be joining eight either other states, including Massachusetts, in legalizing recreational marijuana. The last chance to get committee backing for legalization was the Judiciary Committee, but the bill isn’t expected to be on the agenda for Friday’s meeting, which is the committee’s last.

Sources say the committee didn’t have the votes for passage of Senate President Martin Looney’s bill to legalize recreational cannabis for those over the age of 21. Looney’s was one of several proposed bills to legalize pot this legislative session. Other bills were raised by the Public Health Committee; however none passed. (To sign up for free, local breaking news alerts from more than 100 Connecticut communities click here.)

Looney admitted on Wednesday he didn’t have the votes but he said he wasn’t quitting. “At a time when our state budget is in need of new sources of revenue, I doubt this will be the final conversation on the topic,” Looney said.

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The concept, which has had at least two public hearings, could still be raised as an amendment to another piece of legislation, including the state budget.

“I believe that Connecticut is ready for a rational, common-sense approach to the legalization and regulation of marijuana,” Looney said Wednesday.

He said states across the country are “reaping the financial benefits of marijuana regulation. With our neighbor Massachusetts poised to be the next state to implement a legalization plan, Connecticut is in danger of being left at a financial disadvantage,” Looney said.

Connecticut’s Office of Fiscal Analysis has determined that the Nutmeg state could bring in $45.4 million to $104.6 million a year in revenue if the legislature legalizes cannabis in the same way Massachusetts or Colorado.

Nearly two-thirds of Connecticut voters, or 63 percent, support making possession of small amounts of cannabis legal for adults, according to a March 2015 Quinnipiac University poll.

The proposed bill will raise approximately $18.5 million in the first six months of collections, $83.4 million in the following full year of collections, and $135 million in the third year from these taxes, according to Looney.

During public hearings on the matter, Monroe Police Chief John Salvatore, who is also president of the Connecticut Police Chiefs Association, said legalizing pot “will diminish the quality of life in the state.”

Salvatore said he’s talked with police officials in Colorado, which was the first state in the country to legalize recreational cannabis, and the feedback he gets isn’t good.

“Increases in crime, increases in homelessness, and many panhandlers in streets in areas that were once night resort areas are now decaying and they’re losing convention business,” Salvatore said. “So there are other costs a municipality or a state will incur if do they legalize recreational marijuana.”

Salvatore said states that have legalized recreational use have seen “increased expulsions, suspensions and dropout rates.”

Also imploring the General Assembly to continue the prohibition on recreational use was Guilford High School junior Gabby Palumbo, who is a member of Guilford DAY (Developmental Assets for Youth), a group active in substance abuse prevention initiatives at both a local and state level. She said legalizing cannabis would “send a wrong and hypocritical message.”

Palumbo said it would, first, be telling young people that smoking pot is OK. Second, she said, it would send the message that “revenue outweighs public health concerns.” When Guilford DAY executive Bo Huhn heard about the news he was ecstatic.

This is such an important public health issue for Connecticut's youth. All of us at Guilford DAY are delighted to hear that the Judiciary Committee joined the Public Health Committee in killing the legalization bill,” Huhn said.

“We are so appreciative of our legislators: Vin Candelora, Sean Scanlon and Ted Kennedy. A silver lining of this is the increased media attention to the neurological risks of marijuana for adolescents, Many people do not know of the adverse impact on such things as learning, memory, motivation, and other executive brain functions, as well as the increased risk of schizophrenia and other less severe mental illness,” Huhn said.