UPDATE: CT Senate Approves Proposed Law Legalizing Marijuana

CONNECTICUT —The Connecticut State Senate voted Monday night to approve the legislation that would legalize adult marijuana use in the state.

The bill, Senate Bill 1118, "An Act Concerning Responsible and Equitable Regulation of Adult-use Cannabis," incorporates elements from Gov. Ned Lamont's original bill and more progressive legislation that had been floated during the session. The final language of the proposed legislation was released Saturday, and the bill is now on its way to a vote in the Connecticut House of Representatives. If approved there, by midnight Wednesday, it will make its way to the top of the desk of Gov. Ned Lamont, who has indicated he will sign it. The new law would be effective July 1.

The bill's margin of victory in the Senate vote was slim, 19-17, and did not conform to party lines. Democrats Sen. Alex Kasser (Greenwich), Sen. Joan Hartley (Waterbury), Sen. Christine Cohen (Guilford), Sen. Saud Anwar (South Windsor), Sen. Dennis Bradley (Bridgeport), and Sen. Steve Cassano (Manchester) all voted against the bill. Republican Sen. Kevin Witkos (Canton) was his party's lone "yes."

In a news release applauding the Senate's vote, Lamont said the legislation "will help eliminate the dangerous, unregulated market and support a new growing sector of our economy, which will lead to jobs and growth. This measure is comprehensive, protects our children and the most vulnerable in our communities, and will be viewed as a national model for regulating the adult-use cannabis marketplace."

The new law would allow residents 21 years of age and older to possess up to 1.5 ounces of cannabis on their person and up to five ounces in a locked container in their residence or trunk/glove compartment of their car. The proposed law also decriminalizes possession of up to five ounces on your person, and eight ounces of cannabis in a locked container, imposing a civil fine in lieu of possible jail time. Logically, the possession and use of cannabis paraphernalia has also been decriminalized.

If you're caught with more than five ounces, or more than eight in your stash, and it's your first offense, expect to be fined $500. The second offense will be a class D misdemeanor.

It'll be a lot harder for cops to have a reason to inspect your stash, however. The proposed legislation does away with using the odor of cannabis as justification to stop or search. It will still be against the law to puff and drive, but police can't pull you over solely because they spied you doing it.

If your record's been dinged with convictions for possession, drug paraphernalia, or sale and manufacture of four or fewer ounces or six or fewer plants, under the new law you can petition to have them expunged, beginning July 1, 2022. The petitioning process is free, and if all your papers are in order, it must be granted. Beginning Jan. 1, 2023, all convictions from Jan. 1, 2000 through September 15, 2015 for possession of fewer than four ounces will be purged automatically.

The state may be on the verge of taking a bold step, but there would still be checks in place on the local level. Towns can decide to zone out cannabis establishments, but they must allow a public referendum on the matter if petitioned by 10 percent of the residents. In any case, a town can't prevent cannabis deliveries. However, municipalities can restrict how close merchants can set up their dispensaries to religious institutions, schools, charitable institutions, hospitals, veterans' homes, or certain military establishments.

For purposes of determining where in the community you can smoke marijuana, the new law lumps it in with tobacco and e-cigarettes. Significantly, the law expands the forbidden zones for the smoking of anything to include any area of a government building, instead of only inside the building; any area of a school building, instead of only inside of it; anywhere within or on the grounds of a family day care home, when a child enrolled in the home is present during customary business hours, instead of at any time the child is present; any area of a retail establishment, rather than just a retail food store; any area of a college dormitory, instead of only inside it; and any area of a halfway house.

Or you can bypass the whole retail angle completely and grow your own. Beginning Oct. 1, 2021, current medical marijuana patients 18 and older would be able to legally cultivate up to three mature plants and three immature plants. If you're 21 or over and your need for weed is not medicinal, you would have to wait until July 1, 2023.

How Much Revenue Will This Generate? (... and who gets it?)

Finance website The Motley Fool projects Connecticut would rake in an additional $97.6 million annually after its cannabis market has been established for three years. The revenue would come in the form of excise taxes, the same way it does with alcohol, tobacco and gasoline. Businesses will pay $0.28 per gram of wet cannabis, $0.50 per dry weight gram of cannabis trim, and $1.25 per dry weight gram of cannabis flowers.

Up until June 30, 2023, all the tax revenue goes into the state's General Fund. After that, 25 percent would go to the Prevention and Recovery Services Fund. From July 1, 2023 until June 30, 2026, 60 percent of the tax would go to the Social Equity and Innovation Fund, increasing incrementally to 75 percent over the next five years.

Towns get a slice, as well. The new legislation piles a 3 percent municipal sales tax on top of the state's current 6.35 percent tax at the cash register.

It's a good deal for the local burgs, but there are strings attached. The municipalities may only use their cannabis tax revenues for programs and services that benefit neighborhoods where cannabis retailers or micro-cultivators are located; community civic engagement efforts; certain youth programs; services for residents released from Corrections Department custody, probation, or parole; or mental health and addiction services.

Not only is the legislation designed to funnel much of the revenue back into the communities most affected by the war on drugs, it favors those in the licensing process as well. The Department of Consumer Protection will be charged with ensuring that half of the licenses for cannabis retailers, manufacturers, delivery services, packagers and other support service are given to social equity applicants.

If it sounds to you like there's a lot to track, with a boat load of new moving parts, you're right. That's why the legislation comes with its own new bureaucracy. Expect the DCP to be hanging "help wanted" signs up as it gears up to handle the licensing and serve as watchdog of the new industry. There will also be a new Social Equity Council forming, charged with making members of communities who have been harmed by cannabis prohibition stakeholders in that industry.