Medical marijuana deal reached
Compromise will add growers’ licenses in effort to assure racial diversity
The Maryland House and Senate have reached an agreement on the thorny issue of expanding the state’s nascent medical marijuana cultivating industry to give minorities an ownership role.
The House of Delegates on Saturday approved a compromise measure by a wide margin that would allow the state to issue 20 new licenses for growing or processing marijuana in a way that assures racial diversity among the firms that win them.
The Senate is expected to ratify the proposal on Monday, the final day of the General Assembly’s 2018 legislative session. The bill would then go to Gov. Larry Hogan for his signature.
“It’s great, great,” said Del. Cheryl Glenn, the Baltimore Democrat who has led the fight for an expanded role for African-Americans and other minorities who were left out in the first round of grower’s license awards. “We are breaking ground with legislating diversity.”
Hogan spokesman Amelia Chasse said the governor will review the bill closely before making a signing decision.
“The governor is glad the General Assembly appears to be making progress on fixing the disparity in the industry,” she said.
The medical marijuana compromise resolves an issue that has bedeviled the legislature for two years. General Assembly leaders opened the session in January with the hope that they could finish work on it by the end of that month.
But agreement was elusive. Lawmakers could not agree on how many licenses to award, whether to set some aside for specific companies, and how to favor minority applicants.
Sen. Brian Feldman, the lead Senate negotiator in talks to reconcile the differing House and Senate bills, said the compromise calls for the state’s medical cannabis commission to devise selection rules based on a study of the hardships minorities have faced getting into similar industries in the past.
Firms owned by African-Americans lost out in the first round of bidding for medical marijuana growing licenses in Maryland.
Feldman said the agreement would ensure that two companies that qualified for grower’s permits in the commission’s initial rankings but were later excluded will get preliminary licenses.
The commission bumped the two companies to 16th and 17th place on its list of 15 and elevated two lower-ranked rivals with the aim of greater geographic diversity. The excluded companies sued the state, contending the commission’s action was improper.
The Senate insisted during the negotiations on giving the two excluded companies licenses and prevailed, Feldman said.
Another four grower’s licenses will be added that would be open to new applicants. Lawmakers are hoping the commission’s rules will ensure that some of those permits go to firms controlled by minorities. But U.S. Supreme Court decisions have limited the ability of governments to use explicit racial preferences.
Lawmakers also made progress Saturday on a package of bills intended to grapple with violent crime, especially in Baltimore.
A House committee on Saturday morning declared the omnibus crime measure known as Senate Bill 122 dead. Delegates said they had made changes to remove provisions that aroused opposition, but were being inundated with demands to kill the legislation.
The committee approved two bills, each incorporating parts of the initial comprehensive bill. Both were approved overwhelmingly by the House later in the day and will head to the Senate Monday.
One bill includes parts of the comprehensive bill that have been less controversial. It would expand the wiretapping authority of Maryland prosecutors to gun investigations. It would increase penalties for witness intimidation — a significant problem in Baltimore. It would also make it easier to prosecute sellers of fentanyl, a major contributor to a nationwide spike in overdose deaths, as volume dealers.
Another bill combines some of the more hotly disputed elements of the comprehensive bill with a “sweetener” intended to placate opponents and to attract the votes of moderate lawmakers.