The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Inching closer to recreational marijuana
Connecticut’s inevitable but tortured march toward legal sale of adult-use, “recreational” marijuana took three big steps lately, just in time for a new governor and general assembly to usher in a commercial market.
There is no stopping this dirt train, with more medical dispensaries, more covered conditions and mostly Massachusetts already selling legal weed. It’s only a question of when Connecticut wants to jump on, and the sooner the better when it comes to creating an orderly market and realizing revenues.
Legalizing retail sales shouldn’t be about raising money, says Rep. Josh Elliott, D-Hamden, probably the most ardent supporter of legalization in the General Assembly. I disagree; we should make no bones about the fact that the $60 million to $100 million in added annual tax revenue for the state — money that will now head up I-91 to Massachusetts — is badly needed cash, part of the logic of legalization.
Regardless, the steps we’ve seen lately point toward a normalization of marijuana sales to all adult buyers in Connecticut, or at least, they should.
On Tuesday, the state Department of Consumer Protection awarded nine new licenses — rights to take out a license, to be exact — for dispensaries to sell marijuana to medical patients who have notes from their doctors. This will bring the total to 18.
The latest awardees are in Stamford and Westport, the first locations in the Gold Coast of Fairfield County, along with New Haven, Waterbury and Torrington among other places. Westport had quite a battle over the issue, which we can expect to see once full legalization happens — but it’s nothing Connecticut towns can’t handle.
And of course, Massachusetts started regular sales to any adult on Nov. 20, with a system so restrictive, only two locations, that it’s causing more trouble than it’s worth, with stories of three- and fourhour waits and traffic jams. Connecticut needs to learn from that, but the Bay State opening proves the market is here whether we like it or not; more years of prohibition based on the very real dangers of it are now irrelevant.
In August and again last month, a legislative committee added a total of nine new medical conditions to the list eligible for treatment by marijuana, bringing the list to 21.
Among 32 states with medicinal pot sales, only Connecticut and New Jersey lack a general pain diagnosis as an allowable condition in one form or another, according to Karen O’Keefe, director of state policies for the Marijuana Policy Project, a California group that advocates for increased regulated access.
“New Jersey and Connecticut are vying for being the worst,” O’Keefe said, when it comes to restrictive policies, and that prevents access to people who could benefit.
”At a minimum, Connecticut’s medical law should be expanded to include severe pain,” O’Keefe said. “We’re pushing people towards far more dangerous opioids by having restrictive policies for medical marijuana.”
Pain in various forms is perhaps the most common problem doctors and patients use marijuana to treat. The latest Connecticut allowable condition, added Nov. 8, for example, is “chronic neuropathic pain associated with degenerative spinal disorders,” and the list approved on Aug. 28 includes “spasticity or neuropathic pain associated with fibromyalgia.”
You see the point. We could keep adding six or eight narrow sources of pain for the next 100 years and still not cover the waterfront. I feel your pain, and mine, from, well, life.
Cautious people opposed to recreational use of marijuana want to prevent the sort of farce we saw in California when that state had medical pot but not open, adult sales. Anyone could go online and pay $45 for a prescription from a “doctor,” and off to the dispensary they went.
There are ways to regulate medical marijuana without being the most restrictive state, and we’re heading that way. The latest round of licenses are designed to serve the current 30,448 patients, up from 8,228 at the start of 2016, said Lora Rae Anderson, spokeswoman for the state Department of Consumer Protection.
The point: It’s growing fast based on the spreading acceptance that pot, like air travel, alcohol, gambling, soda and just about everything else, has its pluses and minuses. And that should lead us to full legalization with appropriate rules.
As of a few months ago, when the Marijuana Policy Project did a tally, Connecticut had 23,960 patients, or 0.7 percent of the population. Two states, California and Maine, were over 3 percent and the average among all states with medical pot laws was 1.2 percent, which is where Connecticut is moving.
By contrast, polls show about 12 percent of the U.S. adult population smokes or uses pot at least once in a while.
O’Keefe cites an old, 2013 Pew Research Center poll that showed a very significant portion of pot smokers does so because of a medical issue. The market for medical marijuana is vastly larger than what we’re seeing now.
But here’s the rub: States such as Colorado that have legalized pot sales fully have not seen an increase in medical permits, even though those buyers typically don’t have to pay hefty taxes. That tells us the use of marijuana is, for many people, ambiguous when it comes to medical conditions such as pain.
It seems to help, but they like how it feels so it’s also a bit recreational, like moderate drinking. It can control stress, which isn’t always a medical condition but sure does matter for good health.
That ambiguity tells us it’s time to stop the charade and pass a retail sales law in 2019. We can debate the money as an incentive, but $75 million a year certainly won’t do any harm.