Lawmakers eye changes to pot laws

As industry grows, legislators debate local control over dispensary locations

One year after setting up an industry that sought to tackle an inequitable, decades-long war on drugs, Maryland lawmakers are getting into the weeds on a handful of proposals some say will keep the state’s burgeoning recreational cannabis system on track.

“Y’all hippies voted for this. It is now legal,” Del. C.T. Wilson, one of the architects of the 2023 cannabis law, said at a recent hearing on bills aimed at protecting both cannabis users and businesses.

Wilson — who has said from the start he doesn’t particularly like cannabis, but wants to create a fair and robust industry to eliminate the illegal market — is focused on a bill to make sure counties opposed to dispensaries can’t block them from opening. The legislation is a response to Carroll, Prince George’s and several other counties that have tried to go beyond the restrictions in last year’s law to limit where dispensaries can open.

Despite pushback from Prince George’s lawmakers, it’s possibly the most likely piece of cannabis legislation to pass before the annual General Assembly session ends April 8.

Wilson said he’s not sure whether another major bill aimed at protecting cannabis users from being discriminated against at work will get over the finish line.

Others in consideration, meanwhile, would reduce penalties for illegally distributing cannabis, implement major revenue increases to fuel the cannabis reparations fund and make sure medical cannabis users can still get licenses to carry firearms.

The status of cannabis

Maryland has 96 licensed dispensaries, 23 processors and 18 growers — all previously medical-only cannabis businesses that predated the legalization of recreational cannabis in July, according to the Maryland Cannabis Administration.

The first new licenses will be awarded soon.

The administration said 1,708 “social equity applicants” made submissions late last year during an initial round solely for prospective business owners who lived in or attended school in an area disproportionately impacted by the previous criminalization of cannabis.

Only 179 licenses will be awarded, including 75 standard dispensaries and eight “micro” dispensaries.

Up to 300 dispensaries, 100 processors and 75 growers will operate in the state after the law is fully implemented. Another 10 dispensaries, 100 processors and 100 growers are set to receive the smaller “micro” licenses, as well.

Sales have so far exceeded expectations. From July 1 through the end of December, the state saw $800 million in total cannabis sales, including medical-use marijuana, in 2023, according to the administration.

Cannabis Administration Director Will Tilburg told lawmakers he anticipates over $1 billion in total medical and recreational cannabis sales in the first full year of legalization.

Avoiding a ‘vice village’

Under last year’s law, cannabis dispensaries can’t be within 500 feet of primary or secondary schools, day care centers or family child care homes, playgrounds, recreation centers, libraries or public parks. They also cannot be within 1,000 feet of another dispensary.

While lawmakers specified that local governments could not pass further zoning requirements that “unduly burden” new licensees, the language was left open-ended in the law. That allowed counties to increase those buffers “within reason,” Kevin Kinnally, the legislative director for the Maryland Association of Counties told lawmakers in a recent hearing.

In Carroll, for example, a dispensary could not be less than 500 feet from a residence under a proposed local ordinance. In Prince George’s County, council members proposed, but did not pass, legislation to restrict new dispensaries to industrial zones.

The legislation from Wilson, a Charles County Democrat, and Sen. Brian Feldman, a Montgomery County Democrat who crafted the law last year, would prohibit those

kinds of moves by preventing local governments from making zoning for dispensaries more strict than for retail alcohol licenses.

“We’re not trying to get Marylanders high,” Wilson said in an interview. “We’re trying to eradicate the illegal drug market. We can’t do that if we create vacuums.”

In a hearing on the bill, he told opponents he understands the “inherent distrust of government” determining where businesses can sell drugs and alcohol, especially after state law never limited the number of liquor stores locally or statewide. That’s led to 6,500 alcohol retailers across the state and higher concentrations of them in communities with more minority populations.

Wilson said his bill will be amended to increase the 1,000-foot buffer between dispensaries to 1,500 feet (about a quarter-mile) and to give the public the chance to file protests regarding new locations. The bill would also require the state cannabis administration to consider geographic distribution when awarding licenses, which are already set to have a limited amount per county. In Prince George’s, for instance, there will only be roughly 21 maximum licenses in a county with just under 1 million people.

But some lawmakers don’t think those measures would go far enough. Del. Andrea Fletcher Harrison, a Prince George’s County Democrat, said in the committee hearing that she also wants dispensaries to be at least 1,500 feet from liquor stores, and wants another buffer zone between residential zoning and dispensaries.

Sen. Alonzo Washington, another Democrat from Prince George’s County, pushed back against Feldman in another hearing the following day. He said in an interview later that he’s open to amendments, but will not support the bill in its current form. Even amendments proposed by the Maryland Association of Counties to increase the distance restrictions to 2,000 feet are probably not sufficient, he said.

“I cannot support a bill that usurps local zoning control,” Washington said. “It’s an overreach to me.”

Prince George’s County Councilmember Wanika Fisher, a former Democratic delegate, said she’s been working with her former colleagues in Annapolis on a compromise. She shares the concerns about saturating communities to create what she calls a “vice village” — dispensaries, liquor stores and smoke shops in close proximity — but said it’s also important not to stop a new industry in its tracks, especially one aimed at lifting up communities harmed by the war on drugs.