Cannabis legalization bill advances in Pennsylvania House

Pennsylvania lawmakers took a small step Monday to advance legislation that would legalize marijuana for recreational use in the commonwealth, with lawmakers on the House Health Committee voting 14-12 to report the bill out of committee. 

The bill still needs to survive full votes in the Pennsylvania House and Senate to have a chance of becoming law, but Democrats, who control the state House, said Monday that the bill is needed to curb the sale of illicit cannabis and unregulated THC products in vape stores and other locations.

The legislation, House Bill 1200, is sponsored by Democratic state Rep. Rick Krajewski, who said Monday that the bill would implement a “hybrid” regulatory system that would sell cannabis products in publicly owned retail stores – similar to Pennsylvania’s state-owned wine and liquor stores – “while maintaining social equity and small business advantage license programs and small-scale retail and the entire supply chain.”

Under the framework in HB 1200, adults ages 21 and older would be allowed to purchase cannabis for recreational use. The legislation would also allow for home cultivation permits, with permit holders able to possess up to two mature cannabis plants and two immature cannabis plants. The bill, if signed into law, would also expunge certain past cannabis convictions.

Employers would be able to prohibit employee cannabis use and consumption under the bill, which also provides penalties for unauthorized growth and sales. The Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board would be tasked with regulating cannabis under the proposed law, with the board responsible for the regulation of cannabis, cannabis flower, cannabis products, cannabis paraphernalia and cannabis stores.

“With legalization, we have the opportunity to rein in a market that is completely deregulated in terms of potency, content or labeling. We can promote public health, while bringing hundreds of millions of public dollars that can be directed to the communities hit hardest by past criminalization,” Krajewski said before the committee vote. “While our state is late to the game in terms of legalizing cannabis, this timing allows us to learn from the mistakes of other frameworks.”

Republicans on the committee expressed several concerns about the legislation, including marijuana’s continued federal classification as a Schedule I substance, as well as the speed at which Democrats teed up the recently introduced bill for a committee vote. 

“At this point, this vote isn’t just about marijuana. It’s about how we govern by scheduling a non-voting session on a Sunday to introduce a sweeping 173-page bill, and then racing it through committee and towards the floor vote with barely 48 hours’ notice,” state Rep. Charity Grimm Krupa said during debate on the legislation. “We are undermining the legislative process itself.”

Minority Health Committee Chair Kathy Rapp also voiced concerns about how the bill was advanced. “To say I’m disappointed by the procedural handling of this bill is an understatement,” Rapp said. However, she expressed gratitude to the committee for holding several hearings on the issue of cannabis legalization during the last session. Still, Rapp said: “The people of Pennsylvania simply deserve better than to have a matter of this magnitude rushed through the legislative process.”

House Health Committee Chair Dan Frankel said he heard the concerns of his GOP colleagues, but reiterated that action on the issue is needed to regulate an evolving cannabis marketplace. “We've had six hearings on this. We need to move this conversation forward. Pennsylvanians are expecting movement on this. As the only state in the region that does not have a legal market, I think there is an expectation that we move this process forward,” he said. 

“This is an effort to promote public safety and public health in a context where it is pretty much the Wild West in Pennsylvania today, whether it is the traditional illicit market, whether it is the stores selling vape products that contain THC that go unregulated and untested and we don’t know what people are consuming,” he said. “This is a move forward in terms of public health, first and foremost.”

Gov. Josh Shapiro included a cannabis legalization framework in his 2025-26 executive budget proposal. His budget estimated that a 20% tax on the wholesale price of products sold through a regulated cannabis marketplace would raise approximately $536.5 million for the 2025-26 fiscal year. 

Democrats still need to obtain buy-in from Republicans who control the state Senate. So far, the issue of cannabis legalization has received a frosty reception from Senate GOP leaders, with Senate Appropriations Committee Chair Scott Martin saying in February: “I don’t see that issue going anywhere with my Senate Republican Caucus, and for many different reasons.”