Legal pot bill clears first of many Senate hurdles

May 8—CONCORD — A bill to legalize the recreational sale of marijuana for adults narrowly cleared its first of many hurdles in the state Senate with the endorsement from a key policy committee Wednesday.

Legalization has consistently found favor in the House of Representatives over the past 15 years, only to die in the state Senate.

That's why supporters weren't openly celebrating: They know this 36-page amendment to a House-passed legalized cannabis bill is subject to further change and will face a number of showdown Senate votes.

"This has a long ways to go," Senate President Jeb Bradley, R-Wolfeboro, told reporters after the Senate Judiciary Committee approved, 3-2, the offering from Sen. Daryl Abbas, R-Salem, without voting on a competing amendment that Bradley had personally pitched to the panel.

Bradley has vowed to vote against the measure, but offered a series of changes to tighten up state regulation of marijuana sales.

The 39-page House-passed bill (HB 1633) from Rep. Erica Layon, R-Derry, called for 15 establishments to sell cannabis as "agency stores," licensed and under the operational control of the State Liquor Commission.

The rival amendment Abbas offered and the committee endorsed that has the conceptual backing of Gov. Chris Sununu would have the State Liquor Commission act as state franchiser, granting franchise agreements to 15 firms.

Senate Deputy Democratic Leader Cindy Rosenwald, D-Nashua, offered her own rewrite with several changes, including one to relax the proposed penalties for those caught using marijuana in public.

The Abbas bill would make a first offense a violation with a small fine. If the second one occurred in five years it would be a misdemeanor and the prosecutor would have the discretion to ask a judge to offer county jail time for that offender.

Penalties for public use a sticking point

Rosenwald wanted the misdemeanor to kick in the third offense and without a jail time option.

"The number one complaint I hear over anything else is public use," said Abbas whose district is surrounded by Massachusetts towns that have cannabis retail shops.

Abbas said he doesn't want to turn New Hampshire cities into Boston, Massachusetts or New York City where he said the odor of marijuana can be inescapable in some urban neighborhoods.

Senate Majority Leader Sharon Carson, R-Londonderry, said New Hampshire shouldn't accept the inevitable and legalize this just because all other New England states have it.

Further, Carson objected to such strict limits on locations if it's going to be allowed in the state.

"I don't think we should be picking winners and losers," Carson said.

"I am sure there are businessmen and women who would like to come into New Hampshire and engage in this activity as well. Whether it's a big or small business, I think we should be welcoming to all of them and they are not considered in this."

Abbas said New Hampshire should enter this market slowly unlike other states that threw wide open the free market only to have many businesses quickly fail.

Bradley wanted to but could not change one part of the bill that allows a single company to have a "threshold financial interest" in up to three retail franchises or three of any number of cultivation, production and manufacturing plants that are licensed to be set up in the state.

"In allowing as many as three, we are basically inviting Big Marijuana into the state. I hope that there will be one entity, one," Bradley had said.

Abbas said he left it at three as the state can't be sure there will be 15, high-quality businesses at the outset so some consolidation may be wise.

"I think it is important we leave that open," Abbas said.

The Abbas and Layon plans each would require there be a local vote taken before any marijuana business is allowed to locate there.

Abbas proposed that only communities with more than 50,000 people, namely Manchester and Nashua, could have more than one retail location.

Another change Rosenwald wanted that's not in the bill would exempt cannabis made by the medical marijuana dispensaries and sold at retail stores from having to pay a new 15% excise tax.

Abbas said that would create a separate, "two-cash register," financial accounting system and it would also be an unfair advantage for these "medicinal" products sold in competition with cannabis made by for-profit commercial growers.

klandrigan@unionleader.com