Lawmakers rescind 'legislative veto' over pot
House, Senate leaders had sought to control licensing of medical marijuana outlets
Rhode Island lawmakers voted Tuesday to give back the final say over state cannabis regulations that they gave themselves last summer, backing down from a power struggle with Gov. Gina Raimondo's over the licensing of six new medical marijuana dispensaries.
The House and Senate passed identical bills in unanimous votes, removing the "legislative veto" language over medical marijuana and hemp regulations that was included in this year's state budget. There was no debate.
The bills now go to Raimondo, who will probably sign them Wednesday, her spokesman Josh Block said.
Left out of the bills passed Tuesday were provisions in the original legislation — introduced by House Speaker Nicholas Mattiello and Senate President Dominick Ruggerio — that would have explicitly given new dispensaries the ability to grow their own product. Raimondo's proposed regulations for the new dispensaries would make them retail only, unlike the state's three existing dispensaries, which are allowed to grow their products.
Mattiello and Ruggerio called Raimondo's restrictions on new dispensaries — including the ban on growing — a "blatant overreach" of her power. Their original legislation would have also prevented her Department of Business Regulation from dividing the new dispensary licenses up into three geographic areas within the state, from limiting the number of patients a caregiver can have and from requiring a market analysis of the medical marijuana industry.
The Raimondo administration wants to award the six new dispensary licenses by lottery, but the timing is unclear.
Mattiello also warned that preventing dispensaries from growing medical marijuana would keep prices too high for patients.
But Rhode Island cannabis cultivators turned out in force at State House hearings on the bills last month, opposed to anything that would allow the new dispensaries to grow. They said large corporate dispensaries with the ability to dominate the market could put them out of business, and they found a sympathetic audience with many lawmakers.
Before Mattiello and Ruggerio accused Raimondo of overstepping her constitutional authority, she sued them in Superior Court over the legislative veto, which her lawyers said violated the separation of powers between the legislative and executive branches of government.
Common Cause Rhode Island Executive Director John Marion Jr. shared those concerns about making lawmakers the final arbiters of marijuana licenses.
"It's a victory for separation of powers because this was the most blatant attempt to claw back power by the Assembly since the 2004 constitutional amendment," Marion told The Journal after Tuesday's vote. "It is good to see that the Assembly passed not only a repeal, but a clean repeal so they didn't muddy the issue as the original bill did with substantive issues over marijuana dispensaries. They did what they needed to do to be right by the Rhode Island Constitution."
