The governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands (USVI) is renewing his name to legalize marijuana within the territory, placing strain on the legislature to enact the reform as a income generator that he says is lengthy overdue.
Gov. Albert Bryan Jr. (D) included anticipated authorized hashish income in his Fiscal 12 months 2022-2023 price range request that he despatched to lawmakers on Tuesday and mentioned he will likely be convening a particular legislative session to get the job completed.
At a press briefing, the governor singled out one key lawmaker, Sen. Janelle Sarauw (I), who he blames for blocking marijuana laws thus far.
“It’s simply completely ridiculous now how lengthy Senator Sarauw has been holding our invoice within the legislature,” the governor, who has repeatedly pushed for legalization over current years and launched his personal reform proposal in 2019, mentioned on Tuesday. “Name her and inform her, ‘Why are you holding up this grownup hashish use laws?’ We have to get it completed. So we put it in [the budget].”
“We’re going to be calling the legislature into particular session. We’re gonna give them lots time to consider it,” he mentioned. “However now we have a $40 million funding hole this yr that we have to fill with various kinds of funding assets. We wish to get that going.”
Watch the governor speak about his marijuana legalization price range proposal, beginning round 27:24 into the video under:
Bryan contested arguments that the state doesn’t want a leisure market as a result of the territory already has a medical hashish program that he enacted in 2019. (That mentioned, the delayed implementation of that program has confronted sharp criticism.)
“Don’t hearken to them after they inform you about medicinal hashish [revenue],” he mentioned. “Medicinal hashish use prices us cash. It doesn’t make us a dime. We don’t tax it as a result of it’s a drugs. So we have to get this [legalization] invoice shifting.”
In keeping with the manager price range e book, the territory will see “a modest $10 million in revenues from the anticipated adoption of Grownup-Use Hashish laws.”
“We will likely be submitting proposed laws as a part of this price range that, if adopted, would create a substantive supply of recent revenues whereas fixing the failings and omissions of the present medicinal marijuana regulation,” it says, including that the projection was partly based mostly on “information gained from the forums organized by the thirty fourth Legislature in Colorado this previous November with [National Conference of State Legislatures] coverage specialists, Colorado state officers, and trade practitioners.”
Governor Albert Bryan Jr. together with members of his government employees helps the thirty fourth Legislature on the V.I. Legislative Hashish Summit in Denver, Colorado. pic.twitter.com/ccLlPJw1nM
— Authorities Home USVI (@govhouseusvi) October 25, 2021
Bryan, who has additionally talked about marijuana as a safer different to opioids for ache therapy, stressed that it’s “been three years now shifting” the difficulty, and so lawmakers have to “get it by way of the legislature so we are able to get some cash going.”
There was a listening to on the governor’s legalization proposal in 2020, with a number of authorities businesses testifying in favor of the reform and outlining how a regulated hashish market might assist the territory, particularly given its financial wants.
It’s not clear when the governor intends to convene a particular session for legislators to take up the invoice, but it surely wouldn’t be the primary time he’s completed so. Bryan has additionally emphasised the necessity to legalize, tax and regulate hashish to generate income amid the financial downturn brought on by the coronavirus pandemic.
USVI wouldn’t be the primary U.S. territory to legalize hashish. The governor of the Commonwealth of the Northern Mariana Islands (CNMI) signed a invoice to finish prohibition in 2018, for instance.
The next yr, the governor of Guam signed legalization into regulation.