A handful of activists supporting statewide marijuana legalization and/or decriminalization gathered Monday at the Capitol for the Pennsylvania State Police budget hearing.
Marijuana is a potentially key part of negotiations on the 2024-25 budget, with Gov. Josh Shapiro proposing to legalize and tax recreational marijuana – a significant boost to the commonwealth’s finances, if it comes to pass.
But even more pressing is the fact that marijuana possession remains an arrestable offense under state law, according to a dozen activists who gathered Monday during an otherwise low-key week of state agencies’ budget hearings before the state House and Senate.
“I know we’re flush with cash, but I don’t think people want it spent on arresting people for marijuana,” said Chris Goldstein, an organizer with the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML).
Pennsylvania legalized medical marijuana in 2016; around the same time, many municipalities in the state began passing laws creating lower-level offenses for simple marijuana possession, allowing their police departments to issue citations or summonses for pot instead of arresting people.
The result has been a sharp decline in pot arrests, according to data collected by the state police. In 2023, law enforcement agencies in Pennsylvania arrested 11,539 people for possession of 30 grams or less of marijuana — just a little over half the number of arrests that were seen in 2019, just four years earlier.
But that number could be even lower if more jurisdictions decriminalized weed, Goldstein said. This includes the state itself, given that state troopers do not have a non-criminal enforcement option for pot.
“That’s why we’re here today,” Goldstein said. “Why are the state police still tasked with doing so many of these arrests?”
Goldstein and other NORML activists in Pennsylvania are supporting a bipartisan bill in the state Senate that would make marijuana possession a summary offense with a $25 fine.
During Monday’s budget hearing before the House, state police leaders were questioned over the complete legalization of marijuana for adults, which would be necessary to enact Shapiro’s budget request that envisions about $15 million in recreational marijuana tax revenue in the coming fiscal year and up to $250 million in later years when the market fully develops.
As in previous discussions, PSP leadership stressed concerns with driving-while-high enforcement and “not losing any of the gains in highway safety we’ve made over the years,” said PSP Commissioner Col. Christopher Paris.
Shapiro’s proposed budget includes a $2 million cut of new marijuana tax proceeds going to the state police for enforcement, and “at least a portion of that money would be easily eaten up” by training costs for both humans and dogs in how to spot and handle motorists who are driving high, said Lt. Col. George Bivens, the PSP’s head of operations.
The overall impact of marijuana legalization on driving safety is uncertain. The percentage of drivers in fatal crashes who had THC in their system doubled in the four years after Washington State legalized marijuana in late 2012, AAA reported at the time, although it is unclear if marijuana was specifically a factor in the crashes.
But one recent study found serious traffic collision rates declined with legalization, and another survey found that self-reported driving under the influence of cannabis was actually lower among users in states that had legalized recreational marijuana.
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