Duncannon has thrown its support behind marijuana legalization, approving a resolution saying as much at its May 17 meeting.
The resolution calls for the full legalization of cannabis and the expungement of criminal records for the possession of the plant, according to the resolution. The motion carried without opposition and limited discussion.
Council member Mike Wolfersberger said legalization could help economic and agricultural development for some places.
“Thirty-one states, the District of Columbia, the Northern Mariana Islands, Guam, and the U.S. Virgin Islands have either legalized or decriminalized the adult use of cannabis through enacted laws to allow for safe access to cannabis products, including legal markets in a majority of Pennsylvania’s neighboring states, increasing the likelihood of interstate purchasing of products which will decrease the amount of revenue available for retention within the state,” the resolution states.
The resolution also says that the plant’s ban in the 1930s went counter to national consensus and heavy use around the world for multiple reasons. It also says studies over nearly half a century have indicated a high usefulness in medicine for the cannabis plant, further making its legalization beneficial. The resolution urges state legislators to reconsider the illegality of cannabis.
The resolution does not carry the force of law and does not make marijuana legal in Duncannon.
While economic impact is considerable for states that have legalized cannabis in recent decades, the plant’s growth and production for medicinal and recreational uses often is required by law to take place inside controlled and secure facilities.
Such is the case with the medicinal cannabis facility just up the road in Penn Twp. It’s rarely the case that marijuana is just growing free in farm fields.
However, if the state legalized the plant, that could improve some of the financial and regulatory restrictions for medicinal cannabis and industrial hemp, which doesn’t have an intoxicating effect.
Other boroughs have gone the opposite route in recent years. Landisburg made itself a cannabis-dry borough in 2019 when it approved an ordinance barring cannabis businesses from opening there.
According to Duncannon officials, they were urged to approve the resolution by David Bolton, the borough manager of Abbottstown, Adam County. The borough — a small town in a conservative county similar to Perry — has already approved the same resolution and submitted it to the Pennsylvania State Association of Boroughs.
Bolton is also a PSAB board member and a member of its resolution and policy committee. He said he sent the sample resolution and letter to the 900 boroughs in the state with mailing addresses that he could find. There are a total of 956 boroughs in Pennsylvania.
The response has been good, and the resolutions were considered at the PSAB conference this past weekend, he said. A report from that event wasn’t available at press deadline.
“I have received several back from various boroughs prior to this week,” Bolton said.
Some boroughs had said they were tabling it until they could better research the ideas.
“Others said straight out they don’t support it.”
However, if the policy committee votes to support the issue, legalization would become a policy of the boroughs association. The committee has representatives from its members.
Bolton said PSAB’s work lobbying the legislature has been very successful in the past. Its work helped legalize industrial hemp in the state the following legislative cycle, and 2016′s medical cannabis legalization. About 300 resolutions were approved by boroughs supporting that.
PSAB continues to look at other policies, such as radar for local police departments and rolling back prevailing wage requirements that increase costs for local government projects. However, some policy and lobbying initiatives are more successful than others. Local police radar has been widely supported for years, but the legislature has refused to approve it.
This effort is the second political area that Duncannon’s council has approved this year. Earlier it had revisited Mayor John Cappawana’s resolution declaring the borough a “Second Amendment sanctuary,” and approved the measure.
That resolution criticizes efforts to pass gun control in the state legislature and in Congress and announces the borough’s support for both the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, and the equivalent in the Pennsylvania Constitution.
Resolutions are symbolic and do not carry the weight of law. That would require an ordinance.
Cappawana had said as much in 2021, posing the resolution as a non-controversial support for the right to bear arms. That year some council members accused him of using the issue to attack members for unrelated disputes. Council rejected that proposal with just two people voting for it, Karl Conrad and Kim Conrad.
Two provisions were sticking points: naming specific officials in the document and specifically committing borough resources to fighting against any new laws.
Council has changed some since last year with the addition of Joseph Misner and Cynthia Daub.
This year’s version still names every elected official in the borough except Jeff Kirkhoff and Mike Wolfersberger, who voted against it, according to the version from Cappawana and council minutes.
Bolton said it’s unusual for council to name officials in non-binding resolutions. When a resolution is passed, it becomes the position of council despite who did or did not vote for it.
Councils approve resolutions supporting all kinds of causes, such as support for breast cancer awareness or anti-littering campaigns. So naming people is extraneous.
For example, the cannabis resolution simply states the positions without mentioning officials. Duncannon didn’t add such provisions to its version.
“In general, best practices, you don’t put names in things, even some parts of minutes,” Bolton said. “You just say a discussion took place, because otherwise it becomes a he-said, she-said.”
PSAB hasn’t seen many such Second Amendment resolutions, he noted. In part, that’s because the state’s right to bear arms has stronger language than the federal constitution.
“A lot of people who understand the Pennsylvania Second Amendment know that it’s not necessary,” he said.
Jim T. Ryan can be reached via email at jtryan@perrycountytimes.com
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