PROVIDENCE, R.I. — A signature by Gov. Daniel J. McKee on the front steps of the Statehouse last week made R.I. the 21st state to legalize adult recreational use of marijuana after both the state Senate and House voted to approve the long sought legislation a day earlier.
“This bill successfully incorporates our priorities of making sure cannabis legalization is equitable, controlled and safe,” McKee told a small gathering of legislators working on the bill, cannabis legalization advocates and members of the media attending the signing ceremony.
McKee also lauded the cooperative work of the General Assembly with his administration for getting an acceptable adult use law passed.
“I want to thank them for the collaboration on this legislation,” McKee said.
“The bill I sign today into law ensures legalization is equitable, controlled and safe, those are the three things that were important to all of us who were negotiating this final agreement,” McKee said.
The approved legislation also creates a process for automatic expungement of past cannabis convictions, something his administration had included in McKee’s original cannabis legalization proposal to the General Assembly, “and I thank them for including it in the final product,” McKee said.
The new Rhode Island Cannabis Act legalizing adult use of marijuana calls for a 20 percent tax rate on marijuana sales that will be split up as a seven percent sales tax, a new 10 percent cannabis tax, and a three percent tax to be collected by the municipality where a retail sales operation will be located.
The new law, set to go into effect on Dec. 1, also provides for the state’s three current medical marijuana distribution centers to add recreational sales under a hybrid license provided for in the legislation.
The state had also recently expanded its medical compassion licenses by an additional six locations which would also gain the hybrid adult retail sales option under the legislation.
The new law also provides for the creation of a state Cannabis Control Commission which will oversee the issuance of 24 retail adult use cannabis retail licenses after it takes effect.
The legislation specifies that 25 percent of the licenses to be issued will be reserved for social equity applicants and worker-owned cooperatives.
Noting that the bill makes important investments in the creation of an equitable cannabis retail market with those provisions, McKee said “that was part of our original ask of the General Assembly and I know that was part of their original intent.”
McKee also had praise for the role of the Department of Business regulation in creating the new law along with administration staff and members of the General Assembly.
The result is legislation that was “done well, is regulated safely and is a benefit to the people in the state of Rhode Island,” McKee said.
Senate Majority Leader Michael J. McCaffrey, D-Dist. 29, Warwick, who worked closely with Senator Joshua Miller, D-Dist. 28, Cranston and chair of the Senate Health and Human Services Committee, on the senate’s cannabis bill, called the signing “really a momentous day for the state of Rhode Island.
“And I would like to recognize my colleague chairman Miller, he has been a tireless advocate for this issue for over 10 years, not ten days, not a year, but ten years he’s been working toward this day,” McCaffrey said.
McCaffrey also credited Senate President Dominick J. Ruggerio for his leadership in directing the creation of a cannabis legalization bill two years ago that began the process.
Ruggerio directed McCaffrey and Miller to come up with a bill that would pass the Senate, he noted.
The pair achieved that goal but then had to wait for another session after it did not pass in the House.
“Representative (Scott) Slater (D-Dist. 10, Providence,) House Speaker (K. Joseph) Shekarchi, Chairman Miller and I, we worked through the summer into the fall and through the fall to come up with a bill that we presented to the General Assembly this year,” McCaffrey said.
The bill had a hearing process and all of the questions and concerns raised by the interested parties were taken into consideration and an attempt was made “to address them as best you can,” McCaffrey explained.
“A bill like this has so many components in it, you had the expungement component that we worked hard on and had to continually change, we had the number of places that are going to be able to sell, that kept changing, how we going to allocate the licenses, the equity licenses, how are we going to get the money for the equity licenses,” the Senate majority leader noted.
“We’re really supporting the social equity licenses and how we’re going to run them so that the licenses are passed out in a fair and equitable manner across the board, not just to wealthy, wealthy businesses, we want people to be able to go into the business make it a success business and have them to continue to grow,” McCaffrey said.
“Knowing that cannabis prohibition has been a failed policy for decades, we’re glad that we got to this point so that we can have the bill signed,” McCaffrey said.
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