The New Hampshire legislature has sent a bill to the governor’s desk to create a commission tasked with preparing legislation to legalize marijuana through a system of state-run stores. And because the governor has concluded that legalization is “inevitable” in the state, he’s pushing for the novel regulatory framework, concerned that lawmakers might otherwise pass a bill less favorable to him with a veto-proof majority.
About a week after bicameral and bipartisan lawmakers reached an agreement on the incremental commission legislation in a conference committee, the House and Senate gave final approval to the measure in voice votes on Thursday, which is the legislative deadline for action this year.
The bill that the committee took up initially only required a commission to study the novel state stores idea for cannabis, a model that Gov. Chris Sununu (R) only recently endorsed after historically opposing cannabis legalization. But it was amended last week to include a mandate for the body to take its findings and draft a state-run legalization measure that legislators could then consider when they reconvene for the second half of the two-year session in January.
If the governor signs the bill into law, the commission’s work will be due December
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