Marijuana Moment: Marijuana Legalization Could Boost Pennsylvania’s Revenue, House Speaker Says, If Only Senate Could Find ‘The Will To Do It’

[Tokeativity]

The top Pennsylvania House lawmaker says legalizing marijuana is one way to create a “very important” revenue source for the state, and it’s an achievable reform if only legislators could find “the will to do it.”

In an interview with City & State that was published on Monday, House Speaker Joanna McClinton (D) was asked about the need to bolster revenue and what options might be on the table heading into the 2026 session.

“It’s very important. When we talk about the needs for schools, for transit, for roads and bridges, we have to have a way to pay for everything—not just today, but in three years, in six years,” she said. “The only way we can do that is by creating new revenue.”

“Some of the ways the governor requested that we create the revenue was through legalizing marijuana, raising the minimum wage, regulating skill games. So we have ways to do it,” the speaker said. “We’ve sent some of those to the Senate, but we haven’t been able to get any of those bills to the governor’s desk.”

To that point, the House passed a marijuana legalization bill earlier this year, with a novel proposal to have sales take place at state-run stores, but it was promptly rejected by the GOP-controlled Senate.

“I think any of [the revenue options] would be palatable; we just have to have the will to do it. We should do them all,” McClinton said. “We should raise the minimum wage. We should legalize cannabis. We should regulate skill games. We should do them all, because we don’t want to get to a point where we were when I entered into the legislature in 2015 where the deficit was astonishing and large and vast.”

Bipartisan Pennsylvania lawmakers who’ve been working to enact adult-use legalization over recent sessions without success so far have also recently said that President Donald Trump’s federal marijuana rescheduling order could grease the wheels in the new year.

“I think that having President Trump, in particular, sign this executive order really gives permission for a lot of Republican lawmakers who may have been reticent about actually admitting that they supported it some cover to be able to actually support it,” Rep. Emily Kinkead (D) said. “I am even more optimistic than I was that we are going to get legalization of recreational cannabis done in Pennsylvania in 2026.”

Rep. Dan Frankel (D), chair of the House Health Committee and another champion of reform in the legislature, also said the rescheduling move will “bolster the existing medical marijuana marketplace.”

While there may be some disagreement among lawmakers about rescheduling or broader reform, Trump’s executive order marks a “step toward common-sense drug policy reform,” Sen. Dan Laughlin (R) said.

For what it’s worth, another top GOP senator—Sen. Scott Martin (R), chair of the chamber’s Appropriations Committee—said earlier this month that he was skeptical about the prospects of enacting legalization in the 2026 session, in part because of the federal classification of cannabis that’s now expected to change. Of course, marijuana would still be federally illegal under Schedule III, so it’s unclear if a simple loosening of the law would move the needle enough from his perspective.

—
Marijuana Moment is tracking hundreds of cannabis, psychedelics and drug policy bills in state legislatures and Congress this year. Patreon supporters pledging at least $25/month get access to our interactive maps, charts and hearing calendar so they don’t miss any developments.

Learn more about our marijuana bill tracker and become a supporter on Patreon to get access.
—

A top aide to Pennsylvania’s governor said in September that lawmakers should stop introducing new competing legalization bills and instead focus on building consensus on the issue—while emphasizing that any measure that advances needs to contain equity provisions if the governor is going to sign it into law.

Laughlin, for his part, said in August that the House “needs to pass the language in my bill and send it to my committee” after which point he “can negotiate with the Senate and the governor.”

The senator separately said recently that supporters are “picking up votes” to enact the reform this session.

Meanwhile, bipartisan Pennsylvania senators in October introduced a bill that would allow terminally ill patients to use of medical marijuana in hospitals.

Separately, the leading Republican candidate in the race to become the next governor of Pennsylvania dodged a question about her stance on legalizing marijuana—saying she doesn’t have a “policy position” on the issue and arguing that the sitting governor’s proposal for reform “way, way overstated” potential revenue.

The candidate, Pennsylvania Treasurer Stacy Garrity (R), pointed to neighboring Ohio, which launched its own adult-use cannabis market this year, saying “they generated about $115 million in revenue.” And while the populations of both states are relatively comparable, Shapiro’s budget projected $536.5 million in cannabis revenue in the first fiscal year of implementation.

She did, however, say that if Pennsylvania moves forward on enacting the reform, she’ll “make sure that it’s banked appropriately.”

Meanwhile, a Pennsylvania Democratic senator recently said that federal marijuana rescheduling would be “very influential” in advancing legalization in his state, giving “political cover” to GOP members on the fence about reform.

Polls have shown bipartisan support for legalization among voters, but the reform has consistently stalled in the legislature, due largely to GOP opposition. But not all Republican members are against the policy change—and one recently said she felt her party should seize the “opportunity to snatch” the issue from Democrats.

Photo courtesy of Chris Wallis // Side Pocket Images.

The post Marijuana Legalization Could Boost Pennsylvania’s Revenue, House Speaker Says, If Only Senate Could Find ‘The Will To Do It’ appeared first on Marijuana Moment.

View the live link on MarijuanaMoment.net