Vermont Passes Marijuana Sales Bill; Awaiting Governor’s Signature

Recorded on September 23, 2020

The State of Vermont passed a bill allowing for the legal sale of marijuana, which now awaits the governor’s signature. Attorney Ben Barry of Martin, Harding & Mazzotti, LLP is on the radio with WIZN discussing the bill.

Please give it a listen or read the transcript below.

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Joe: 106.7 WIZN, that’s Soundgarden and “Black Hole Sun,” heard Aerosmith and “The Other Side” before that. Joe Vega here with you on your Wednesday Rocking Ride Home. And I’m joined now by Ben Barry from Martin Harding & Mazzotti. Hello, Ben.

Ben: Hello, Joe.

Joe: So calling you because last week the State of Vermont passed a bill, now the governor still needs to sign it, but passed a new bill in regards to legal marijuana. And I just wanna bring you on for a second to maybe try to explain this bill to us a little bit.

Ben: Sure. There is a bill before Governor Scott or on its way to Governor Scott, which it allows for the sale of marijuana in short form, it augments and improves upon I think the prior law that was passed in 2018 which is still on the books that you can possess up to an ounce of marijuana and grow two plants for personal use. This particular piece of legislation, I haven’t read through the legislation but it is sort of the combination of a lot of cooperation between the House of Representatives and the Senate.

And so I think going to Governor Scott’s desk, I think it has a lot of political force behind it because it was a bicameral kind of piece of legislation and so it’ll be interesting to see if he signs it. I think that it reorganizes kind of the oversight of the permitting for people who are going to sell marijuana or the commercialization of marijuana sales. So it’ll be interesting. There’s also another sort of another law that is being presented to Governor Scott which I think kind of deals with some of the past issues regarding the sale of marijuana in that that law allows for some expungement for individuals who have marijuana convictions.

It will be interesting to see if he views both of these pieces of legislation as part and parcel and kind of addressing the past but also forward-looking in terms of revenue generation for the State of Vermont in terms of taxes.

Joe: Right, so you can see some convictions I guess overturned or expunged, right?

Ben: I think that’s the overall goal, yes.

Joe: Well, there you go. All right. Thank you very much for coming on explaining that to us. Ben Barry from Martin, Harding & Mazzotti.

Ben: Thank you, Joe.

Joe: You can call Ben at any time at 1800law1010 or go online to 1800law1010.com. Stay tuned. Mel Allen takes over from here, he’s got Def Leppard and Ozzy coming up next.

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