Thursday, May 5, 2016
With the legislature braced to adjourn for the year on Saturday, that defeat likely means lawmakers will leave without any marijuana legalization — or even a commission to study it.
“Fuck the commission,” a frustrated Senate Judiciary Committee chair Dick Sears (D-Bennington) said after his effort to create a public advisory vote failed. “The commission was unnecessary.”
A couple of hours earlier, Sears had been willing to go along with creating a marijuana legalization study commission if lawmakers also agreed to the public advisory vote.
Tags: Cannabeat , Dick Sears , marijuana legalization , Vermont legislature , Image , Web Only
Monday, May 2, 2016
Speaker Shap Smith (D-Morristown) announced the delay at about 8:30 p.m. Monday, after a day of jockeying and counting votes.
“It’s better to not be debating this at 10 o’clock,” Smith said. “I thought that was not fair to the House members.”
House Democrats have crafted a bill they expect to vote on Tuesday, he said. Though his caucus leaders had been counting votes all day, Smith said he still didn’t know whether the decriminalization measure would pass.
Tags: Cannabeat , marijuana legalization , Shap Smith , Vermont House , Image , Web Only
Friday, April 29, 2016
The chamber will cast votes on the issue Monday, Smith said, probably on two different proposals. Whether either of them passes is still very much in question.
“People legitimately want to understand what level of support’s out there,” Smith said Friday.
Smith said he expects at least two votes. One will be on a Senate bill that allows sale and possession of marijuana. The other is on a House Ways and Means Committee proposal to legalize home-growing of two marijuana plants.
Tags: Cannabeat , Chris Pearson , marijuana legalization , Shap Smith , Vermont legislature , Image , Web Only
Wednesday, April 27, 2016
By a 16 to 12 vote, the Senate moved to send its languishing legalization bill back over to the House, where it has stalled in committee for weeks.
“I thought there ought to be at least an opportunity for House members to express their support or opposition,” said Sen. Dick Sears (D-Bennington), who chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee.
Sears moved to attach the contents of a previously passed Senate bill to an unrelated House bill, H.858, which makes miscellaneous changes to the criminal code.
“I’m not surprised,” Speaker Shap Smith (D-Morristown) said of the move, adding that it would not necessarily force the full House to vote on legalization.
Tags: Cannabeat , House Speaker Shap Smith , marijuana legalization , Sen. Dick Sears , Image , Web Only
Monday, April 25, 2016
The city is advertising for an “opiate operations policy manager” who will be responsible for getting all the local groups that deal with opiate-related issues — from treatment providers to probation officers — to work together.
“We have a lot of hardworking organizations that leave value on the table by not coordinating with each other, and the city wants to take responsibility for that coordination,” del Pozo said.
In contrast to Rutland, where officials and residents have been widely praised for their efforts to address opiate addiction through a program called Project VISION, officials say Burlington has lacked a unified approach.
Since last fall, however, the mayor has been attempting to improve coordination informally by holding regular meetings with these organizations. Now they are seeking a full-time manager to take on this task. He or she will make between $64,000 and $77,000 and will report to del Pozo.
Tags: Brandon del Pozo , Burlington , Miro Weinberger , opiates , Opioid Crisis , Image , Web Only
Friday, April 15, 2016
The Ways and Means Committee voted 7-4 on a new version of legislation that would legalize possession of up to an ounce of marijuana. It would also allow adults to grow as many as two plants per household if they obtain a $125 permit.
The bill's measures fall short of those in a legalization bill that the Senate passed. But the bill goes further than a version that the House Judiciary Committee passed a week earlier, which stopped short of legalization.
“I think there will be very positive reaction in the community,” said Matt Simon, New England policy director for the Marijuana Policy Project. “We’ll have to see what happens in the next committee.”
Tags: Cannabeat , Janet Ancel , marijuana legalization , Vermont legislature , Image , Web Only
Friday, April 8, 2016
The vote came after the committee narrowly rejected a proposal to table the legislation entirely.
The bill that passed the committee does not legalize marijuana, as the Senate voted to do, but would establish a study commission to prepare for eventual legalization, said Judiciary Committee vice chair Willem Jewett (D-Ripton).
Committee members who voted for the bill were: chair Maxine Grad (D-Moretown), Jewett, Barbara Rachelson (D-Burlington), Martin LaLonde (D-South Burlington), Chip Conquest (D-Newbury) and Bill Frank (D-Underhill).
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Thursday, April 7, 2016
The plan that the board’s majority approved was essentially what hospital officials put forward two weeks ago. As partners in the University of Vermont Health Network, the hospitals submitted the proposal jointly. The board deleted a proposed $3 million investment in health payment reform initiatives, redirecting that money to rate reduction.
The board wrestled for nearly two hours over what the two hospitals should do with their excess revenues. “We have been together, some of us, for five years, and we have never been at this point,” chair Al Gobeille said of the stalemate. “The real question is, can the two camps come together?”
The answer turned out to be no.
Tags: Green Mountain Care Board , University of Vermont Medical Center , Central Vermont Medical Center , Rutland Regional Medical Center , Al Gobeille , Image , Web Only
Grad’s proposal will serve as a starting point for the 11-member committee as it nears decision time on whether to change the state’s marijuana laws. The panel appears unwilling to embrace a Senate-passed bill that would legalize sale and possession of marijuana starting in 2018.
Whether a majority of the House committee will find Grad’s plan too liberal, too conservative or just right remains unclear. The committee broke for the day immediately after Grad presented her bill.
“I know it will not go as far as some people will go, but it goes further than other people would like to go,” Grad told her committee.
Tags: Cannabeat , marijuana legalization , Vermont House , Image , Web Only
Tuesday, April 5, 2016
House Judiciary Committee chair Maxine Grad (D-Moretown) said she can’t envision a majority of her 11-member committee voting for the legalization bill that the Senate passed in February, which would allow the sale and possession of small amounts of marijuana in 2018. House leaders have been clear that the legislation faces tougher going in the House than it did in the Senate, where it passed 17-12.
“I don’t know how far people can go,” Grad said Tuesday.
“You think you can get six votes out of our committee for that? I don’t know,” committee vice chair Willem Jewett (D-Ripton) said Tuesday.
Tags: Cannabeat , Marijuana legalization , Maxine Grad , Shap Smith , Vermont legislature , Image , Web Only