Garrity says no to approving recreational cannabis on her watch
Probable Republican candidate for governor Stacy Garrity said during an interview that if proposed legislation to end the prohibition on recreational cannabis ever reached her desk, she would veto it.
“I don’t support legalizing recreational marijuana,” said the state treasurer, said in an interview with NBC10 Philadelphia.
“Recreational marijuana will not end up in the budget,” she said. When asked by the NBC10 reporter if she would veto such a bill, Garrity said, “yes.”
She admitted that she did not take a policy stand during her campaign for reelection as State Treasurer, noting that it was not her decision as “she was not a legislator.”
But Garrity also slammed the door on the possibility of Senate Republicans using the issue as a negotiating tool during FY27 budget talks.
“They’re never going to pass it,” she said. “Not as long as Senate Republicans are in charge of the Senate.”
This is at odds with the Shapiro administration’s budget proposal.
“Governor Shapiro has made clear that we need to catch up — practically every one of our neighbors has legalized marijuana and is benefiting from hundreds of millions of dollars in economic activity and revenue — and this important step by the federal government only adds support to the Governor’s proposal,” Shapiro spokesperson Rosie Lapowsky told The Center Square. “The Shapiro Administration stands ready to work with the General Assembly to take advantage of this opportunity to legalize marijuana and make our Commonwealth more competitive and more just.”
Shapiro announced his support for the legalization of recreational marijuana in 2019, while he was serving his first term as the state’s attorney general.
Since being elected governor in 2022, he has called on lawmakers to approve an adult-use program – even including the purported tax revenues in all of his budget plans. If enacted July 1, the administration believes legalization would rake in $729 million.
The state’s Independent Fiscal Office (IFO) reported in February that legalizing cannabis in Pennsylvania would generate nearly half a billion dollars in annual revenue by 2028, an estimate that is a significantly larger cash windfall compared to projections from Shapiro’s own office.
Two weeks ago, the Trump administration moved medical marijuana from one of the most restricted drug classifications to a less regulated category, a historic shift that delivers a tax break to cannabis businesses but stops short of federal legalization.
Acting U.S. Attorney General Todd Blanche issued an order immediately placing both FDA-approved marijuana products and marijuana regulated by state medical licenses in Schedule III of the Controlled Substances Act.
The legislative developments come as a recent poll shows that seven out of ten Pennsylvania likely voters support legalizing adult-use marijuana – including majority backing for the reform across party lines.
When asked whether they “support or oppose the regulation and taxation of legal cannabis for use by adults 21 and older in Pennsylvania,” 69 percent of respondents said yes. Support was strongest from Democrats, at 72 percent, but also includes 67 percent of Republicans and 64 percent of independents.
Steve Ulrich is the managing editor of PoliticsPA where this article originally appeared.
