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senator daylin leach was co-author of acts 16 which legalized medical marijuana in Pennsylvania signed into law in April 2016 the first dispensaries opened two years later in February 2018 and since then over two hundred thousand patients have had access to cannabis as medicine now leeches co-author of Senate bill 350 which would legalize growing processing transporting and consuming campus in the state of Pennsylvania many are giving it high praise as an all encompassing bill that would address the most important issues around legalization welcome to the dispensed magazine podcast I'm your host Vann Rossford in past episodes we've heard from Lieutenant Governor John Fetterman and the bill's other co-author senators Sharif Street on the importance of keeping a strong medical program when adult use becomes legal today we'll talk to Senator daylin leach about the details of SB 350 I'll be joined in the questioning by dispensed magazine CEO felon barreiro as we discuss home grow and unannounced inspections will talk jobs taxes and social justice and of course we'll talk to him about the impact on the medical program in Pennsylvania here's our conversation with Senator daylin leach welcome senator leach thank you so much for having me today first thing we need to do is thank you for this bill Philadelphia Inquirer reported that less stark director of the Keystone cannabis coalition said that if it passes it could become the gold standard of legalization bill for the free world the gold standard well first we like to say it's not just the v-world we're hoping it also that authorizes the dictatorships and military hunters but beyond that I will tell you that we it's very seriously we spent a long time with a better part of the year reaching out to experts reaching out to people who did this sort of thing before and others aides either well or not well what lessons they learn travelled all across country meeting with people tried to bring stakeholders in to get their views and it's very difficult because it's not it's not like there's a clear path to perfection in fact perfection is very elusive but in terms of a quality bill there are a lot of important values you want to have represented in equality bill unfortunately some of those values are in competition with each other and it's like squeezing a balloon you solve a problem and that another one pops up you know and so we at there were times we had sort of you know by defying the sweet spot between different competing interests and you know we did our best to do that but we fit our bill is a ambitious be fair in the sense that it contains a lot of social justice components which are important given the suffering that particularly poor minority communities have endured under prohibition and it we think creates a protocol that allow the industry to thrive will be user friendly for consumers and enable us to you know 10 20 years now have something that's really we can all be proud of beautiful well that's you know I think most people in agreement that it's one of the best crafted bills but of course we have to start with where the most complaints are coming so yeah absolutely people don't want to know this want to know that right now and I know you like to get right into the fisticuffs part of it right away so let's start with the home grow a lot of people are squawking about the $50 $50 fee to get into that why why is that in there first of all there are it I wanted to say as a general matter that not everything the bill is how I would do things if I were a dictator if I were a dictator things would be very different I mean for example both of you would be in prison long but I would say that you know there were effort you know when we met about this bill everyone members who met about the bill we had many sessions where we would just scream at each other and and argue about these things and try to come up with the best thing and so let me explain the the protocol about homegrown first of all home grow is one of the heaviest lifts politically in terms of the components of this bill we wanted home bro in the medical bill we had to give that up there was too much opposition to that similarly for reasons that are you and I may agree with or disagree with there are people who just find home bro even if they're willing to support the concept of legalization home grows a bridge too far and so I had to try to make it as palatable as I could to people who had concerns in order for it to have any chance of it passing as it stands if we get home crow in some form in the bill that passes it will be a minor miracle okay and so I I did I didn't want to be too in-your-face with the home grow okay I wanted to be like we understand your concerns Bubba yes you're really gonna make on the home girl I noticed that well the home was 10 and you know that's a significant now I would also note that if you're a medical patient and and and if it's a strain if you can grow home grow that replaces your medicine your fifty dollars per year will save you thousands of dollars per year so I mean I think that's a reasonable investment the other thing people are complaining about online and so forth is that we allow the bill contemplates allowing inspections yes absolutely now let me talk to the sticking point yes let me talk about the inspection thing okay first of all the inspections would not be done by the police they would be done by the Department of Agriculture they are far less intimidating group of people they also have responsibility for and inspecting met hundreds of other facilities including you know poultry farms and you know alfalfa fields and processing plants and stuff so they're way understaffed there they're not going to be going to people's houses just randomly and saying critter no reason oh you know this guy has John Smith has a growth permit so let's just check it out make sure he's got ten plants or whatever there the likelihood is that they're only going to go when they hear that someone is committing a major having a major problem and this goes to the concerns with the other side raised which is that for the people who are reluctant raised is the other side is different but and they said someone gets a home broke permit so they can grow weed in their house or whether or their garage or whatever it is but they instead of growing ten plants they grow 200 and they wind up to supplying themselves as a black market dealer without a conventional license to grow and distribute all that and they said the only way we can be sure that that's not going to happen is if we have the possibility of spot inspections so to tell it's a deterrent where then you know it's more of a deterrent than anything else be they not like if again I given the history of the Department of Agriculture this is not going to be a massive let's just bust through the doors and you search everyone who's growing you know six plants at home it's gonna be really and probably if they get evidence that someone is growing 200 plants or doing something really illegal the department agriculture probably isn't going to take care of that they're gonna turn that over to the police and then the police will get a warrant and take care of it exactly and you know what that's actually one of the things I found very interesting about this was that in implementing this bill you actually have given the control to the Department of Agriculture rather than the Department of Health what was kind of thinking in that and why why did that happen well I mean because we're just trying to be consistent with other parts of the law the Department of Health was relevant to the medical program because it's medicine by recreational I'm the user I know we're supposed to say you don't use but I'm gonna pretend this is a safe space I know I know it's just harder it's like one of those things that's awkward to say over and over and over but okay a dull use the thing about don't use is it's not medicine and there is no really Department of Health component it is a commodity that's grown in the ground and you know bears fruit its agriculture so we're just trying to be consistent with our the law one of the big values I talked about values earlier one of the main values we had in writing the bill was no stigma so we're not we're not we're not validating anything that stigmatizes cannabis beyond what it should be stigmatized as a an intoxicant so in other words we have to deal with things like DUI and other things but you know like for example on the medical program there are you know you can't grow you can't have a dispensary within 500 feet of a church presumably because people can't pray knowing that there's a dispensary okay meanwhile you can you can have a CVS in a church and a CBS sells opioids that's right like that's nothing but irrational stigmatization so we're not buying into that is a plan this is a plant that grows and we're gonna treat it like other plants that grow and that was the theory behind it we're also none of these go fifty-five hundred thousand feet away from this or that none of that crap and that's the other reason we also have like cannabis lounges because you can go to an alcohol lounge they call them bars and you can drink you know responsibly in an alcohol alg there's no reason you should be able to do that with cannabis and that's one of the reasons we were insisted on putting cannabis lounges in there we're definitely gonna get to that just a couple more points on the home grow before we leave that topic so give us a definition of home does that include the property that the home is on and the reason we asked that question is because in the micro grower tier of your of your of your law here what we see is that you have a provision in here that says that your micro grow has to be in actual home of the place that the grower lives in you know I don't know if you've ever been to one of these types of grows but 150 plants in your personal house is kind of crazy so you know most of these people with these types of licenses will have greenhouses on their home property and things like that could you see we defining of the word home perhaps in this bill yeah and keep in mind just so people know when you pass a big like a bill not a complicated bill the bill may be 30 pages long 40 pages long then it gets to the regulatory process the regulations might be two three four hundred pages long in other words the vast majority of these finer details are worked out in the regulatory process by the department that they that that that oversees the program which actually which actually gives us another question you know with the Department of Health we had a regulatory but a regulatory body an advisory board do you see the creation of some sort of a regulatory body here I mean I know we have the agriculture of Health or the Department of Agriculture but do you see the creation of another type of advisory board perhaps for this in the future that may be and I keep my the other thing people should know is this bill I mean I I'd love it to pass word for word you know in the legislative process things get chopped up and changed a bit we're gonna fight for the important things but I mean we're gonna have pushback on some of this so you know everyone should be aware of that the advisory board the problem was with medical medical a lot of the when you're dealing with medicine people are much more sort of persnickety about what the regs say in terms of many details because it's net isn't on the adult use side there'll be a lot of regulations but I think the Department of Agriculture might be better equipped to do it to do it internally then the Department of Health was because when they got the bill none of them there had any experience with cannabis and it was completely and now you know there's a lot of plagiarizing you can do from other states and other other resources that we may or may not need an advisory board keep in mind the advisory board survived the initial temporary regulation process and you know bill meets to deal with things like adding conditions and other things like that so I'm not sure well you know one of the things we want to deal with is we in order to answer your question is we want to meet the Department of Agriculture people and see what their expertise is and their level of comfort is we have not been Eve to do that and so recently or because the administration would not let us meet with them prior to them endorsing the concept of recreation or adult uses of cannabis you so I'm saying because they didn't want to look like they were tacitly supporting something when they had not announced it now they have announced it as only a couple weeks ago so we're still setting things up but now I think we'll have a clearer path to deal with some of the people in the department and try to figure out what what's the best way to go about it is I mean I don't know much about agriculture I represent a suburban district I grow a few tomato plans I think I have the biggest farm and like in my district so it's a you know I don't know much about those issues so I'm gonna hopefully get some good input from the department that'll guide us terms the best way to draft the regs one less detail at home grow is that one permit per house or one permit per person what if you have three or four people living in a house it'll be per house otherwise I mean one of the things that I guess the people you know there are the people who are reluctant are could be concerned about based on my discussions with them is that you know someone could just rent a house and like have 18 people move into it right and then you can grow 180 or no I'm sorry 1,800 plants you know at a certain point it becomes silly so you know the the home bro is meant to be for personal consumption and you know think you can treat you can treat it like craft beer you can brew your own beer you can't sell it you can give us you can have friends over to drink with you but you but you can't sell it and it's gonna be the same thing here that actually that's extremely that's extremely logical we appreciate you explaining that to us I think that kind of takes care of our home group portion of things we move a little bit into what we seen here in the business aspect of things one of the big things that popped out that I heard a lot of people talking about was the 17.5% tax that's at point of sale can we get into a little bit about that I noticed that you know even after I did the math it seems as though your products will be cheaper than they are currently in the medical program even with the 17.5% tax so I guess Michael how did you guys come up with that did you anticipate that and I'm not sure they'll be cheaper and again again hey I'm not an economist or I'm not an expert I try to learn as much as I can but I'm not an expert in the cannabis economics of cannabis so okay you know again there's so that's number one number two we were told when we met with experts - that you gotta have a tax rate that's you know high enough that you're getting revenue that you need but low enough that it does not engender a robust black market and we and you know the number like we a lot everyone had a different opinion but like the number was about 20% like like don't go about too much about 20 because then as a black markets gonna take over so so we decided after yelling and screaming you know to go come close to 20 without going over that made change we want medical to be what we want several things for medical because a robust medical program is important that we want that to remain for a variety of reasons among the things we want to do is obviously a lower tax rate from medical also there's obviously some strains in medical that would not be attractive in an adult use capacity let you know and things like not yeah not intoxicating strains although I wonder if people will be smoking like CB joint CBD joints the way they drink cold beer we already are we already are we already are that's more of the hemp industry you know so he let us question about that just just its concerned that tax rate because we don't want to drill you too hard on that I think that's a great number the but it's enacted at the point of sale between dispensaries and patients the
e'll be a lot of business millions of dollars moving between processors and dispensaries and growers does this tax apply to them at that point of sale or do you have another plan for that well no I mean our theory is that it's built into the price in other words the dispensary can't eat you know like they they're gonna have to you know reflect the total price of the product or selling in what in you know that's gonna have to go up and down the market number one number your little monkey control that thing yeah well I want to make a point about that but number two number the other thing about that is that you know obviously they're also be taxes collected from those businesses income taxes and business privilege taxes and other sorts of taxes um as well what you're talking about in terms of having a tax at every stage is like a value-added tax right and we got a bunch of people who told us that was a bad idea for eating like I didn't fully understand that and don't can't repeat now but uh it this was concerned the best way to do it although we will be capturing taxes at every step of the way let me just say this about the free market all of that facts and this is weird for me because I'm like a pretty liberal Democrat I don't go out and give a lot of speeches about the the the joys of the market but in this context we wanted to leave as many things as we reasonably could and we just we argued about what those were to the market because frankly if we put it in the bill we're just pulling it out of the air and we don't know what the demands gonna be exactly we don't know what types of strains and what doesn't mad and what do you graphical differences they're gonna be okay and so like at the end of the day you know if you want to open a pizza shop if you're good you'll do well if you're not there's other pizza shops and that like it seems like the same the same thing should apply to the industry that's why we don't have a limit on licenses we're like we had like if we put a limit on the number of licenses which include micro pros because we want social justice components right we would just be making up a number and who knows if that's the right number so we we feel it'll it'll be a the first couple years may be a little rocky in terms of a mass explosion of people in the business thumb will make it some long and then it'll stabilize in like we saw in California just like you saw in Colorado exactly and that's just like we see in other industries sure that's great well I appreciate that you say you you want to keep the medical program and keep it robust and so I wanted to if that's why or why why was the seed to sale tracking system and testing protocols not required on the adult use side so okay we when we talk to people we there's a few issues part of it is economic part of it distinctive ization like the seed to sale to me on the adult use side is a stigma like like we don't we don't track every potato we use to make vodka right and so why are we worried oh and so the big the big reason for seed to sale in medical is because diversion is a huge concern but in its own use if you're not diverting it to kids who cares having diversions are much less of an issue so we don't have to track everything and it's a major burden on businesses to have to you know do all of that and I don't see the benefit of it with our philosophy on the consumer and their relationship with the businesses is there's one we have one guiding lodestar in this program which is an accurate label so a dispensary has to have a label on every product which says you know how much THC how much CBD whatever whatever your mold testing is and does whatever is and it has to be accurate and there will be spot inspections and if you sell something with an inaccurate label there will be severe penalties how you get that label to be accurate you know whether you do testing whether you require your grower to do testing whether you you know all of that other sort of thing that's up to you and you can negotiate the best protocol and the most economical protocol that makes you feel comfortable that you're not going to get busted for selling something that's misleading so we leave it to that we say we want the consumers to be protected we want them to know what they're getting how you do that is up to you and as long as you're accurate you can do it any way you want that is more of a free-market approach and say it so like I don't know why you have to track every plan and the context of adult use it's never made sense to me the only argument I heard and we did your arguments the only argument I heard that made any sense to me was in case there's a recall but again you can do recalls bike and and by strain if there's a problem with lettuce we don't track every plant we just say you know a dull lettuce you know is recall from the farm exactly well you know one of the main things you've brought up one of the points that you just brought up that I think is just extremely important to touch on very quickly is how big of a factor social justice was in coming up with a lot of this you know you keep mentioning that and one of the main things that sticks out to me is the low barriers to entry here you know you've really given Pennsylvanians a chance to kind of enter the industry at their own pace and at their own level and you know kind of compete with it some of these larger corporations that came in and completely dominated the medical industry so yeah no I agree we didn't want that again there are reasons we had to make barriers to entry on the medical side high for both political and you know medical but in terms of adult use that's that that is not necessary and we wanted you know again if I don't know if your listeners are hip to all the history but I'm sure it's a hippest audience on radio I would I would say this that the adult like like in the history of this there's a book called chasing The Scream if anyone's interested in a detailed recounts of this but at the end of the day there was a guy named Harry Anslinger who was basically decided to demonize cannabis and lied about and this was a program based born of based on and nurtured and sustained by racism whether it's Anslinger John Ehrlichman Nixon's guy and you know disparity disparity in sentencing and arrests and all that prohibition is a racist policy and so we feel that people of color and poorer people should have the opportunity to at least have some of the benefits of the industry not just not being input you know the criminal justice system anymore but economically so we my dream is you know and again the market will decide all this because some people will try to grow it and they'll suck at it you know but my true my dream is that you know I'm and by the way some of the big growers that we have now I'm not going to mention any names the big people spent a lot of money seem to suck it absolutely so you know that's not a that's up and down the chain but you know I want I want I'm fine with Budweiser but I also want you know your craft is I want craft beers IPAs I went all that sort of thing too and so then the consumer has the best the crew the greatest choice also we've also noticed that you've come down greatly on the punishments for you know violations and things like that you're actually not packing jails with cannabis offenders even if you know they happen to make a mistake during the implementation of this program your penalties are actually completely reasonable and fair you know we see lines we're not seeing a lot of jail time we don't see people locked up for years you know yeah I mean look we have a massive over-incarceration program a problem which the war on drugs has contributed greatly to and we you know we want people to like you know putting people it's my view this is a broader issue but my philosophy always been but like jail prison should mostly be for people who like hit other people over their head and take stuff or people who eat other people or people and you know like you know we don't we don't need to be there's other there's other remedies and so we have well technically our automatic but the burden is on the DEA is not on the on the people who are convicted we have a quasi automatic expungement of cannabis offenses which we love well yeah people need to understand because there's been some confusion on some of the other tutorials wherever if you rob a bank and when you're arrested you also have weed on you you still have to serve your time for robbing the bank okay that that's not expunged but the but you know yeah every sin not only are you is expunged and your record cleared but it's not an impediment to getting a job in the industry and so that's that's a big part of it the microlights helping or a big deal that's helping a lot of people a lot of yeah and by the way that's going to be another area of pushback other things that's a whole other podcast we're gonna try to focus on the positive aspects of here okay I do we do love the the social justice aspect opening the jails expunging the records giving them access little barriers of entry of the grants and interest-free loans education these are wonderful wonderful things to me one of the most exciting aspects is just the number of jobs that are going to be created by small entrepreneurs and I thought we might dive into that a little bit uh-huh do you have any estimates on the number of jobs us might create no you know what I don't also top my head but I just read something I think yesterday about Illinois was at put out an estimate of jobs and keep in mind that's uh the their estimate I think it was like 63,000 or so um does this ring a bell to either of you guys but anyway it's just what's in the last day or two i but but and then Illinois is a demographically similar States ours right but beyond that you know that just counts cannabis jobs that doesn't count all the other ancillary jobs again cuz I love you guys you guys go to Vegas for like MJ is absolutely oh look Mia send me an email let me know I'll be there for a week so let me know when you'll be there but the you know you've been on the exhibit floor it's not just you know the people who touch the plant or people who make vape pens it's everything from marketing to advertising to packaging signage to I mean to Clippers to soil strains to everything like there's thousands of books that MJ biz of businesses that are servicing the cannabis industry you know whenever I go and speak publicly always there's always some person who's like hey they should you know open the dorito and next all right yeah I guess but I mean it's like but you know that's not I mean you know frankly that's a flippant way of saying that there's gonna be a lot of businesses that are created and sustained and grow as a result of countlessly being legal the only the only business to all is the private prison industry which is rank you know we'd like to see that go away entirely exactly well just I think it's real exciting for people to know that you know I about one out of every three women I meet says that they want to become a chef and start making infused food that's allowed under this bill you've got use lounges you've got delivery license so somebody can start their own over weed company yeah absolutely all three of those things right there or you know kind of very close to the plant if not touching the plant but really just as you said there's no limit on the number of permits anybody that qualifies can get out there and start a business like this right and like everything else some will fail and people should understand that it's a competitive business I was out in California where they were doing the thing where they could they grow they were taking micro growers and they were dispensaries were we're taking some other product and testing it and seeing if they wanted to buy it it's hard to grow good I'm not an expert on this I'm told it's very hard to broker cannabis and so people people need to be aware that it's like any other business there's no magic to it I have a good friend who's running a Christmas Co who runs dispenser three dispensaries for Terra Vita and she's doing killing it in a way that's it and the way that other dispensaries are not and I said you know what's the secret and she said the secret is that cannabis is not magic cannabis is like selling shoes it's like you got to get out there you got a market you got to go to conferences trade whatever it is you gotta get out there it's not like you just like hang a marijuana leaf on a window and thousands of people will come you you know it's a competitive business and you're gonna have to when I was in Vegas last year there was I don't know I don't know what their limits are or whatever but there was a dispensary like in every lock every box I'm head - yeah and like I don't I don't know how they all sustain themselves maybe it's you know the tourism industry was definitely a tourism I research that a little bit it's definitely tourism yeah so you know but I mean that's that's the market there they have that many people willing to buy then you'll have thousands of dispensaries if it's less I mean you know then you'll have fewer let's let's talk about the kind of feedback that you are getting of course you're getting the fawning praise from people like us and I know you said you mentioned you're getting pushback from the private prison industry we're getting praise or pushback I'm getting ironically I get pushback from the extremes on both sides of the issue the people who the the people who have you know reefer madness on a continuous loop in their living room who you know think of cannabis as jazz cabbage or whatever it is Oh sobs broccoli yeah yes the temples alfalfa it's like it is those people obviously are not happy with the bill but there's also the the purists and I say this with love but you know purist is that this is not the only issue that I've dealt with your ass on purists are I understand their their purity of heart but there is no such thing as a pure bill no major importance of legislation is ever pure there's always compromises you have to make on the way now at a certain point you have to compromise so much that it's not worth it anymore but we're not gonna be anywhere near that and met like when I did medical people were like no home bro that's it pull the bill I'm like let me think what a tragedy that would have been yeah that would have been terrible it actually would mean terrible people have been up in arms about that so I guess we want to thank you for your time and I guess you have one last question for you here and it kind of relates today you know what do you need from us to help kind of smooth this through like what can the people do to help defeat the opposition to this what do you need - this is really important because a secret ballot it would cast tomorrow like yeah but it's not a secret ballot so politicians are timid creatures and they need to be nurtured and they need to know people have their back so for everyone out there if you you know particularly I'm not trying to be partisan but we need some Republicans because that really helps they're like one Republicans worth for Democrats right now in terms of the the bang for the buck and moving the bill forward so if it go to your legislator democrat or republican and meet with them and convince them and bring other people and have other meetings and just you know follow me out stalk them essentially and here's the tip when you meet with a legislator and they're like you know what for this I agree with you whatever don't just say thank you because often legislators say that and they say the same thing to the opposite side all right and hoping they never have to vote on it this is what you do if you go meet with a legislature and they're supportive say do you mind if I take a picture with you now and tweet that you just endorsed the marijuana bill okay make it count make it maybe count and if they won't let you do that if they won't let you do that then there are not being straight with you you know I don't know if you're aware de lijn but the there is a large component of the cannabis industry that is very Pro Trump and that's that surprised me at first but then not so much anymore so
would think that if we could get those people especially to go to their Republican legislators that might have a little bit more push oh yeah know if if your name is moonflower and you have you know you wear flowers in your hair and whatever ate you know you that's great I love that but you may not have a lot of juice with like you know some hardcore conservatives so yeah people like to agree with people who they think are like them so get get some Trump supporters who I mean frankly Donald Trump I'm not a fan of Donald Trump's but one thing I would say about Donald Trump is I don't think he cares one way or another I think he cares about money and he cares about so like this isn't it like the you know if if anything he would like to invest in it so like John Boehner but like if you can go if you're a trump supporter you can go and talk about how the government should stay out of our lives and not arrest people for smoking a plant and how the government should stay out of the way of entrepreneurs you want to make a living and all that sort of thing I always say there's three types of conservatives there's economic conservatives who should be with us because this is an economic bonanza there are libertarian conservatives who should be with us because they're against government controlling their lives and then there are social conservatives who live in her that someone's having fun somewhere they're not with okay but but the others are so you get some Trump supporters out there so you convince their lives they're Republican legislators have murder megawhatts to the exact they know what I just had a brilliant idea someone should make this is gonna make some a lot of money no I never make any money on this someone should print up Magga hats with marijuana leaves on them there you go I'm on it I'm on it thank you all right donate some to the next Relation campaign well suddenly I want to give you one last chance anything we did not cover in this discussion here that you want to make sure we touch on no only that this will be you know like there is no downside to this prohibition is one of the single dumbest policies in American history and evil policies and you know we will be doing a great service to individuals to our economy so our whole culture if we eliminate it as soon as possible this will pass 100% guarantee this will pass the question is when and my job and your job is to make that day come sooner because every day we're a prohibition still in effect is an injustice senator Lisa have been great having you here it's definitely we really want to thank you for the hard work that you put in you know I'm a lonely man that's it for this episode of the dispense magazine podcast we look forward to hearing your feedback on this episode and on this issue through our social media and website if you are in a legal state and you'd like to find a certifying physician or dispensary near you visit dispense magazine.com and search our free online database you can find copies of our print magazine in every Pennsylvania dispensary as well as doctors offices holistic centers and retail locations across the state to find out where or to read a copy online visit dispensed magazine.com on behalf of felon Barreiro I'm Sven Hosford thanks for listening this has been a production of dispense magazine LLC
