CONCORD — A New Hampshire legislative committee considering a “tax-and-regulate” scheme for marijuana came within two votes this Wednesday of recommending passage of the bill to the full N.H. House of Representatives. After the vote failed 8–10, the committee then voted overwhelmingly, 16–2, to send the bill to interim study—not killing the bill, but holding onto it for further analysis.

This result stunned many supporters of the bill, who initially thought the bill would have no chance of passage and saw the bill merely as a trial balloon this time around.

HB1652, sponsored by Rep. Calvin Pratt of Goffstown (R–Hillsborough 7) is a bill that would legalize, regulate, and tax marijuana instead of outright prohibiting it, similar to the scheme proposed by Assembly Bill 390 in California. The full title of the bill is “An act allowing purchase and use of marijuana by adults, regulating the purchase and use of marijuana, and imposing taxes on the wholesale and retail sale of marijuana.”

Current penalties for simply possession of marijuana start at $420 for the first offense and rise to $600 on subsequent offenses. Distribution is a felony. This bill would establish a tax rate of $45 per ounce for wholesalers and a 19% tax for consumers. Licensed distributors and wholesalers would pay a yearly $1,000 license fee, comparable to the current liquor licensing régime.

Debate in the Criminal Justice Committee’s executive session prior to the vote concentrated on the utter failure of prohibition and how the State is currently in dire need of additional tax revenue.

“We control alcohol. We tax alcohol. We need to maybe give this a shot—see how it works,” Rep. Elaine Swinford (R–Belknap 5) told her fellow committee members.

“This goes against everything that I was raised to believe in,” Rep. Larry Gagne (R–Hillsborough 13) said. “However, after talking to two people I hold dear, my son and my daughter, … both said the same thing that people in these committees who testified have said. I went back and researched a little bit on Prohibition. What a mess that was. … All hell broke lose. We had gangs, and we had the Mafia; we had all kinds of people doing things.”

Other lawmakers expressed similar sentiments.

“One of the strongest things I vote for is freedom. If a person wants to smoke a joint, I’m not going to tell them they can’t. It’s his body, it’s his choices, it’s his decisions,” Rep. Robert Willette (R–Hillsborough 6) added.

Rep. Barbara McCarthy (D–Rockingham 5) went on to say that, “I think all the evidence is there. Not just that prohibition doesn’t work—the war on drugs doesn’t work.”

No one spoke in outright opposition to passage. Rep. Gene Charron (R–Rockingham 7) was opposed to hastily passing the bill and recommended that the bill go to interim study so it can be further analyzed. Several other legislators agreed, and a decision to further study the bill was the ultimate outcome of the executive session.

Four years ago, the same legislative committee wouldn’t even consider the much less dramatic “decriminalization” of marijuana, that is, treating marijuana possession similar to a traffic ticket rather than a criminal offense. Since then, through no small effort by volunteers and activists around the state, the New Hampshire legislature has slowly come around to first supporting decriminalization (which passed the House in 2008, but died in the Senate), then medical marijuana (which failed by nine votes in the House in 2007, but passed both chambers in 2009, only to be vetoed by Governor John Lynch), and now, shockingly, the outright legalization scheme presented this year by a group of pro-liberty legislators and supported by activists from the New Hampshire Coalition for Common Sense Marijuana Police, the New Hampshire Liberty Alliance, and other organizations.

The bill’s co-sponsors are Reps. Joel Winters (D–Hillsborough 17), Timothy Comerford (R–Rockingham 9), and Carla Skinder (D–Sullivan 1). The committee members who voted to pass the bill were Reps. Timothy Robertson (D–Cheshire 3), Delmar Burridge (D–Cheshire 3), Elizabeth Rodd (D–Merrimack 5), Barbara McCarthy, David Welch (R–Rockingham 8), Larry Gagne, Elaine Swinford, and Robert Willette. Those opposed were Reps. Roger Berube (D–Strafford 2), Lori Movsesian (D–Hillsborough 22), Shannon Chandley (D–Hillsborough 6), Gene Charron, Robert Fesh (R–Rockingham 5), Everett Weare (R–Rockingham 4), Stanley Stevens (R–Carroll 4), Moe Villenueve (R–Hillsborough 18), Stephen Shurtleff (D–Merrimack 10), and Laura Pantelakos (D–Rockingham 16).

Jeremy J. Olson (J’raxis 270145) is a liberty activist from Grafton, New Hampshire. He is Director of Research for the N.H. Liberty Alliance, and writes for several other liberty projects, including 420 at 4:20 in New Hampshire, the N.H. Courtroom Legal Opposition Group, the Citizens Union to Reform Sex Offender Registration, and the Manchester Free Press.