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‘Tornado of Misinformation’ Spawns Bill Limiting County Authority Over Cannabis

An effort by some counties to use zoning to limit if not prevent the opening of cannabis dispensaries has drawn the ire of the powerful chair of a House committee in Annapolis.

House and Senate panels are considering legislation that would make it tougher for local governments to restrict where cannabis dispensaries can locate. House Economic Matters Committee Chair Del. C.T. Wilson (D-Charles) said counties are trying to countermand the newly legalized cannabis market and the state’s efforts to limit if not end illegal sales.

In the months that followed the first legal recreational sales in July, some counties looked to zoning to slow the opening of new dispensaries. Those efforts are now the focus of legislation designed to block those attempts, which sometimes seek to prevent any sales of the drug or are born out of the concerns about the clustering of alcohol and tobacco shops in Black and brown communities.

“This was thought out,” said Wilson, speaking of the state’s entry into legal recreational cannabis sales. “This was not done randomly. And this is not about state control. It is about protecting people, protecting us and protecting a now legitimate business. So I want to make sure we understand that we are not here to stuff them, to cluster them.”

Wilson’s HB 805 prohibits counties from imposing zoning regulations more restrictive than those imposed on retail liquor stores. Current law prohibits dispensaries within 500 feet of a playground, recreation center, library, public park, or place of worship. Wilson’s bill qualifies that restriction to pre-existing facilities.

Wilson said he will ask for an amendment to increase the distance between dispensaries from 1,000 feet to 1,500 feet.

Counties can reduce but not increase the statutory distance requirements for dispensary locations.

Some lawmakers worry the bill will usurp county zoning authority.

Sen. Brian J. Feldman (D-Montgomery), chair of the Education, Energy and Environment Committee and sponsor of the identical SB 537, said the state has the same interest in ensuring cannabis dispensaries can open as it does ensuring counties allow clean energy production.

“We need energy,” said Sen. Alonzo T. Washington (D-Prince George’s), a member of the Senate Finance Committee. “We don’t need cannabis.”

Some legislators representing rural, mostly Republican counties, also oppose the proposed changes.

Del. Steven J. Arentz (R-Upper Shore) said counties such as those he represents are being punished for what has happened in other counties.

“You’re taking other people’s problems, making them ours,” said Arentz.

The bill has the support of the Maryland Association of Counties, which is proposing certain amendments.

The first would expand the minimum distance between dispensaries to 2,000 feet. The association also wants to keep dispensaries more than 100 feet from residential areas.

“If my kid’s out front playing in the yard, I think it’s reasonable to expect that they wouldn’t be 100 feet from a cannabis dispensary,” said Kevin Kinnally, legislative director for the association.

The state is about to dramatically expand its cannabis industry as the result of a 2023 law.

Currently, there are 101 licensed dispensaries in the state. The licenses are distributed relatively equally across the state’s 47 legislative districts. Another 75 licenses are about to be issued in a social equity round.

When it is all said and done, there will be a maximum of 300 dispensaries in the state.

There are about 6,500 liquor stores in the state.

Prince George’s County has 18.1 liquor stores per 100,000 people, according to the Prince George’s County Health Department.

That same county of roughly 1 million people is eligible for about 20 total cannabis dispensary licenses.

Nineteen of the state’s 24 major political subdivisions will receive between one and three of those social equity dispensary licenses in the coming round. Montgomery and Prince George’s counties will receive nine and 11 will go to Baltimore City, according to the Maryland Cannabis Administration.

“I honestly am sorry, I just don’t trust counties to do it because I’ve watched what they’ve done,” Wilson said. “They complain about the way the smoke shops open up and they give them [use and occupancy permits] and they give them health occupancy, the health licenses to open up.”

Last year, the Prince George’s County Council considered legislation prohibiting cannabis dispensaries in commercial zones. The bill would have pushed dispensaries into industrial areas, which include business parks. That bill was not acted on.

But the council, in a letter this month, asked the county’s legislative delegation to oppose Wilson’s bill.

Wilson blasted unnamed local officials who have complained their counties will be flooded with dispensaries in the same way liquor stores have proliferated or that the state law would allow vape and smoke shops to also sell cannabis. He complained about what he called “a tornado of misinformation.”

By Bryan P. Sears

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Medical Aid-in-Dying Legislation Teetering as Senators Deliberate How They’ll Vote

A controversial bill that would allow qualifying terminally ill patients to prompt their own death with the help of a physician might be in trouble again, after Senate President Bill Ferguson (D-Baltimore City) indicated Friday the legislation may not have enough support.

Advocates have been hopeful that 2024 would be the year that the Maryland General Assembly would pass medical aid-in-dying, after several unsuccessful attempts in previous sessions. And a recent poll suggests that a majority of Maryland voters would be supportive of having what the legislation calls “end-of-life options.”

Ferguson has previously said that he suspected the bill would receive a full Senate vote this year. Now it seems he’s less sure, creating an unclear future for the highly-controversial bill.

“If you don’t see it come to the [Senate] floor, it’s because we don’t have the votes in the committee or the floor to get there,” Ferguson told reporters Friday.

Discussions over medical aid-in-dying legislation tend to be highly emotional and sensitive, with hours of testimony from spouses and friends of those who have passed away from terminal illnesses on either side of the issue. Religious leaders and medical professionals are also divided on medical aid-in-dying legislation.

And the bill has received both bipartisan support and bipartisan opposition in previous sessions.

Ferguson said that he is regularly having discussions with senators to see where they stand on the contentious legislation, and that he is generally in favor of medical aid-in-dying options. But he’s not going to push for the bill to come to a vote unless he is sure that there are enough members in support.

“I think it’s one of those issues where if people don’t have to really think about it, they don’t think about it. Because it’s a hard concept and it’s an upsetting concept for a lot of people,” Ferguson said.

“So, it’s close, and I think there are some people who are trying to see, with the right protections, could they get there,” he added.

Both versions of the bill, SB 443 and HB 403, have been discussed in committee hearings, but neither have come to a vote.

The hold-up may be in the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee, as some members grapple with whether physicians should be allowed to help terminally ill patients with less than six months to live hasten their own death.

SB 433 would need a simple majority vote from the 11-member committee before it would go before the full Senate for debate and consideration.

“It’s very close,” Judicial Proceedings Chair William C. Smith Jr. (D-Montgomery) told Maryland Matters Friday.

Smith said there are a couple of committee members who are unsure if they would support the legislation, but he’s urging them to make a decision soon, one way or another.

“They’re wrestling with the issue. Rightfully so,” Smith said. “I’ve given folks the weekend to make the decision.”

Smith sponsored similar Medical aid-in-dying legislation back in 2019. That year, the bill passed narrowly in the House and then came to an end on the Senate floor when one senator chose not to vote at all, in violation of Senate rules, leading to a 23-23 tie vote and the bill’s demise.

“There’s a shadow over these discussions,” Smith said, reflecting on the fate of the 2019 legislation. “But it’s also instructive as to how difficult the issue is…which is why I am not pressuring anyone. Just ‘Hey, you got all the stuff you need. We do need to make a decision at some point.’ If they can just tell me and do so confidentially, I will keep that confidence.”

“In someone’s career, this is amongst one of the most challenging votes that we’ll undertake, as evidenced when I was a sponsor of this bill, when it failed to prevail… because one person, at the end of the day, couldn’t decide. And so I fully understand the pressure of the vote,” Smith said.

Similar to Ferguson, Smith said that he is giving the undecided members space to come to their own decision on the matter.

“This is something that, for me, I’ve not pressured any member on, I just want to know where they are, because this is a vote of conscience. You can’t try to persuade someone politically,” Smith said. “It’s something they just have to come to on their own.”

Sen. Jeff Waldstreicher (D-Montgomery), the bill’s chief sponsor and vice chair of Judicial Proceedings, said he is having conversations with his fellow committee members on the bill and that “many of them want to find a way to ‘yes.’”

Waldstreicher has eight co-sponsors, including Republican Sen. Chris West (Baltimore and Carroll), who serves on the panel. Smith and Sen. Ariana B. Kelly (D-Montgomery) are the other co-sponsors from the Judicial Proceedings Committee.

“This bill has a lot of guardrails and logistics attached to it,” Waldstreicher said. “That’s a good thing. That provides protections that we need to have in the bill. But it’s a big bill. It’s a lot of content, and I think members of my committee want to feel comfortable with every piece of the legislation before we take any vote.”

The House bill is not moving either at the moment. According to the bill sponsor of HB 403, Del. Terri Hill (D-Howard), the Health and Government Operations Committee is not going to act unless the Senate does.

“When the Senate moves it, we will move it,” said Hill, who is a physician. “I still think it’s an important piece of legislation and I hope we’re going to get it across the finish line this year.”

By Danielle J. Brown. Bryan P. Sears contributed to this report.

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More Juvenile Justice Bills Considered and They May Be Included in Bigger Package

Sen. Cory V. McCray (D-Baltimore City) testifies before the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee on Feb. 22, 2024. Photo by William J. Ford.

As Maryland’s top Democratic leaders continue to assess legislation to tweak the state’s juvenile justice system, all or portions of other juvenile-related bills could be incorporated in the bigger legislative package backed by the governor and key committee chairs.

Sen. Cory V. McCray (D-Baltimore City) wants the state Department of Juvenile Services (DJS) to report all shootings that involve juveniles who are under the department’s supervision.

The legislation McCray is sponsoring — Senate Bill 652 — would require the agency to document whether juveniles were involved in fatal and non-fatal shootings, the age of each individual and the jurisdiction where the juvenile resided. The DJS report would be required to describe the process and actions conducted by the department after each incident.

After McCray presented the bill before the Senate Judicial Proceedings Committee on Thursday, he said he doesn’t mind if his legislation gets included in the comprehensive Juvenile Law Reform bill.

“I don’t care who gets the credit. It needs to be done,” he said.

McCray said it’s important to know about all youth-involved shootings to help keep young people from retaliating or being retaliated against.

“How we do that is [to ensure] DJS [reaches youth] when they are supposed to,” McCray said.

The agency supports McCray’s legislation, according to a letter dated Wednesday from Karalyn Aanenson, director of legislation, policy, and reform for DJS. The letter states the agency already examines fatalities of youth under its care, but not non-fatal shootings.

The agency recommends that the Commission on Juvenile Justice Reform and Emerging and Best Practices review non-fatal shootings. That commission, established by 2022 juvenile justice reform measures, hasn’t been fully seated and its membership would more than double under this year’s proposed juvenile law labeled Senate Bill 744.

Sen. William C. Smith Jr. (D-Montgomery), chair of the Judicial Proceedings Committee, said the goal would be to allow McCray’s bill to go through the approval process and then incorporate it into overarching juvenile law measures.

Smith said portions of a bill sponsored by Sen. Chris West (R-Baltimore County) could also be included.

Similarities with West’s Senate Bill 636 include the creation of a smaller commission to review and assess the department’s education and treatment programs, make recommendations to improve the department and research evidence-based programs.

West’s bill would assess the costs of the department’s programs over the last five fiscal years.

He said it’s the most important bill he will sponsor during this year’s 90-day session “because of the imperative short- and long-term impact.”

“As we’re all aware by now, both chambers of the General Assembly and the governor [have] signaled their intention to make juvenile justice a top priority this session,” West told the committee. “Regardless of which side one might fall on the policy issues presented by the various juvenile bills pending before us, I think we all agree that it’s absolutely essential that the state of Maryland be in a position to provide effective treatment services to juveniles who have gotten themselves in trouble.”

Another juvenile-related bill being considered separately is Senate Bill 2 sponsored by Sen. Jill P. Carter (D-Baltimore City). The bill is named after NyKayla Strawder, a 15-year-old girl shot in August 2022 by a 9-year-old boy. The shooting took place in Carter’s district.

The bill was slated to be included into the larger juvenile law package, but some of NyKayla’s family traveled to Annapolis and urged lawmakers to make it a stand-alone bill.

The measure would require a police officer to file a complaint to the department if a child younger than 13 years old commits a crime “that results in the death of a victim.”

In addition, it would make it mandatory for an intake officer with the department to file a Children in Need of Supervision petition. The petition, also known as a CINS, enables law enforcement personnel, social service representatives, educators and residents to fill out a form so a troubled youth and the youth’s family can receive a variety of services.

Those referrals, which are managed by the department, have increased, but referrals are not being made in some jurisdictions.

By William J. Ford

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