Maryland legalized marijuana July 1st; What has the state seen since?

• Scott LaMar
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  Scott LaMar has worked in both radio and television for more than four decades.
  
  Currently, LaMar is the Host and Executive Producer of The Spark program on WITF-FM, 89.5 & 93.3 in Harrisburg, Pa.
  
  Previously, LaMar was WITF TV’s Sr. Public Affairs producer and produced the station’s award-winning weekly public affairs TV program, Smart Talk.
  
  In addition to his on-air duties, LaMar has moderated political candidate debates, including those for candidates running for Pennsylvania governor and the U.S. Senate and was a regular contributor to BBC World News TV before and after the 2020 U.S. Presidential election.
  
  LaMar often emcees or moderates local events and has gone as far as California to emcee a national event.
  
  The American Society of Civil Engineers honored LaMar with their national Excellence in Journalism award in 2020. He has been nominated for five Mid-Atlantic Emmy Awards.
  
  LaMar and The Spark have been recognized throughout the Central Pennsylvania community including ADVOZ Lancaster’s “Dignity in Dialogue Award”, the South-Central Assembly’s “Regional Citizen Award” and was named a “Humanitarian Hero” by The Humane Society of the United States/Pennsylvania.
  
  A native of Coatesville, Pa., LaMar has also worked as a broadcast news anchor, sports play-by-play announcer and manager.

Neon sign advertising legal, medical marijuana dispensary in store window.

Airdate: July 17th, 2023

Legalizing marijuana for recreational purposes has been proposed once in Pennsylvania. For years, Republicans, who held majorities in both the State House and Senate said legal pot wasn’t going to happen. But now Democrats have a majority in the House, there’s a Democratic Governor who supports legalization, and a few Republicans have come out in favor of making marijuana legal for adult use.

Maryland became the latest state and state bordering Pennsylvania to legalize adult use marijuana July 1^st. Last year, Maryland voters approved a referendum to legalize adult use marijuana by about a two-thirds majority.

Pamela Wood, a state house reporter for Baltimore Banner, was on The Spark Monday and said the first two-and-a-half weeks of marijuana sales have been successful,”Maryland had a medical cannabis program. So there was already the infrastructure in place with growers, processors and dispensaries. Those are the retail stores. The vast majority of the dispensaries were given the option to pay a big fee and convert their license from medical to general use. So we had about a hundred retail locations throughout the state where selling weed gummies, extracts, all the products starting July 1st. And it went gangbusters right from the start.”

About $21 million worth of marijuana was legally sold in Maryland during the first week. There’s a state sales 9% tax on marijuana. Wood said the state estimates sales of up to $600 million for the first year.

Wood said she is curious whether Pennsylvanians will travel to Maryland to buy weed, even though that’s illegal,”What I’m interested to see is will they figure out are people crossing state lines to come into Maryland? We’re bordered by Pennsylvania, Delaware, Virginia, D.C. D.C. and Virginia have legalized the use of cannabis, but they don’t have markets in place. So are people crossing the border? Are people driving down 83 to come down to a health center or to Timonium to buy? We don’t know that yet. Legally, you’re not supposed to cross the state line and then cross back out. But you got to believe people are doing that.”