Pennsylvania residents want adult-use marijuana but frown on state-run sales

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The majority of Pennsylvania voters support legalizing recreational cannabis, but they don’t want state-run stores selling the products, according to a poll.

State lawmakers recently unveiled legislation that calls for retail cannabis stores to be operated by Pennsylvania’s Liquor Control Board, a move that would heavily restrict private business opportunities.

The bill was introduced just days after Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf said he supports legalizing adult-use marijuana.

Since then, however, Wolf has met with governors from New York, New Jersey and Connecticut to discuss a regional strategy, and the governors agreed on core principles that would seem to suggest a private licensing system with some limits.

The poll, conducted by Franklin & Marshall College in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, found that 58% of registered voters in the state support legalizing rec marijuana, but an identical majority said they are “less likely” to support a plan to sell MJ products through state-run liquor stores.

The survey of 482 registered voters had a margin of error of 6.1% plus or minus.

Pennsylvania has more than 600 state-run liquor stores, according to the Pennsylvania Capitol-Star.

Senate Republicans have said they have no intention of voting on the marijuana legalization bill.

But experts believe pressure to consider legalization, such as a plan that could be forthcoming from the Wolf administration, will grow if New Jersey and/or New York legalize adult use.

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