State Rep. Helene Keeley’s campaign to legalize marijuana for adult recreational use has taught us many things, but none more basic than this: Delaware will legalize marijuana if and when the State Police say it can.
Keeley formed this task force because she couldn’t get her HB 110 to the floor for a vote, which means she didn’t have the votes, in a heavily Democratic chamber, to pass it. If getting everyone around a table was supposed to bring about consensus, it failed miserably, for a fairly obvious reason — not everyone at the table wanted the same thing. Half those on the panel are against legalization.
AP’s Randall Chase, the dean of General Assembly reporters, points out in his account in WaPo that the bill faces what he calls “staunch opposition” from “law enforcement officials, the state chamber of commerce, health industry workers and AAA Mid-Atlantic.” All had a seat at the table.
The frequently scatterbrained Keeley was no match for that combined firepower. It took her two meetings and some dubious parliamentary proceedings to scrape together enough votes to release the panel’s report, because the final product — expected to be released to the public by the close of business today — was considered substandard by half the committee.
As usual, Keeley had a variety of excuses for the shambolic nature of the proceedings. She told the News Journal’s Scott Goss that she didn’t need a vote to release the report (she appears to be wrong about that) and only held one at the request of the Delaware State Chamber of Commerce and AAA Mid-Atlantic – both opponents of recreational marijuana legalization. “Every time we gave them an inch, they came back and asked for a mile,” she said. “They asked for more time. They asked for more meetings … They asked for formal presentations to be added to the minutes.” Also, too, the sun got in her eyes.
Her biggest obstacle was State Rep. Steve Smyk, the point man for Delaware’s Thick Blue Line, who demanded and got assurance that an anti-legalization law enforcement report would be included. About that report, on drug trafficking in states that allow marijuana use, he told Matt Bittle of the Delaware State News: “If I can get this into the heads of legislators, they’re going to see that it’s not working out in the states that have legalized it.” Must be some report, since there’s no trace of it on the Google machine. He also mansplained, “If I was a chair, things would have been different. It would have been much more lengthy, it would have been much more sound and I would have asked for a years’ length of time.”
If, despite the clown show, you want to show support for the soon-to-be-amended HB 110, a citizens’ cannabis lobby day is scheduled for 10 a.m. March 27 at Legislative Hall.