“To get rid of the black market. To make sure that we have a well-regulated, fully regulated market, the governor proposed a comprehensive framework for the cultivation, manufacture, sale, possession, use, taxation of adult-use cannabis,” Harris said.
The legislature has considered marijuana legislation in the past but none of the bills have made it to a vote of the full legislature.
This year, Lamont included about $42 million in tax revenue from legalization in his two-year budget proposal.
Harris said the governor’s proposal is comprehensive.
“The bill actually wasn’t pulled out of thin air. It builds on our medical marijuana program,” Harris said.
As Connecticut edges closer to legalizing recreational marijuana, pot growers are ready to do business courant.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from courant.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
By Mark Pazniokas, CT Mirror
On the coldest and grayest days of winter, a warm and improbably bright yellow light reliably shines on a dense thicket of plantings deep inside a repurposed warehouse. They are marijuana plants, some as tall as Christmas trees, thick with flowers.
“For these plants, it’s like July 15 every day,” said Rino Ferrarese, the president and co-founder of Rocky Hill s CTPharma, one of the four licensed producers of medical cannabis in Connecticut, a state weighing a jump into the much bigger recreational market.
Serrated leaves and flowers glisten with what appears to be a light frost, a promising sign for a cash crop nearing maturity. The whiteness actually is a sticky resin containing the active elements of cannabis, THC and CBD, among others.
On the coldest and grayest days of winter, a warm and improbably bright yellow light reliably shines on a dense thicket of marijuana plants growing inside a repurposed warehouse in a suburban Hartford industrial park.