Is Delaware Living In The Past With Marijuana

By: Tye Richmond

So, people it looks like Delaware is probably going to be late to the party when it comes to the use of recreational marijuana. As a young person I am still trying to figure out why that is. There are 19 states plus Washington D.C that have legalized the recreational use of marijuana.

Delaware is known for the most part as a progressive state but not on this issue it seems like we are living in the past.

Rep. Ed Osienski, a Newark Democrat who has been leading efforts to legalize, then decided to split the bill into two: One would legalize the possession of 1 ounce or less of weed for people 21 and older. The other bill would create and regulate a recreational marijuana industry in Delaware.

This proved to be successful, at first. The legalization bill passed in both chambers.

But it was dead on arrival at Carney’s desk. The governor, for years, has been adamantly against marijuana legalization. He vetoed the bill in May.

Delaware's Democratic governor just vetoed the bill legalizing marijuana: https://t.co/kg6FyBZgce

Context from when the legislature took the "historic vote" to legalize a few weeks ago: https://t.co/ry4vUHrRqh

— Taniel (@Taniel) May 24, 2022

The Delaware General Assembly has not successfully voted to override a governor’s veto in nearly half a century. There hasn’t even been an attempt in decades.

The House attempted to override Carney’s weed veto in June, but a number of Democrats either did not vote or voted against the override, even though they originally supported the bill. (Which seems very weird to me)

It’s unclear where marijuana legalization goes from here, but it’s hard to see a path forward while Carney is in office until 2025.

To me Delaware is missing a perfect opportunity to bring in more business into the state. Instead of people going to place like D.C or New Jersey why can’t they just stay in Delaware and get their marijuana while the state takes in more money. It blows my mind that it hasn’t been legalized already.

Maybe there is something that I don’t know, so hopefully one day Governor John Carney and the legislatures that voted against the bill could come on DETV and we could sit and talk about it.