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In sharp contrast to Gov. Chris Sununu, the Republican candidates running to replace him have vowed to veto any future efforts to legalize cannabis.
Sununu, who’s stepping down at the end of his term, has been cautious but receptive to marijuana legislation. He favored a bill that would’ve established a state-controlled retail market for the drug under the umbrella of the New Hampshire Liquor Commission.
The Republicans vying for the corner office – Kelly Ayotte, a former U.S. senator and attorney general of New Hampshire, and Chuck Morse, former president of the state Senate – both said in a debate last week that they oppose legalizing recreational cannabis in any fashion.
“I don’t think it’s the right direction,” Ayotte said in an interview with the Monitor. “I know often people use the argument, ‘Our neighbors are doing it. We should do it.’ That’s never a good argument with me. I love that New Hampshire is unique in so many ways, and so I don’t think we should make a decision just on the basis of what our neighbors do.”
Ayotte said her chief concerns have to do with youth mental health and public safety. She said she’s seen studies that show increased mental illness in people ages 15-25 who consume cannabis. Both she and Morse said that in conversations with individuals in recovery from addiction, they’ve learned many of them started with marijuana before they got into more addictive drugs.
“As we toured the state in the last year and a half, it’s pretty obvious that as you talk to rehabs and all the different groups that are trying to help people through addiction, legalizing marijuana was a huge concern for them,” Morse said in the debate. His campaign did not respond to interview requests.
On the campaign trail, Morse met a woman who showed him a picture of her dead son. Morse said she told him marijuana was the gateway drug that led her son to addiction.
“New Hampshire really isn’t ready to legalize marijuana,” Morse said. “I’ve never supported it, and I don’t support it now.”
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Ayotte said she wouldn’t change the state’s Therapeutic Cannabis Program, which allows patients with qualifying conditions who are certified by medical providers to access medical marijuana from state-approved nonprofit manufacturers. She warned of more traffic deaths in states that have legalized recreational marijuana. Police aren’t able to address marijuana the same way they can measure alcohol consumption in drivers, she said, nor do they focus on prosecuting anyone for small amounts of possession.
Ayotte’s aware that Granite Staters can theoretically travel to any of the neighboring states and purchase marijuana, yet she is wary of sending a message that cannabis is OK just because the state says it’s legal.
“I know people are going to use marijuana,” Ayotte said. “I just don’t think the state has to be in that business. It should not be in that business.”
Democrats disagree. The two frontrunners in the Democratic primary for governor – Joyce Craig, the former mayor of Manchester, and Cinde Warmington, an executive councilor – both said they’d support legislation to legalize cannabis.
“It’s time,” Craig said.
Craig said she’d work with lawmakers to craft a legalization bill that would ensure the products sold in New Hampshire are safe and kept away from juveniles. Her vision for a retail cannabis market is one of small businesses and local control – she’s not proposing a top-down, state-run model. Still, she said, a benefit of legalizing the drug is that New Hampshire could have more oversight on testing and quality control to make sure it’s safe.
She also said a retail cannabis market would create new revenue streams that the state can use to supplement public education, address a lack of affordable housing and subsidize law enforcement training to keep the new system in check.
Warmington said she supports legalizing recreational cannabis under the proper regulations and taxes. She’ll consult with legislators on how to sell it but said she thinks it’ll end up being a hybrid approach of state and private ownership. It’s “nonsensical” that Granite Staters have to drive across state lines to buy cannabis, she said, with all of that revenue going to neighboring states.
Based on what she’s heard about sales in Maine and Vermont, Warmington said, the estimated revenue would be about $200 to $300 million per year. About 10-15% of that would come back to the state, which she said she’d target toward affordable housing or public education.
She’d talk with current providers about the fate of medical marijuana, too, should the drug’s use become legal for recreation. Warmington said she’d be open to converting the alternative treatment centers into for-profit businesses and seeing if they’re interested in selling recreational products, but she also wants to make sure medical cannabis doesn’t get wiped out with widespread legalization.
“It is very important to me that we protect the market for medical cannabis products so that those patients who are using that continue to have access to it,” Warmington said.
Jon Kiper, a third Democratic candidate who formerly served on Newmarket’s town council, said because legislators are divided over legalization, he envisions a mix of privatization and state control that could appease both camps. He wants to allow the alternative treatment centers, which serve the therapeutic cannabis patients, to become for-profit businesses and open more dispensaries. He’d also establish a state-run dispensary, comparable to the liquor stores, under the watch of a state cannabis authority; a significant portion of that revenue would be funneled toward affordable housing initiatives.
He’s open to other options and said he’d be fine with a privatized model, but he thinks it’d be “kind of a waste” if big companies came in and saturated the market, taking valuable revenue that could go to the state.
Charlotte Matherly is the statehouse reporter for the Concord Monitor and Monadnock Ledger-Transcript in partnership with Report for America. Follow her on X at @charmatherly, or send her an email at cmatherly@cmonitor.com.
“}]] In sharp contrast to Gov. Chris Sununu, the Republican candidates running to replace him have vowed to veto any future efforts to legalize cannabis.Sununu, who’s stepping down at the end of his term, has been cautious but receptive to marijuana… Read More