Maryland Senate President Supports Legalized Marijuana

Could legalized weed be coming to the Washington area? Thomas V. Mike Miller, the president of the Maryland State Senate, said in an interview today with the Washington Post that he would support the regulated sale and taxation of marijuana, just as Colorado just introduced this week.

“I know where people are going to be a generation or two from now,” Miller said about the growing trend of states allowing medical marijuana or even decriminalization. But even though Miller seems ready to push legislation to legalize pot, he said the biggest hold-up will probably come from his fellow Democrats.

The Maryland Senate passed a bill last year that would have decriminalized small amounts of marijuana, but the bill died in the House. And Miller also said that Governor Martin O’Malley is “slow on issues like this.”

Luckily for Miller, though, O’Malley’s time in office is nearly up, and at least one of his potential successors, Delegate Heather Mizeur, has come out in support of marijuana legalization. Her opponents for the Democratic nomination, Lieutenant Governor Anthony Brown and Attorney General Doug Gansler, do not.

Maryland adopted a small medical marijuana program last year, but it has not yet been set up.

Benjamin Freed

Staff Writer

Benjamin Freed joined Washingtonian in August 2013 and covers politics, business, and media. He was previously the editor of DCist and has also written for Washington City Paper, the New York Times, the New Republic, Slate, and BuzzFeed. He lives in Adams Morgan.