HARRISBURG — Voters who have strong opinions about whether Pennsylvania should legalize adult-use marijuana will find a clear divide between the major gubernatorial candidates this year.

Since taking office in 2023, Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro has asked the General Assembly to create a recreational marijuana program run by the state Department of Agriculture in each of his yearly budget proposals. The tax revenue would help the state pay for rising healthcare and education costs.

Republican challenger Stacy Garrity, who serves as state treasurer, says she would veto any such bill that cleared the legislature.

But recreational use isn’t Pennsylvania’s only cannabis-related policy debate. The commonwealth’s decade-old medical marijuana program has faced questions about who should oversee the program and what medical conditions should qualify a patient for a card.

The state is also home to tens of thousands of people incarcerated for possession, and it has intoxicating hemp-derived products proliferating in gas stations, convenience stores, and smoke shops.

Here are Garrity’s and Shapiro’s positions on these issues:

Recreational adult-use marijuana: In the absence of federal policy changes, 24 states — including all but one of Pennsylvania’s neighbors — have made it legal for people 21 and older to possess and use at least small amounts of recreational marijuana.

Statewide polling shows legalization is popular among voters. Yet proposals that have circulated the Capitol for years have not made real headway.

Last year, Pennsylvania Senate Republicans shot down House Democrats’ proposal to sell marijuana in state-owned stores, similar to ones that sell liquor. That followed years of inaction from the upper chamber on a bipartisan proposal from Sens. Sharif Street (D., Philadelphia) and Dan Laughlin (R., Erie) to tax recreational sales at 14% total and expunge the criminal records of all people convicted of nonviolent marijuana possession.

Shapiro has repeatedly proposed a total tax of 26% on recreational marijuana sales, which his administration estimates would raise about $200 million annually once fully in effect. His administration estimated that in its first year, legalization would make $729 million from taxes and one-time licensing fees.

“Governor Shapiro has been clear that as nearly every one of our neighboring states has already legalized marijuana, we cannot afford to keep losing out on this revenue — and we need comprehensive cannabis reform to make Pennsylvania more competitive and more just,” Sam Reposa, a spokesperson for Shapiro’s campaign, said in an email.

His proposal would allocate $25 million in sales revenue to help small businesses and those owned by people of color looking to enter the new marketplace under the state Department of Agriculture.

Some details are missing from Shapiro’s proposal, and neither his campaign nor his administration responded to questions about them. Those include what type of sale model he would support and whether users would be permitted to grow cannabis plants at home.

While Garrity told Spotlight PA in an email that marijuana is “an addictive substance with negative public health and safety side-effects” that should not be legalized for recreational use, she said the law should not treat it like heroin.

“Marijuana is a psychoactive drug, and it has serious respiratory and cognitive impacts on users,” Garrity said. “This is particularly true for younger marijuana users, whose brains are not fully developed and are more susceptible to long-term learning and impulse control problems.”

She also called Shapiro’s pitch to tax sales revenue a “desperate” attempt to fill the state’s budget deficit.

Medical marijuana: In 2016, state lawmakers agreed to adopt a medical marijuana program. There are more than 430,000 active patients, and the program has seen about $9.1 billion in sales since products became available in 2018, according to the Department of Health, which runs the program.

Pennsylvania permits 25 growers and processors to operate. The cost of opening is about $210,000 in fees and requires proof of $2 million in capital. There were initially 50 total dispensaries statewide, but that number has since risen to nearly 200.

Garrity told Spotlight PA in an email that she had concerns regarding “regulatory inconsistencies and a lack of transparency from the Pennsylvania Department of Health,” though she did not elaborate on what changes she would implement.

“Under my administration, we will ensure that medical marijuana is properly administered and regulated so it is not abused for non-medical purposes and the distribution system is fair and balanced,” Garrity said.