An update on recreational and medical marijuana in Pa.

• Ed Mahon
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  Ed Mahon comes to Spotlight PA from PA Post, where he covered state politics and policy, produced radio stories that were broadcast on public media stations throughout the state and on NPR’s national newscasts, and co-wrote a weekday newsletter. Prior to joining PA Post, Ed worked for six years as an investigative and political reporter for the York Daily Record, part of the USA Today Network. His reporting on failures in Pennsylvania’s system for protecting domestic abuse victims was a finalist in the national 2018 Livingston Awards for Young Journalists in the local reporting category. He was also part of a team whose coverage of the criminal justice system, including the aggressive use of civil asset forfeiture by York County prosecutors, received the 2018 G. Richard Dew Award for Journalistic Service from the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association. Before joining the York Daily Record, Ed covered K-12 education at the Centre Daily Times in State College and worked as a stringer for suburban sections of The Philadelphia Inquirer. He grew up in Delaware County, Pennsylvania.

 Sean Simmers / PennLive

Lt. Gov. John Fetterman takes his statewide listening tour to gauge Pennsylvanians’ interest in legalizing marijuana to the American Legion Post 109 in Mechanicsburg. February 13, 2019

From The Context, PA Post’s weekday email newsletter:

Coming soon: Report from listening tour

Sean Simmers / PennLive

In February at the American Legion Post 109 in Mechanicsburg, members of the public weighed in on whether Pennsylvania should legalize recreational marijuana.

• Lt. Gov. John Fetterman recently completed his 67-county listening tour about the legalization of recreational marijuana. He is expected to provide a preliminary report in the next week or two, his press secretary told PennLive.

• But efforts to legalize recreational marijuana in New York and New Jersey have appeared to slow (at least somewhat), so PennLive’s Jan Murphy looked into whether that would have any impact on legalization efforts in Pennsylvania. Gov. Tom Wolf previously cited action in neighboring states as a reason to look into legalizing recreational marijuana.

• Meanwhile, anxiety might be added to the list of ailments that can qualify someone for medical marijuana. The York Daily Record’s Sam Ruland writes about the proposal, which the Pennsylvania medical marijuana advisory board approved in February. The final decision rests with Health Secretary Dr. Rachel Levine. Tourette Syndrome could also be added, Transforming Health’s Brett Sholtis reports.

Best of the rest

Keith Srakocic / AP Photo

In this March 7, 2019, file photo, visitors to the Pittsburgh veterans job fair meet with recruiters at Heinz Field in Pittsburgh.

• WITF’s Katie Meyer breaks down different unemployment rates across the state. The Scranton-Wilkes-Barre-Hazleton metro area — which gets lots and lots and lots of attention for shifting toward Republican Donald Trump in 2016 — and the East Stroudsburg metro area each had the highest rates of 4.7 percent.

• Penn State football coach James Franklin received more than $3.4 million in total compensation from the university in 2017-18, PennLive’s Jan Murphy reports. Murphy lists the other top salaries, including for the university president, top administrators, doctors and more.

• In other Penn State news, WPSU’s Min Xian has been covering the first jury trial related to the hazing death of Penn State student Timothy Piazza in 2017. A jury found Braxton Becker guilty of hindering apprehension — one of three misdemeanor charges he faced, Xian reports.