Tennessee legalization bill goes up in smoke

A bill that would have brought sweeping cannabis reform to Tennessee appears to have missed out in this year’s legislature.

Local TV station WKRN reports that the bill, known as the Free All Cannabis for Tennesseans Act, is “effectively dead” after its sponsor, Democratic House Representative Bob Freeman, pulled the measure off the ground.

Freeman’s legislation would have resulted in significant changes in how the Volunteer State handles both recreational and medicinal cannabis, both of which are illegal in Tennessee.

It highlights Tennessee in an era of statewide legalization, with state after state ending prohibition.

Freeman noted that many Tennessee neighbors have legalized or intend to legalize cannabis in some form.

“There is a very real possibility that by the time we return next year, we will be the only state touching Tennessee that has not yet legalized,” Freeman said, as quoted by WKRN.

The bill would have authorized the “possession and transportation of marijuana or marijuana concentrate in permitted amounts by adults who are at least 21 years of age,” the “transfer of marijuana or marijuana concentrate between adults in permitted amounts without compensation” and the ” Cultivation of up to 12 adult marijuana plants”.

It would also have opened medical cannabis treatment to minors by “authorizing a parent, guardian or guardian to administer to a minor any marijuana product, excluding combustible products, that the parent, guardian or guardian has legal authority over.”

Under the legislation, the state Department of Health would have posted a form on its website “which, when completed by a parent, guardian or guardian, establishes a rebuttable presumption, after consultation with a physician, that the minor has a medical condition that requires marijuana use.” is a treatment for such a condition.”

But Freeman’s bill has always had a steep climb in Tennessee’s Republican-dominated legislature. The state’s GOP Gov. Bill Lee has said he opposes legalizing pot.

From Freeman’s perspective, Tennessee is now in danger of being left in the dust while other southern states move to legalize medicinal cannabis. Mississippi legalized the treatment in February, and Alabama did the same last year.

Under Freeman’s bill, sales of cannabis would have been subject to state and local sales and use taxes “plus an additional 15% marijuana tax.”

It would also have stated that “Local governments may levy a local sales tax on such sales not to exceed 5% of the price of products sold, the proceeds of which are distributed identically to the existing local sales and use tax.”

“It underscores the fact that we continue to turn our backs on the potential revenue for legal taxation – people are already using it or they wouldn’t be picked up, and we criminalize this by jailing people for what is.” legally in other states,” Freeman said, as quoted by the station.

Freeman believes most Tennessee voters are with him on that issue, a theory that could be tested in November’s general election.

In January, two state legislatures introduced a bill that would direct county election officials to conduct a public opinion poll on cannabis policy in this year’s election.

The legislation would put three non-binding questions on general election ballots: Should the state of Tennessee legalize medicinal cannabis?; Should the state decriminalize possession of less than an ounce of cannabis?; and Should the state legalize and regulate the commercial sale of recreational cannabis?

“We’ve wrestled with this for years and years,” said one of the bill’s backers, House Representative Bruce Griffey. “A number of jurisdictions have taken a step towards legalizing it. There are certainly some valid arguments, is marijuana worse than alcohol in certain situations?”