Let’s talk weed! You know, marijuana, pot, grass, dope, herb, skunk, ganja, reefer, maryjane, cheeba. (Cheeba?) Always on brand, Republicans at the state capitol put the bulk of their energy during the session that just wrapped pursuing craven new ways to ravage immigrant families and bully non-straight-white people. But they did manage to spare some time for the subject of cannabis, resulting in adoption of a big clunker of a new wacky baccy regulatory scheme.
The cannabis state of play in Tennessee is strange and confusing, as those who produce or partake understand but others may not fully appreciate. Ours is among the minority of states where marijuana remains wholly illegal to cultivate, distribute, or possess, even for medical purposes, with criminal penalties for violations. And yet forms of cannabis that will get you plenty stoned are readily available in several forms for perfectly legal purchase and use.
The simple story of how this came to be: The 2018 Farm Bill removed hemp from the definition of marijuana in federal law. Hemp plants are cannabis plants with very low concentrations of THC: under 0.3% means it’s “hemp” and it’s legal everywhere, while over 0.3% makes it “marijuana,” a controlled substance in federal law. And just as hemp as a plant isn’t illegal in legislatively pot-hostile places like Tennessee, neither are its constituent compounds, like the (very small amount of) THC it contains.
That led enterprising ganjapreneurs to figure out how to extract THC from low-THC hemp and embed it in the kinds of cannabis products (like edible gummies and smokable concentrates) found in states with full legalization. To avoid getting too deep in the weeds (yes I went there and I’m not proud of it) I’m omitting details around THC variations THCa, delta 8. and delta 9). The point is you can buy a gummy with 10 mg of THC in Metropolis, Illinois where recreational marijuana is legal, or you can buy a 10 mg gummy in Nashville where it isn’t, and both will do the trick. The difference is that in Tennessee the ingredients will say “hemp-derived THC.”
The Tennessee Legislature waded into this free-for-all of stoner innovation two years ago with a bill regulating the production and distribution of “hemp-derived cannabinoids.” With bipartisan support, the 2023 measure created licensing, testing, labeling, and selling requirements for hemp-derived products, spelled out criminal offenses for violations, and put in place a tax on sales to fund enforcement. Sure sounds like regulation, right?
Yet just two years later GOP lawmakers said we have unregulated recreational pot, so they wrote this year’s big do-over bill adding new regulations, levying new taxes, and shifting enforcement of the whole shebang to a different part of state government. Most significantly, it narrows the definition of hemp-derived products in ways that may force the industry to abandon some offerings (until they figure out how to innovate around it).
In Senate committee testimony back in February, two hemp-related business owners said the bill will “wipe out” their industry. Looking at the specifics of the bill and the composition of their products I’d say “wipe out the industry” is a tad hyperbolic, but hempsters are not wrong to call the bill a recklessly crafted threat to a growing industry that contributes meaningfully to the state’s agricultural (and jamband) economy.
The backers of this year’s bill blended reefer madness tactics with puzzling non sequiturs to justify their crackdown. “I think the public does believe that small children should not be taking this,” Sen. Richard Briggs, a Knoxville Republican, freely associated with the committee last month. Apropos of who-the-hell-knows-what, Briggs lamented on the Senate floor ahead of final passage that the pot was much mellower at Woodstock compared to what you find now in Nashville. On the House side, sponsor Rep. William Lamberth, a Portland Republican,) declared that “what we do with these products can change lives for the better or worse significantly.” I have no idea what that means.
The arguments for keeping Tennessee in the column of retrograde states afraid of adult recreational pot may be murky, but there is clarity in public opinion on the other side. A Vanderbilt poll in late 2024 shows Tennessee voters favoring legalization for recreational use by almost two to one (a 63-36% margin), including majorities of both Republicans (53%) and Democrats (78%). Back in 2018 support for recreational access was just 37% in an MTSU poll, so Tennesseans have come a long way on this issue as they have watched other states legalize.
The Tennessee state house is practiced at legislating against majority preferences, a relevant option when an issue stretches tensions between individual rights and collective will. But legal pot is not that sort of issue—there are no relevant rights in play (other than the right to not consume cannabis, which needs no protection).
Tennessee is hardly the first state where elected lawmakers resist treating their adult citizens like adults on this issue. Of the more than two-dozen states that have legalized recreational weed, many got it done by going around their legislatures to legalize it through voter ballot initiative. There is little doubt that would work here as well — except for the pesky little fact that Tennessee’s constitution allows no citizen-activated ballot initiatives ever on any subject. So instead we’re stuck with a feckless legislature that chooses nanny-state provincialism over giving the people what they want. And what they want is to not have to drive to Metropolis, Illinois.
Author: Bruce Barry
Bruce Barry is a professor of management at Vanderbilt University who teaches and writes about ethics, conflict, rights, politics, policy, and other things that pop into his head.
Part of an article originally published on Tennessee Lookout is included under a Creative Commons license CC BY-ND 4.0 See our third-party content disclaimer.
