Cannabis-related legislation tends to be brought up and shot down every year in the Tennessee General Assembly. And while this year may be no different, some members of the Republican supermajority are beginning to think twice about their staunch stance against cannabis.
A bill from Sen. Janice Bowling (R-Tullahoma) would legalize the use of medical cannabis in Tennessee. With the passage of medical cannabis legislation in many of the states bordering ours, including the heavily red Mississippi, advocates have been emboldened in their ongoing battle to present cannabis as a possible mitigating factor to the opioid epidemic. Though the FDA has not approved the use of cannabis for medical purposes, many states allow it for the treatment of pain, nausea and other medical conditions.
“We have put the people of Tennessee in a terrible position of not being able to have this very safe choice, and instead continually forcing them in the direction of opioids and other synthetic drugs,” says Bowling.
The number of drug-overdose deaths skyrockets every year in Tennessee. According to the Tennessee Department of Health, in 2021, 3,814 people died by overdose in the state — up from 3,032 in 2020, and 2,089 the year before that. Of the 2021 deaths, more than 3,000 were caused by opioids. Research is mixed on whether introducing medical cannabis can actually reduce overdose deaths, but given its relatively minor side effects and very low risk of addiction, 37 states have already legalized the drug for medical use.
“I’m sick of Tennessee always being the last and the most conservative in the nation,” says state Sen. London Lamar (D-Memphis). “It’s being used as a tool to keep people in jail as a form of classism. That’s ultimately what I think. I don’t think that they care to keep people safe. Because if they did, then they would do something about the opioid crisis and the fentanyl that’s going around.”
Bowling admits that until a few years ago, she had misgivings about the use of medical cannabis.
“I, like so many others, had believed all of the misinformation and out-and-out lies that, in my opinion, Big Pharma has put out since Richard Nixon, if not before,” says Bowling. Now, after doing her own research on the benefits and legality of an intrastate medical cannabis program, Bowling hopes to bring the industry to Tennessee before it’s too late.
“If we wait, the great sucking sound is going to be any business model, any growing in Tennessee, any product that’s been tested in Tennessee, third-party labs — all that’s in my bill,” she says. “It would be a safe product. And it would be available within Tennessee. Instead, all [of that business would be going out of state]. And we would have a rush of products literally from across the world.”
But many of Bowling’s colleagues in the legislature have not yet come around to the heavily stigmatized drug. Sen. Richard Briggs (R-Knoxville), who has filed some cannabis legislation of his own, says he does not support Bowling’s bill.
“First of all, the FDA will never legalize marijuana or make it medical, because marijuana is a plant,” says Briggs. “We don’t have plants that people prescribe. Penicillin comes from mold. But when you get strep throat, we don’t recommend you go and eat moldy bread.”
Marijuana is federally classified as a Schedule 1 drug, which according to the DEA means it has “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.” Other Schedule 1 drugs include heroin, LSD and ecstasy.
Last year, a similar bill from Bowling made early moves through committees, but was ultimately voted down in the Senate Judiciary Committee. This year, her bill has again reached the Senate Judiciary Committee, with a vote currently scheduled to take place Tuesday. But with multiple members of the committee already expressing their opposition to the bill, it’s facing an uphill battle.
Briggs’ cannabis bill, on the other hand, seems to be gaining traction. Last year, Briggs introduced a bill to completely ban Delta-8 and other cannabis-derived products from Tennessee. The bill passed in the Senate but ultimately failed in the House, with legislators expressing concern due to the likely impact on Tennessee’s robust hemp industry. (Hemp is a cannabis plant whose use does not have psychoactive effects. Synthetically derived Delta-8 is a cannabis product that does have psychoactive effects. Both are currently legal in the state.) This year, Briggs’ bill would not ban the synthetic products, but would instead regulate them in an attempt to keep them out of the hands of minors.
During last week’s committee meeting, Briggs pointed out that many states that have legalized recreational cannabis have banned Delta-8 and other similar products due to safety concerns. But Lamar is concerned that Briggs’ bill is too restrictive.
“I think that they’re making Delta-8 more restrictive than getting a beer in a convenience store,” says Lamar. “You’re adding something to the criminal code and potentially finding ways to criminalize innocent college students.”
Even highly regulated, Delta-8 is unlikely to ever have the medical validity that more and more studies are showing naturally derived cannabis products to have, and Bowling hopes some of her more wary colleagues will come around.
“I would just encourage them to look at the condition that it helps,” says Bowling. “And everybody can know loved ones who are suffering needlessly [with] epilepsy, lupus and fibromyalgia. Why are we causing people to suffer and not have available to them the best medical treatment that is available, which is, by a lot of statistics, a lot of data, medical cannabis,” says Bowling.
Update: On Tuesday, the Senate Judiciary Committee voted 6-3 to kill Bowling's medical cannabis bill.
