Cannabis in Tennessee

It is illegal to use or possess the drug cannabis in Tennessee, United States,[1] with possession of even small amounts being a criminal misdemeanor, but there are limited legal allowances for non-psychoactive CBD oil as medical cannabis, and the authorities have not been able to enforce the law.

2015 legalization of CBD oil

In May 2015, Tennessee governor Bill Haslam signed Senate Bill 280 into law, against his earlier opposition. The bill legalized the possession and use of marijuana to treat a limited number of severe conditions, including epilepsy. The bill has no provisions for legal sale, thus requiring patients to acquire the drug outside the state of Tennessee; possession of CBD oil without proof that it was obtained legally outside of Tennessee was a misdemeanor.[2]

Municipal decriminalization

At the start of 2015 the Tennessee chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws launched a petition to place a referendum on the November ballot for Davidson County to defund local law enforcement prosecution against possession of small amounts of marijuana.[3] The measure failed to reach the ballot, as by the 6 August deadline the movement had only collected about 4,000 of the required 6,845 signatures to get the measure onto the ballot.[4]

In 2016, both Nashville and Memphis succeeded in decriminalizing possession of small amounts of cannabis, with Memphis reducing punishment to a $50 fine.[5] Seven months later, however, a repeal was signed into Tennessee law. This repeal also prevented local governments from creating their own drug possession sanctions in the future.[6]

In July 2020, Nashville partially decriminalized cannabis possession, with the DA dropping all charges of marijuana possession under half an ounce.

Enforcement

In 2016 the Daily Helmsman noted that Tennessee spent $43 million in 2010 on prosecuting the 42% of their drug arrests which were for a half-ounce of marijuana or less.[5]

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gollark: No, I did, several times.> The data/body can be large, contain arbitrary bytes, and is actually meant to store large amounts of data.> - servers may allocate limited-sized buffers for incoming request headers so you can't put too much in them (this is somewhat problematic for cookies)> request bodies can probably be handled more performantly because of stuff like the length field on them> - request bodies are generated by forms and all sane clients so stuff is mostly designed to deal with those
gollark: I did say multiple times why that's not really a good idea.
gollark: You can put large amounts of data in the body. That's what it's for. File uploads and stuff go in it.

References
  1. Tennessee considers minor reduction in harsh penalties for possession
  2. Alan Frio. "Gov. Haslam signs cannabis oil bill". WSMV Channel 4. Retrieved 2015-08-25.
  3. "Referendum on marijuana prosecution sought in Nashville". Tennessean.com. 2015-01-15. Retrieved 2015-08-25.
  4. Joey Garrison, The Tennessean (2015-05-18). "Marijuana push falls short in Nashville". Wbir.com. Retrieved 2015-08-25.
  5. "Arkansas follows nationwide trend to legalize marijuana". dailyhelmsman.com. Retrieved 2016-11-05.
  6. Joey Garrison (2017-04-13). "Bill Haslam signs repeal of new Nashville, Memphis marijuana laws". Tennessean.com. Retrieved 2018-12-16.
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