Some Tennessee Lawmakers Want To Ban Hemp Products, While Others See Opportunity For Marijuana Legalization
From toxifillers.com with love
“The question shouldn’t be whether Tennessee wants to regulate THC products—it’s whether we do it in a way that kills jobs and revenue or creates a smart, sustainable tax base that benefits everyone.”
By Sarah Grace Taylor, Nashville Banner
This story was originally published by the Nashville Banner. Sign up for their newsletter.
Lawmakers are continuing a years-long tug of war over what types of hemp products can be grown and sold in Tennessee, debating bills to further restrict sales or even legalize cannabis in the state.
Amid confusion around current retail rules, conservative lawmakers are looking to rein in where cannabis is being sold while others propose unlikely full legalization.
Hemp and cannabis both refer to products of the marijuana plant, but vary based on their use and content of THC, the psychoactive property that causes users to get high off of smoking or otherwise consuming these products. In a 2023 bill, the state deemed hemp containing up to 0.3 percent THC to be legal, while cannabis with higher potency remains illegal. In large part, the bill mirrored a 2018 federal hemp farming bill.
While these policies targeted growing low-potency hemp—neither Tennessee nor the federal government has joined the 24 other states that have fully legalized all types of cannabis—retailers began selling forms of pot across the state, spurring confusion among lawmakers, law enforcement and the state’s attorney general.
In 2024, the state tried to clarify its position to disallow the sales of THCa, which is technically below the legal limit until it is heated through smoking or a vaporizer, at which point it converts to highly potent delta-9 THC through the decarboxylation process.
A group of hemp distributors and retailers is currently suing the state to prevent the rule that would effectively halt their sales, causing businesses to close and jobs to be lost. In December, a Nashville judge filed a temporary injunction, allowing the retail operations to continue through at least early June while the current rule is debated in court.
A Fresh Set of Legislation
In the meantime, some lawmakers want to pass new policies to curtail cannabis sales, including a bill by Rep. William Lamberth (R-Portland) that would allow the Alcoholic Beverage Commission to regulate cannabis distributors and another by Rep. Ed Butler (R-Rickman), which would explicitly ban the sales of THCa and THCp.
“I see no point, no benefit in getting high from smoking it. But my concern is we got a public safety issue here,” Butler told the Banner.
Butler broadly opposes the legalization of cannabis because he thinks it could be dangerous for anyone to become dependent on weed, but he specifically opposes retail sales of high-potency substances out of fear that children may have access to the products and people generally may be consuming unknown substances in the products, especially those coming from out of state.
Rather than a criminal crackdown on usage, Butler says the state needs to further restrict the retail sales, which he believes have gotten out of control.
“I’m not for going out and arresting somebody that has an ounce, that’s not my intent here,” he said. “My intent is to try to cut down on the people that are retail selling this, that are buying it by the truckload from some other state, and then selling something that’s really they know it’s going to be illegal, if it’s not already.”
Agricultural angst
Despite the industry’s overall support for legalizing use, sales and growth in the state, some farmers say that the current situation, where farmers can’t grow potent weed but retailers can sell it, disadvantages those on the agriculture side.
Emily Allen, who runs Allenbrooke Farms, says that, while she fundamentally disagrees with Butler’s opposition to marijuana, she supports his plan to restrict retail.
“There’s a double standard that is affecting farmers,” Allen said. “I don’t support prohibition. I want to make that clear. But what I also don’t support is that retail is being allowed to sell something that farmers aren’t being legally allowed to grow.”
Under the Tennessee Hemp bill, in alliance with the federal Farm Bill, 0.3 percent is the threshold for hemp and anything higher is considered “hot” and is illegal for farmers. If a hemp farm was found to have too potent a product, the plants that tested over the legal limit would be destroyed by the Department of Agriculture. Meanwhile, some smokable cannabis being sold in stores can be 90 times as potent when it’s burned and ingested, like THCa.
Allen believes those retail sales aren’t legal under current law, but even if they are, she says they should be banned to discourage sales of less regulated out-of-state cannabis, which inhibits Tennessee farmers from being competitive.
“There’s not a loophole. The Farm Bill was written to give farmers another avenue, but now we are not able to grow what retailers are selling. The [Tennessee Bureau of Investigation] can’t just go in and sweep every gas station overnight, and we need the law to be much clearer,” Allen said, noting that if retailers win the current lawsuit, farmers may then have to sue the state to even the playing field.
Democrats are working to oppose Butler’s and Lamberth’s bills and have introduced counter legislation that would broadly legalize medical and recreational use for adults, but are working uphill in a Republican supermajority that has consistently opposed the idea of beating the federal government to legalization.
“It’s like, first this, and then what?” Rep. Aftyn Behn (D-Nashville) asked of Butler’s bill, warning that even if it evens the playing field for farmers, it could create a slippery slope into further restrictions on what is currently legal in Tennessee.
“You give them an inch, and they take a mile,” Behn said of the Republican supermajority. “And so even if this seems like something that’s kind of innocuous on its surface, who knows what’s in store for the next session.”
Behn and Sen. Heidi Campbell (D-Nashville) are pushing the Pot for Pot Holes bill, which would broadly legalize cannabis for adults 21 and older, allocating 75 percent of the tax revenue to the state’s highway fund, 20 percent to the counties that sell it and the remaining 5 percent to operating the program.
While Behn boasted about the popularity of the plan among individuals, noting that some businesses have posted marquees with the slogan, she says it’s unlikely that Tennessee Republicans will support the proposal.
Still, she hopes to appeal to lawmakers who want the state to profit off of whichever form of regulation they implement.
“At the end of the day, the question shouldn’t be whether Tennessee wants to regulate THC products—it’s whether we do it in a way that kills jobs and revenue [Butler bill] or creates a smart, sustainable tax base that benefits everyone [Pot for Potholes],” Behn said.
As a grower, Allen, of course, would support Tennessee legalizing pot carte blanche, but she’s not holding her breath.
“We should be like, ‘Hey, it’s a commodity. Let’s feed farmers, and let’s tax the hell out of it, and let’s all sell clean product,’ and that’s a win-win. You know, treat it like alcohol,” Allen said. “But as long as we have who we have in office…good luck to them.”
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