Senate hearing on Tennessee Medical Marijuana Act postponed'House hearing scheduled

Published: April 14, 2005

Yesterday's hearing for the Tennessee Medical Marijuana Act (S.B. 1942) was postponed by bill sponsor Stephen Cohen (D-Memphis) until April 27. In the meantime, we need to put pressure on members of the House Mental Health Subcommittee, where the bill's companion, H.B. 968, has been scheduled for a hearing on April 19.

Please take a moment to call the members of the subcommittee, politely urging them to support H.B. 968. Click here to get talking points. Rep. David Shepard (D-Dickson), listed at the bottom, is chair of the committee and also a cosponsor of the bill. He should need no persuasion, but feel free to thank him for his compassionate stand.

John Deberry (D-Memphis)

615-741-2239

Tom Dubois (R-Columbia)

615-741-7444

Chris Crider (R-Milan)

615-741-7478

Sherry Jones (D-Nashville)

615-741-2035

Jason Mumpower (R-Bristol)

615-741-2050

Mike Turner (D-Old Hickory)

615-741-3229

Bo Watson (R-Hixson)

615-741-3227

David Shepard (D-Dickson)

615-741-3513

Please e-mail any feedback you get to ryan@mpp.org so that we can more effectively lobby the subcommittee.

If you don't have time to call the subcommittee members, please take a moment to send a pre-written letter to them. The same link will also allow you, in less than two minutes, to send a letter to the Senate committee at the same time.

And just yesterday, medical marijuana got a boost from a survey released by committee member Sen. Raymond Finney (R-Maryville). The survey showed that a solid majority of voters in his generally conservative district back a patient's right to use medical marijuana with the approval of a physician. Visit /TN/news1972.html to read about the survey.

Thank you for supporting the Marijuana Policy Project. Please forward this information around so that the subcommittee members understand exactly how important this issue is to Tennessee voters.