Tennessee medical marijuana study bill wins second committee vote, moves forward again

Published: April 29, 2010

Floor vote looming — please contact your representatives today!

Advocates in Tennessee today are celebrating another surprising victory in the campaign to bring relief to medical marijuana patients in the Volunteer State. Tuesday the House Health and Human Resources Committee gave its stamp of approval to a bill that would create a study commission tasked with looking at whether and how to implement a program that would provide safe, legal access to medical marijuana for thousands of Tennesseans suffering from debilitating medical conditions. The commission would be comprised of members of the state Board of Pharmacy and Department of Agriculture as well as medical examiners, state sheriffs, and the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation.

The bill now moves to the Finance Committee where the "$0" fiscal note will likely merit swift approval. That means we’re potentially only a week or two away from a very big milestone – a vote on the floor of the Tennessee House of Representatives. Please contact your representative now and urge him or her to support this compassionate legislation.

As yesterday's Chattanooga Times Free Press story illustrates, individual patients communicating with their legislators is the most effective way to convince elected officials of the need for medical marijuana legislation:

Proponents credited passage in part to a lobbying effort Monday by 25-year-old Red Bank resident John Donovan, who suffers from rheumatoid arthritis. Mr. Donovan, who has said he uses marijuana to relieve pain without inducing nausea, visited Monday with a number of committee members.

He said he wanted to meet "face to face to let these people know there are Tennesseans out here who this bill affects in a positive way and just basically giving a voice to those people."

If you or a loved one could benefit from medical marijuana legislation in Tennessee and would like to share your story, please send me an e-mail and we can talk about getting you in touch with your representatives. We’re going to need a lot more John Donovans to win this fight in places like Tennessee.

Stay tuned to our e-mail alerts and we’ll keep you posted on the bill’s progress. Thanks again for all your time and support.