New Hampshire hit the brakes on legalizing adult-use cannabis after its House of Representatives voted on Thursday to table the bill for the rest of the legislative session.
“It’s a sad day to see legalizers kill legalization,” Karen O’Keefe, director of state policies for the pro-legalization Marijuana Policy Project, said in a statement. “While H.B. 1633 was an imperfect bill, it is far easier to revise a law than to pass a bill from scratch — especially if the next governor is a prohibitionist.”
New Hampshire is the last state in New England that hasn’t legalized adult-use cannabis. The Granite State did decriminalize cannabis but has run into resistance to move beyond that.
This time, though, it looked like it was finally gaining momentum, despite the outgoing Republican governor’s opposition to the bill. Governor Sununu had been very vocal that he wasn’t in favor of legalization without strict controls causing the language to be rewritten in hopes of meeting his approval.
The bill, H.B. 1633, had been approved by the state Senate in a 14-10 vote earlier Thursday only to run aground in the other chamber, where members voted 178-173 to set aside the legislation. The bill would have limited the total number of dispensaries to no more than 15 state-supervised franchisees.
“Those who voted to kill H.B. 1633 are condemning hundreds of Granite Staters to arrests and life-altering convictions for bringing home a product that is legal in every one of New Hampshire’s neighbors,” O’Keefe said.
Any visitors to New Hampshire have probably seen the state-run liquor stores that line the highway and the Governor wanted cannabis to use the same model. However, many of the House lawmakers saw that move as intrusive and labeled it a government program.
NORML’s Deputy Director Paul Armentano said, “For the foreseeable future, New Hampshire will remain an island of cannabis prohibition. It is unfortunate that lawmakers and the Governor could not come together to negotiate a policy that put their constituents’ interests first. Over 70 percent of residents want legal cannabis. Their elected officials ought to be listening to them, not turning their backs on them.”
Medical cannabis
While adult-use is dead for now, the state’s lawmakers agreed to expand the existing medical cannabis program in two ways. The first allows doctors to prescribe cannabis for any condition they deem fit and the other increases the amount of healthcare professionals who could recommend medical cannabis. It does not remove the list of approved conditions however, but it does give the doctors some wiggle room.