The New Hampshire Senate on Thursday moved to scuttle two marijuana measures already passed by the House, including a proposal to allow medical cannabis businesses to cultivate in greenhouses and a separate bill to expand the state’s annulment process for past arrest and conviction records.
Senators also voted to delay consideration until next month of a separate bill that would decriminalize small amounts of psilocybin.
The actions reflect the chamber’s broad hostility toward drug reform measures this session. While a number of bills cleared the House of Representatives—including to legalize adult-use marijuana and allow medical marijuana patients to grow cannabis at home—nearly all have gone on to die in the Senate.
“These outcomes are disappointing, but unfortunately, they aren’t surprising,” Matt Simon, director of public and government relations at the medical marijuana provider GraniteLeaf Cannabis, told Marijuana Moment.
Earlier this year, Simon said it appeared “that a few senators just want to kill every bill that deals with cannabis policy, no matter how modest and non-controversial.”
All told, senators have now moved to table or kill eight House-passed measures related to marijuana this session.
One of the bills taken up at Thursday’s Senate floor session—HB 301, from Rep. Suzanne Vail (D)—would have allowed medical marijuana operators (known in the state as alternative treatment centers, or ATCs) to each establish a single additional cultivation location, including in a greenhouse.
Under current law, all growing by ATCs must happen indoors, with greenhouse cultivation prohibited.
Though House lawmakers passed the bill in February, a Senate committee earlier this month marked the proposal “inexpedient to legislate,” effectively recommending it be abandoned. On Thursday, senators voted to table it.
Simon noted that in New Hampshire, there’s strong support for broader legalization of marijuana, “so it’s hard to understand why letting ATCs grow in secure greenhouses is even remotely controversial.”
Hellbound and Down 