New Hampshire Senate moved on Thursday to scrape two marijuana bills already approved by the House. These included a bill allowing medical cannabis companies to grow in greenhouses, and another to extend the annulment procedure for arrests and convictions from the past.
A separate bill to decriminalize small doses of psilocybin was also delayed until the following month by senators.
These actions show the broad opposition of this chamber to drug reform in general. 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.
Matt Simon, Director of Public and Government Relations at GraniteLeaf Cannabis (a medical marijuana provider), told MEDCAN24 that “these results are disappointing but they’re not surprising.”
Simon claimed earlier in the year “that it appears that a small number of senators want to simply kill every law dealing with marijuana policy, regardless of how modest or non-controversial.”
Eight bills passed by the House this year on marijuana have been referred to Senate committees or killed.
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.
All indoor ATC growing is illegal under current legislation.
Although the House passed it in February, the Senate Committee deemed the proposal to be “unlegislative” and recommended that the legislation not proceed. The Senate voted Thursday to table the bill.
Simon stated that New Hampshire is a state with strong support of legalizing marijuana. It’s “hard to believe” why ATCs being allowed to grow in greenhouses in securing conditions would cause any controversy.
(Disclosure: Simon supports MEDCAN24’s work via a monthly pledge on Patreon.)
The Senate also moved to mark another bill—HB 196, from Rep. Jonah Wheeler (D)—inexpedient to legislate, meaning it’s effectively dead for the session. This proposal was to expand the state’s process for annulling past arrests or convictions based on simple possession of marijuana.
Rep. Kevin Verville’s (R) plan for psilocybin law reform, HB 528, is still on the table in the Senate.
The proposal that was passed by the House of Representatives back in March would make a psilocybin first offense a violation punishable with a $100 fine or less. The fines for the second and third offenses could be up to $ 500 and $1000 respectively. There would not be any risk of prison time. Fourth and subsequent offences would still be felonies.
Before the Senate Committee passed it earlier this month an amendment was attached to include mandatory minimum sentences in the bill for certain offenses involving fentanyl and distribution of drugs resulting in death.
Verville, at that time, told MEDCAN24 he wasn’t a “big fan” but saw the new amendment as a necessity to advance the psychedelics proposals.
He explained that the Senate “isn’t a fan” of the mandatory minimums, while the House is “not a fan” of the Psilocybin Bill.
The making of sausages is definitely not for those who are weak-hearted! In an email, he said. The legislative sausage was a compromise that required both give-and-take.
In the event that the bill passes, the sale and distribution of this psychedelic drug would remain illegal. The reform will only be applicable to people over 18 who purchase, obtain, transport, use, possess or consume psilocybin.
As originally introduced, the legislation would have completely removed penalties around obtaining, purchasing, transporting, possessing or using psilocybin, effectively legalizing it on a noncommercial basis. However a House committee amended the bill before unanimously advancing it in March.
Verville previously told MEDCAN24 that the House’s passage of his psilocybin bill was “an historic, albeit small first step on our journey to correct 60 years of demonstrably failed policy on psychedelics.”
Verville stated that although the Senate has now scheduled the vote for June 5, the “finish line” is still far away.
In an email, he stated that “the Senate and the House will both have to approve the bill as amended.” If we are able to get both the Senate and the House on the same page, the future is in our Governor’s hands. I hope that the amended bill will be passed by both houses and become NH Law.
Tara Reardon asked, at the Senate hearing in which the fentanyl provisions were added, whether “we are trading” the House preferred measure to reduce the penalties for psilocybin “in exchange for enhanced penalties” regarding fentanyl.
The committee’s chair, Sen. Bill Gannon(R), replied: “Yes. You could say so.”
The House Judiciary Committee has been debating the fentanyl penalty for several months. It was part of another bill passed by the Senate back in January.
Separately, the New Hampshire Senate earlier this month narrowly voted to table a House-passed marijuana legalization bill, effectively ending this year’s renewed effort to end cannabis prohibition in the “Live Free or Die” state.
The chamber voted 12–10 to table the measure, HB 198, from Rep. Jared Sullivan (D). It had previously passed the House of Representatives in March, but weeks later the Senate Judiciary Committee recommended the proposal be rejected.
If enacted, the bill would have legalized noncommercial possession and use of marijuana among adults 21 and older, permitting adults to have up to two ounces of marijuana flower, 10 grams of concentrate and up to 2,000 milligrams of THC in other cannabis products.
Sullivan’s proposal was a pared-down version of a legalization measure lawmakers nearly passed last year, under then-Gov. Chris Sununu (R), but it did not include that bill’s regulated commercial system—a controversial issue that ultimately derailed the earlier effort.
New Hampshire’s residents are strongly in favor of cannabis legalization, according to a recent state poll. Late last month, a Granite State Poll, from the University of New Hampshire’s States of Opinion Project, found 70 percent support for the reform, including majorities of Democrats, Republicans and independents.
It added that “Support has increased slightly from June 2024 (65%), and is still higher than it was in mid-2010s.” Majorities of Democrats (84%), Independents (72%), as well as Republicans (55%), support the legalization of marijuana for personal consumption.
Last legislative session, New Hampshire lawmakers nearly passed a bill that would have legalized and regulated marijuana for adults—a proposal that then-Gov. Chris Sununu had stated that he supported the bill. This measure was ultimately defeated by a dispute over the way in which it would be run. House Democrats narrowly voted to table it at the last minute, taking issue with the proposal’s state-controlled franchise model, which would have given the state unprecedented sway over retail stores and consumer prices.
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Philip Steffan is the photographer.