NASHVILLE – A Democratic legislator has filed a bill for the upcoming legislative session that would authorize prescription sales of marijuana for medicinal purposes in Tennessee under somewhat stringent regulations.
“It’s just simply a matter of being rational and compassionate,” said Rep. Sherry Jones, D-Nashville, sponsor of HB1385. “It would apply to only the most severely debilitated people … children suffering a hundred [epileptic] seizures a day, people on chemotherapy, people with multiple sclerosis … people with a plethora of diseases” who now must either leave the state to get marijuana or make their purchases illegally.
Tennessee allowed marijuana by prescription under state law for a period in the 1980s, but that law was repealed, and attempts to revive it have died in legislative committees since — most recently in 2012. But Jones and Doak Patton, president of the National Organization for Marijuana Legalization in Tennessee, say times might have changed in the state because of developments on the national front.
They said the push could be seen as parallel — or a juxtaposition — to the ongoing push toward allowing the sale of wine in grocery stores, wherein expanded sales of an alcoholic beverage for consumer convenience are sought.
“I think anybody would tell you alcohol is much worse than marijuana,” Jones said. “If you think alcohol should be legal, then you would think that for sure medical marijuana should be legal.”