A Republican-backed effort to legalize marijuana for limited medicinal purposes in Tennessee is officially dead for the year.
The Senate Health and Welfare Committee decided to delay action on the proposal from Nashville GOP Sen. Steve Dickerson until 2016.
The House Health Committee made the same decision on the House version of the bill, sponsored by Rep. Ryan Williams, R-Cookeville.
Senate committee Chairman Rusty Crowe said there wasn’t enough time to fully discuss the pros and cons of the bill. He said he’d create a summer study commission to look at the bill.
The House committee did weigh comments from supporters and opponents before agreeing to study the idea over the summer.
Dickerson didn’t seem happy with the decision to delay the bill — he recently told The Tennessean the bill could need some work, but he wanted to continue pushing for the bill this year — but said he deferred to Crowe’s opinion as to do.
“I believe this is a conservative bill; it’s equally based… (continue reading)