Marijuana Moment: Louisiana Lawmakers Pass Bill To Send People To Jail For Smoking Marijuana Near College Campuses

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Louisiana lawmakers have approved a bill that threatens to send people to jail for up to one year if they smoke marijuana within 2,000 feet of a school property—including a college campus.

The legislation from Rep. Gabe Firment (R) was passed by the House of Representatives in a 59-34 vote last week.

HB 568, which now heads to the Senate for consideration, applies to people who violate drug laws “while smoking, vaping, or otherwise abusing such controlled dangerous substance while on any property used for school purposes by any school, within two thousand feet of any such property, or while on a school bus.”

The pro-legalization Marijuana Policy Project (MPP) said the “incredibly draconian penalties” in the legislation threaten to reverse cannabis reform progress made in the state in recent years.

In 2021, then-Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) signed a bill decriminalizing marijuana by removing the threat of jail time for possessing up to 14 grams.

“HB 568 would make cannabis use a felony in huge swaths of urban and suburban areas. Two thousand feet is a little over ⅓ of a mile,” Kevin Caldwell, MPP”s Southeast legislative manager, said in an action alert to supporters. “In addition to mandatory incarceration of up to a year, the bill includes a fine of up to $1,000.”

“This is an attempt to bring back the draconian penalties that Louisiana was infamous for in decades past. This bill seeks to undo years of hard work by advocates for ending jail time for minor cannabis offenses,” he said. “Under this legislation, a student could be incarcerated for a year for consuming in a college dorm room.”

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Meanwhile, the Louisiana Senate also recently passed a bill to let patients with terminal and irreversible conditions use medical marijuana in hospitals.

The Senate separately approved legislation to create a psychedelic-assisted therapy pilot program, using opioid settlement dollars to fund clinical trials aimed at developing alternative treatments such as psilocybin and ibogaine.

Another lawmaker also recently introduced a bill to create an adult-use marijuana legalization pilot program in the state to determine whether the reform should eventually be expanded and permanently codified.

Rep. Candace Newell (D)—who has long championed legislation to end cannabis criminalization and filed a similar legal marijuana pilot program measure last session—is sponsoring what’s titled the “Adult-Use Cannabis Pilot Program Regulation and Enforcement Act.”

Getting the bill across the finish line could prove complicated in the conservative legislature, however. Newell’s earlier version of the pilot program legislation didn’t advance to enactment last year, and lawmakers that session also rejected other marijuana reform proposals such as one that would have established a tax system to prepare the eventual legalization of adult-use cannabis.

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