The city of Nashville is inching towards decriminalizing possession of half-ounce or less of marijuana.
The proposal, which passed a first reading roll-call vote in the Metro Council 32-4 on Aug. 16, needs to go through committee before coming back for further approval.
Williamson County, however, is not likely to follow suit.
Not, at least, if its Sheriff has anything to do with it.
At a Williamson County Commission Law Enforcement Committee meeting on Tuesday night, Sheriff Jeff Long spoke out about the potential Metro Council move, and how it would affect Nashville’s immediate neighbors to the south.
“The problem is going to be, if one locality changes it, in Metro, it will come across the county line,” Long said. “It will have an impact everywhere around it.”
Last year, the state legislature changed its law regarding possession of marijuana. Possession of a half-ounce or less can never be a felony, as of 2016, whereas previously a third offense of possessing that amount or less could be. Possession of more than a half ounce still constitutes a felony. The misdemeanor, less-than half-an-ounce charge carries a punishment of up to one year in jail and a $500 fine for repeat offenders. First time offenders face the same maximum jail time but a $250 fine.
This presents a loophole for dealers, according to Long.
“Here is what happens: a dealer will carry just a half-ounce with him, and leave the rest in the car, then go back and return with another half-ounce,” he said. “And you never get him for the felony or the sale, like you should.”
Commissioner Barbara Sturgeon asked if the county could pass a law above-and-beyond the state’s law, or somehow preempt the negative affect of Metro decriminalization; however legal counsel Bobby Young said no, any resolution on it would be ignored or overturned by the state.
In the most-common first foothold toward decriminalization, medicinal marijuana, the state has made cosmetic moves but kept its shoulder largely to the door.
In 2014 the state passed, and in 2015 and this year modified, state law SB 2531 that allowed certain patients under a very specific set of conditions to possess cannabis oil for medicinal purposes. However, the sale and purchase of the oils in the state remained illegal; possession is only legal under the Tennessee law if the person lawfully obtained the oil in a state that allows its sale and/or prescription, and then only if the oil contains no-more-than trace amounts (less than 0.6 percent) of THC.
“If you talk to the people in Colorado who legalized it, and started it with medicinal marijuana, they now are trying to rescind their laws because they are having so many ill effects from it,” Long said. “From workers compensation claims, to DUI cases, to children and over-prescribing marijuana at school, all those things that you don’t think about. They now are seeing what they have done and are trying to start the path back on some of that. It is so bad out of control in Colorado that I honestly don’t know what they will do. They thought they could regulate it but they can’t.”
While populations and therefore opinions differ between Metro Nashville and Williamson County, statewide numbers show strong support for at least medicinal cannabis.
A 2014 MTSU poll showed that 75 percent of Tennesseans support access to, at least, medical cannabis. And a 2015 Vanderbilt poll showed only 22 percent of state respondents thought that marijuana use should be strictly illegal.
