​This article is from Tennessee Lookout

Tennessee lawmakers held hearings to discuss implementing a limited medical marijuana program, but the state’s top law enforcement group remains the most vocal opposition.

Representatives from the Tennessee Bureau of Investigation, TBI, emerged as the strongest opponents, stating there were no circumstances in which they thought medical marijuana should be allowed in Tennessee.

“Marijuana is in fact a dangerous drug, whose use poses a significant threat to public safety, and whose cultivation poses a threat to the environment,” said Erica Stephens, a TBI agent working on the bureau’s Dangerous Drugs Task Force, to lawmakers during the hearing. “In the state of Tennessee, marijuana is the number one drug associated with criminal activity, including violent crime.”

​Lawmakers held nearly six hours of hearings last week to discuss the program, with much of the discussion focused on how Tennessee should address marijuana use considering it is either fully legalized or legal for medical use in 41 other states, and widely available on the black market.

TBI and other law enforcement representatives repeatedly brought up Oklahoma’s medical marijuana program as the most prominent failure of a medical program.

Sen. Ferrell ​Haile, a Gallatin Republican, said during the hearing that Oklahoma’s program, which included smokable products, was “nowhere near comparable” to the program Tennessee lawmakers were studying.

​“It’s apples to oranges,” Haile said.

The bureau’s adamant opposition appeared to rankle several lawmakers.

State Sen. Todd Gardenhire, a Chattanooga Republican, told committee members that law enforcement’s testimony had “drifted” the conversation away from what was important.

“This is a way to keep people from having to go to the illicit market,” Gardenhire said. “It’s a way to get them the help they need in a legal way.”

State Sen. London Lamar, a Memphis Democrat, said the correlation between marijuana use and violent crime was “inaccurate.”

“Crime is an issue for all of us,” Lamar said. “California and Colorado have significantly lower violent crime rates than Tennessee. We are a state that has no legal marijuana program, and we have some of the highest violent crime rates in the country.”

After the federal government reclassified marijuana as having potential medical benefits in April. Tennessee lawmakers agreed to hear recommendations from the state’s cannabis commission on creating a limited medical marijuana program that doesn’t include smokable products and is only obtainable for a narrow set of conditions.

​The state cannabis commission is proposing allowing medical marijuana for those suffering from Alzheimer’s, ALS, cancer, Crohn’s disease, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, Parkinson’s disease, HIV/AIDS and sickle cell disease.

Over the past decade, medical and legal marijuana programs have swept across the nation as the federal government has let states decide how to regulate the product. Most of Tennessee’s neighboring states have either legal or medical marijuana programs.

This proliferation has made enforcing a state ban difficult, as many Tennesseans can drive across state borders to places where they can legally buy it.

For several years, Tennessee’s legalization of hemp-derived cannabinoid products served as a loophole to the state’s marijuana laws. But lawmakers banned smokable hemp products, all but killing the market in July.

Christina Flatt, a Nashville pharmacist, said during the hearing that Tennessee’s potential medical marijuana program doesn’t go far enough and should include medical conditions like post-traumatic stress disorder for veterans and hospice patients.

“Cannabis has medical value, and the United States government recognizes it,” Flatt said.

_ Alex Friedman