Great news! For the first time ever, legalization has passed a New Hampshire Senate committee and is headed to the Senate floor! This morning, the Senate Judiciary Committee passed HB 629 in a 3-2 vote. HB 629 already passed the House and is now headed to the full Senate.
Cannabis legalization is being considered in the Senate this week! Earlier this year, the House passed HB 629 — legislation to legalize possession and limited home cultivation of cannabis for adults 21 and older.
Last week, New Hampshire’s bill to legalize cannabis possession for adults and create a state-run monopoly narrowly passed out of the Ways & Means Committee (12-10). Now, it’s headed to the House floor again. While the committee made some amendments to the bill, it did not address our biggest concerns — HB 1598 would continue to re-criminalize edibles, and it doesn’t even include a Plan B in the likely event that state-run stores fail to get up and running.
The N.H. House of Representatives has voted to legalize cannabis three times since 2019. Sadly, the Senate has killed every attempt so far. Tomorrow, the House will vote on legalization once again, but this time there’s a twist. The bill is sponsored by Rep. Daryl Abbas (R), an opponent of previous legalization bills, and it includes a poison pill: state-run stores.
