Louisiana Medical Marijuana Patient Employment Protections Bill Heads To Governor’s Desk

“There are a lot of people who don’t want to take opioids for their long-term PTSD and pain management because of the high possibility of addiction to opioids.”

By Piper Hutchinson, Louisiana Illuminator

The Louisiana Senate gave final passage to a bill Wednesday that would protect state employees who legally use medical marijuana.

House Bill 988, sponsored by Rep. Mandie Landry, D-New Orleans, protects state employees from negative consequences if they are diagnosed with conditions for which a doctor recommends medical marijuana used in accordance with state law.

The bill cleared the Senate on a 26-8 vote. It was opposed by Republican Sens. Mike Fesi of Houma, Beth Mizell of Franklinton, Cameron Henry of Metairie, Sharon Hewitt of Slidell, Jay Morris of Monroe, Barrow Peacock of Bossier City, Rogers Pope of Denham Springs and Bodi White of Central.

The law would protect state employees from being fired and would protect prospective hires from being discriminated against for use of medical marijuana.

The bill would not apply to law enforcement, firefighters or other public safety officials.

The Louisiana Board of Pharmacy reported that there are more than 43,000 medical marijuana patients in the state. The first medical marijuana dispensaries in the state began operating in 2019.

This is a first step in the effort to figure out how to regulate marijuana for both employers and employees in LA. #lalege#lagov

— Louisiana Progress (@LAProgressAct) June 1, 2022

Sen. Stewart Cathey, R-Monroe, carried the bill on the Senate floor. Cathey told senators the bill would help prevent state employees from being addicted to opioids, an argument previously used when the House passed the bill.

“There are a lot of people who don’t want to take opioids for their long-term PTSD and pain management because of the high possibility of addiction to opioids,” Landry told a House committee last month. “This has proved to be a better option than them.”

Opponents of the bill, most notably Rep. Larry Frieman, R-Abita Springs, had argued then that the issue should be handled by the Division of Administration.

Jacques Berry, communications director for the Louisiana Department of Administration, pushed back on this notion. He clarified that the department has policies protecting its workers from discrimination based on medical marijuana use but cannot set policy for all agencies that employ state workers.

The House passed the bill 60-32. It now awaits signature from the governor.

This story was first published by Louisiana Illuminator.

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Louisiana Lawmakers Approve Bill To Increase Marijuana Penalties For Children—But Not Adults

“We don’t think we should be criminalizing youth more harshly than adults.”

By Julie O’Donoghue, Louisiana Illuminator

Louisiana lawmakers may put incarceration back on the table for possession of modest amounts of marijuana, but only for children and teenagers under age 18. Adults would still be able to avoid prison time if caught with marijuana joints, even for repeat offenses.

Rep. Larry Bagley, R-Stonewall, is seeking to modify the state’s sweeping marijuana decriminalization law that was enacted last year. House Bill 700 would impose harsher penalties on children and teenagers than adults.

Under the new law passed last year, a person convicted of possessing 14 grams or less of marijuana in Louisiana cannot be fined more than $100, arrested or thrown in prison. Bagley’s proposal would allow a person under 18 convicted of possessing 14 grams or less of marijuana once to be incarcerated for up to 15 days.

The legislation would also escalate the penalties for minors who are repeatedly caught with up to 14 grams of marijuana, which is the equivalent of 14 to 25 joints. A third conviction for that offense could result in two years behind bars, and a fourth could mean four years of lockup.

Those penalties would be dramatically different than the ones adults face. Under Bagley’s bill, people over 18 years old could still be caught repeatedly with 14 grams or less of marijuana and face no prison time at all.

The House Committee on the Administration of Criminal Justice forwarded Bagley’s proposal to the full Louisiana House for consideration last week after an exception was carved out for children and teenagers carrying their own medical marijuana.

Bagley said the law change is needed because K-12 schools in his community are unable to keep marijuana off their campuses. The district attorney’s office in DeSoto Parish, where Bagley lives, said it has no way of forcing minors into drug treatment through drug court without the threat of incarceration.

It would be highly unlikely for a judge to put a child or teenager in a youth detention center for possession of a small amount of marijuana, Bagley said, but he believes the possibility of incarceration can be used to push them into rehabilitative programs.

“It was presented like this bill is about trying to put people in prison. It’s not,” he said.

Rep. Nicholas Muscarello, who has generally supported loosening marijuana restrictions, agreed with Bagley and said laws around minors’ marijuana use needed to be tighter.

“We are trying to rehabilitate children. This allows our courts to kind of keep them in check and put them in drug courts,” said Muscarello, R-Hammond. “No judge is putting a kid in jail for six months for marijuana.”

Left-leaning groups and marijuana legalization advocacy organizations opposed the legislation. They suggested discipline within the school system—such as suspension, expulsion or removal from sports teams and other school activities—be used to help keep marijuana off campus.

“We don’t think we should be criminalizing youth more harshly than adults,” said Peter Robins-Brown, executive director of Louisiana Progress.

very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very very bad idea. #lalege#lagov

— Louisiana Progress (@LAProgressAct) March 23, 2022

Other methods to get children and teenagers into drug treatment are available through the court system as well, said Megan Garvey with the Louisiana Association for Criminal Defense Lawyers. Family court judges can mandate that guardians and parents put children in rehabilitative programs and place minors on probation, she said.

Rep. Danny McCormick, R-Oil City, didn’t formally object to the bill moving forward in the legislative process, but he expressed reservations about the incarceration component. He questioned why the offense for being caught with marijuana as a minor would be harsher than the one for being caught with alcohol.

People under the age of 21 can be fined $100 and lose their driver’s license for up to six months if they are caught drinking alcohol, according to Louisiana law, but they don’t face jail time. Minors caught with cigarettes can be fined up to $50.

“Alcohol, in my opinion, would be greatly more harmful than marijuana,” he said.

This story was first published by Louisiana Illuminator.

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Louisiana Marijuana Decriminalization Officially Takes Effect As Lawmaker Launches Awareness Campaign

Marijuana decriminalization took effect in Louisiana on Sunday—and advocates and lawmakers are working to ensure that residents know what they can and cannot do without going to jail under the new law.

Gov. John Bell Edwards (D) signed the legislation in June, and he emphasized that it was “not a decision I took lightly,” but he recognized that criminalization has had significant consequences for families and taxpayers.

Under the law, possession of up to 14 grams of cannabis is now punishable by a $100 fine, without the threat of jail time. The governor has pushed back against the definition of the policy as “decriminalization,” but that’s exactly how advocates define policies that remove the threat of incarceration for low-level possession.

Now, the sponsor of the decriminalization bill, Rep. Cedric Glover (D), is partnering with the advocacy group Louisiana Progress on an awareness campaign to educate people about the new reform.

They’ve already put out a FAQ on the law and will be using social media and other informational materials to inform the public while also engaging in outreach to law enforcement and legislators.

“When I saw two city council members in my hometown of Shreveport—one conservative and one progressive—come together to decriminalize personal-use marijuana possession there, I knew it was time to take this reform to the state level,” Glover said. “Criminalizing marijuana possession is harmful to the people of Louisiana in so many ways, but it’s been particularly harmful for Black and Brown communities, lower-income folks, and young people. My fervent hope is that this new law will finally bring some relief and a feeling of freedom to those communities.”

When finding common ground leads to doing the common good. Many thanks to Shreveport Councilmembers Tabatha Taylor and John Nickleson for leading the way and the #LaLege for pushing it through.#Act247#HB652#1stDeepSouthStatepic.twitter.com/KYb8cfmdsQ

— Cedric B. Glover (@MayorGlover) August 1, 2021

Louisiana Progress says lawmakers shouldn’t stop at simple decriminalization and should enact broader cannabis legalization in an upcoming session.

“Marijuana decriminalization is an important victory for criminal justice reform in Louisiana, especially for the traditionally marginalized communities that have been disproportionately criminalized under prohibition,” the group’s new FAQ says. “But we need to keep fighting to end marijuana prohibition altogether. Doing so could be hugely beneficial, including bringing dozens of new small businesses and hundreds or even thousands of new jobs to Louisiana.”

If you have any questions that aren’t answered on this FAQ, please drop them in the replies below, and we’ll find the answer for you.

— Louisiana Progress Action (@LAProgressAct) August 1, 2021

Meanwhile, national advocates are cheering the new law’s taking effect.

“This is a much-needed policy change for Louisiana,” NORML State Policies Manager Carly Wolf said in a press release. “The enactment of this legislation is great progress toward ending the racially discriminatory policy of branding otherwise law-abiding Louisianans as criminals for minor marijuana possession offenses when law enforcement should instead be focusing on fighting legitimate crime.”

Separately, the governor also signed a bill in June to let patients in the state’s medical cannabis program legally smoke whole-plant marijuana flower.

—Marijuana Moment is already tracking more than 1,200 cannabis, psychedelics and drug policy bills in state legislatures and Congress this year. Patreon supporters pledging at least $25/month get access to our interactive maps, charts and hearing calendar so they don’t miss any developments.Learn more about our marijuana bill tracker and become a supporter on Patreon to get access.—

The legislation marks a notable expansion of the state’s limited medical marijuana program. As it stands, patients are able to vaporize cannabis preparations via a “metered-dose inhaler,” but they cannot access whole-plant flower and smoking is not allowed.

While the governor has made clear his willingness to approve more modest reforms, he predicted that he would not be the one to sign adult-use legalization into law before he leaves office in early 2024—even though he does expect the policy change to happen in his state at some point.

An effort in the legislature to pass a bill to legalize recreational cannabis stalled in the House this session after the chamber failed to pass a complementary measure on taxing adult-use marijuana. Edwards also said in May that he believes the reform “is going to happen in Louisiana eventually.”

“It’s on the march, and that certainly might happen here in Louisiana,” he said last week. However “I would be surprised if there’s a consensus in the legislature to do that while I’m governor.” (Edwards is term-limited and cannot run again in 2023’s upcoming gubernatorial election.)

In April, the governor also said that he had “great interest” in the legalization proposal, and he pledged to take a serious look at its various provisions.

Last year, the Louisiana legislature significantly expanded the state’s medical marijuana program by passing a bill that allows physicians to recommend cannabis to patients for any debilitating condition that they deem fit instead of from the limited list of maladies that’s used under current law.

Edwards signed the measure in June 2020 and it took effect weeks later.

The developments on various cannabis-related legislation come after recent polling showed that constituents in some of the most firmly Republican districts in the state support legalizing marijuana.

Two other recent polls—including one personally commissioned by a top Republican lawmaker—have found that a majority of voters are in favor of legalizing cannabis for adult use.

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