Nearly Two-Thirds Of Tennessee Voters Support Marijuana Legalization, Including Majorities Of Republicans And Democrats, New Poll Shows

A new survey of Tennessee voters finds strong support for legalizing marijuana in the state, with nearly two-thirds (63 percent) of respondents saying they favor the reform. That includes majorities from across the political spectrum: 53 percent of Republicans and 78 percent of Democrats.

About a third of voters (36 percent), meanwhile, remain opposed to ending cannabis prohibition.

The statewide Vanderbilt Poll, conducted from late November into early December, asked 955 registered voters in the state about a range of political issues facing Tennessee. The cannabis question asked, “Do you think marijuana should be legalized for recreational use, or not?”

Compared to findings of a similar poll published in May, the survey found a modest increase in support for legalization. The earlier poll found 60 percent support among voters, with 39 percent of respondents opposed.

It’s unclear how meaningful the increase in support and decrease in opposition from the prior survey are, however, as the margin of error in the new poll is ±3.6 percent. Also, while the new poll surveyed 955 people in total, it appears only 478 responded to the cannabis question.

A Vanderbilt University writeup of the findings noted that marijuana legalization, like gun control, is an area where government officials in Tennessee are “misaligned” with the citizens they serve.

“Both share strong bipartisan support among registered voters,” the post says, “contrasting with lawmakers on the issues.”

While Tennessee does have a limited, low-THC medical cannabis program that caps the psychoactive cannabinoid at 0.9 percent—just above the 0.3 cutoff that the federal government uses to define hemp—lawmakers have for years rejected efforts at more significant reform.

Meanwhile, lawmakers have moved to crack down on the state’s hemp market, banning intoxicating hemp-derived products. That action was opposed by some politicians, including Sen. Janice Bowling (R), who has sponsored medical marijuana bills in the past.

Two other bipartisan lawmakers have also attempted to put legalization to voters by placing a measure on the state ballot. That proposal passed the Senate in 2022 but never made it through the House.

An earlier Republican-led effort to put marijuana questions on the state ballot also failed.

Meanwhile the federal government, which still considers marijuana an illegal controlled substance, has condemned Memphis police for what it says is a “pattern” of civil rights violations—including racial disparities in marijuana-related arrests.

U.S. Assistant Attorney General Kristen Clarke said last week that among Department of Justice’s (DOJ) findings is the fact that the Memphis Police Department (MPD) “cites or arrests Black adults for marijuana possession at 5.2 times the rate of white adults, based on data from 2018 to 2023.”

DOJ also criticized MPD for relying on the odor of cannabis, often under questionable circumstances. One prosecutor cited in the federal report described MPD’s actions based on alleged marijuana odor as “cringey.”

The agency noted that data shows that “Black people and white people use marijuana at similar rates.”

“If MPD enforced marijuana possession laws without regard to race, we would expect that Black people and white people in Memphis would be charged with marijuana possession violations at roughly equal rates,” the report said. “But that is not what the data shows. Instead, we found that MPD cites or arrests Black adults for marijuana possession at 5.2 times the rate of white adults, based on MPD’s data from 2018 to 2023.”

Separately, a Tennessee court ruled over the summer that employees at the state’s Department of Children’s Services can be sued by a mother whose five small children were taken into custody after law enforcement found less than 5 grams of marijuana in her car during a routine traffic stop.

Children aged 7, 5, 3 and 2 along with a four-month-old infant who was still nursing were taken by state authorities after a traffic stop initiated by the Tennessee Highway Patrol over “dark tint and traveling in the left lane while not actively passing.”

Sen. London Lamar, a Memphis Democrat, at the time called the actions “ridiculous” and an “overuse of power.”

“Give them their children back,” she said. “It’s borderline discrimination, because if this was any other family, as their attorney said, we don’t even think this would be the outcome.”

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Photo courtesy of Mike Latimer.