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New Hampshire Senate lawmakers voted, 3-2, in committee on April 15 to reject a bipartisan House-passed bill that would legalize adult-use cannabis possession. The 3-2 vote was to adopt an “inexpedient to legislate” motion, meaning the committee recommended that the full Senate chamber kill the bill.

The legislation, House Bill 198, more simply aims to allow those 21 years and older to possess 2 ounces of cannabis, 10 grams of concentrate or 2,000 milligrams of THC after House and Senate lawmakers collided last legislative session over a broader legalization bill that would have also established a commercial marketplace for licensed cultivation and sales.

More specifically, 2024 lawmakers didn’t see eye to eye on the Senate’s state-run “franchise model” for dispensaries, and the two chambers couldn’t resolve their differences in a conference committee. This left New Hampshire as the lone state in New England absent from adult-use legalization.

Hoping to avoid another tug-of-war between legislative chambers, Rep. Jared Sullivan, D-Bethlehem, who sponsors H.B. 198, testified in favor of his more tailored legislation before the Senate Judiciary Committee on Tuesday.

“As most of you on this committee are well aware, this is sort of the perennial issue in the state: how to legalize marijuana,” he said. “A lot of the disagreements … are generally on how to sell it. This bill doesn’t touch that.”

Sullivan pointed out that H.B. 198 comes a year after 58% of New Hampshire senators voted in favor of legalizing adult-use cannabis last session amid the cross-chamber disagreement on the specifics.

“When it gets tripped up on just selling it, I felt like this is a good way to take the language from last year—this is very similar to the bill that was passed from the Senate last year,” Sullivan said. “My goal here is to stop arresting people. It is 2025. This is something that has been legalized in nearly half the states in the country.”

In 2023, New Hampshire law enforcement officials arrested 694 people for cannabis possession, according to data provided from the state’s Uniform Crime Report to the FBI’s National Incident Based Reporting System.

While H.B. 198 would legalize possession for adults 21 and older, the legislation would prohibit public consumption, impaired driving, transferring cannabis to minors and other common-sense provisions to safeguard public health. In addition, home cultivation would remain illegal.

Karen O’Keefe, the director of state policies at the nonprofit Marijuana Policy Project, called H.B. 198 a “very modest bill that would treat adults like grown-ups.” She urged the Senate committee members to support the bill.

“In both this country and in New Hampshire, we value liberty, we value freedom, and, within reason, we let adults make their own decisions to do things that might have some risks,” she said. “You’re not banning Big Gulps. You’re not banning being sedentary or playing football or rock climbing. And you’re not banning alcohol either. In fact, the state itself sells alcohol. It is wrong to ban a safer substance than alcohol.”

O’Keefe also pointed to a June 2024 survey in which pollsters at the University of Hampshire found that 65% of Granite Staters support adult-use legalization, while 19% oppose it—the remaining percentage remains neutral.

Sue Homola, a former Republican state representative in New Hampshire who now chairs the state chapter of prohibitionist group Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM), testified in opposition to the bill.

“All of the arguments that people use to legalize usually are not based in facts, and they’re not based in the data,” she said. “Marijuana is a federally illegal Schedule I drug, and nothing has changed.”

Before the committee members commenced debate, Senate Judiciary Chairman Bill Gannon, R-Sandown, made the inexpedient-to-legislate motion to reject the bill.

“Why?” Sen. Debra Altschiller, D-Stratham, asked. “That was fast.”

Gannon turned the mic over to Vice Chairman Daryl Abbas, R-Salem.

“All I can hear people talk about is an ‘injustice’ that I personally feel could have been resolved with prior legislation,” Abbas said. “But this is going to be just an open policy that just allows it to be everywhere. There’s no guardrails to any type of retail market, yet it’s set up that way.”

While Sullivan explained earlier in the hearing that Granite Staters arrested with small amounts of cannabis face misdemeanors and jail time that create employment barriers, he failed to mention the barriers to housing, higher education and other opportunities associated with being productive members of society. The bill’s sponsor also failed to mention that Black Granite Staters are 4.1 times more likely than white people to be arrested for cannabis despite similar usage rates, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

Abbas, who was one of five Senate Republicans who supported last year’s bill to legalize adult-use cannabis with a regulated marketplace of state-run dispensaries, said during this week’s committee hearing that he had concerns about legalizing cannabis possession without anywhere for state residents to legally purchase it.

“This is not the way to go about it. I know Vermont did this—I don’t think that was a great plan for Vermont, because that’s putting the horse before the cart,” he said.

Later, Abbas incorrectly asserted that Granite Staters could buy cannabis “off a street corner” under H.B. 198. The bill’s language explicitly states that adults 21 and older could only transfer cannabis without remuneration under the proposal.

“You can buy 2 ounces off someone on the street, and you could possess that, and it’s legal,” Abbas said. “It’s not tested. Who knows what’s in that? There’s a black market issue either way, even with a legitimate recreational policy, but this, without all the testing and all those other safeguards that go into it, I think this is not the way to go.”

Sen. Tara Reardon, D-Concord, said she didn’t get hung up on the word “injustice.”

“What I did hear that really rang a bell for me was, ‘It’s a modest bill,’ and that we’re going to treat people like grown-ups,” she said. “I think it is probably reality that there’s a large number of adults who smoke marijuana now. They can get it from every state surrounding us and bring it home.”

Instead of legalizing personal amounts of cannabis, Reardon said that her colleagues on the other side of the aisle are choosing to tie up New Hampshire’s court systems, law enforcement agencies and people’s lives.