Louisiana Bill To Jail People For Smoking Marijuana Near College Campuses Advances In Senate

A Louisiana Senate committee has approved a House-passed bill that threatens to send people to jail for up to one year if they smoke marijuana within 2,000 feet of a school property—including a college campus.

The legislation from Rep. Gabe Firment (R) cleared the Senate Judiciary B Committee in a 3-2 vote on Tuesday, weeks after being passed by the House of Representatives.

HB 568, which could receive a Senate floor vote soon, applies to people who violate drug laws “while smoking, vaping, or otherwise abusing such controlled dangerous substance while on any property used for school purposes by any school, within two thousand feet of any such property, or while on a school bus.”

Firment told senators that his bill “strengthens enforcement of Louisiana drug-free school zone laws by creating a clear behavior-based offense, so that when someone is openly smoking or vaping illegal drug in the school zone, law enforcement can act and prosecutors can prove the case.”

“For marijuana, the bill establishes a clear and consistent penalty—up to a year in jail and $1,000 fine, ensuring that violations in school zones result in real, enforceable consequences,” he said.

Kevin Caldwell, Southeast legislative manager for the pro-legalization Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), testified that “Louisiana already has serious penalties for drug offenses.”

“This bill would add a mandatory minimum jail sentence for public consumption—not distribution, not intent to sell—simply for being within 2,000 feet of the school,” he said. “This radius covers an enormous portion of most neighborhoods in our cities and towns.”

“This is not justice. This is geography used as a trap,” he said, adding that research has shown that “mandatory minimum sentences do not reduce drug use or drug trafficking.”

“What they do accomplish is well documented. They strip judges of discretion, they fill jails at taxpayers expense and they fall disproportionately on communities of Black and brown Louisianans who live in denser urban neighborhoods where school zone radius covers virtually every street corner. Louisiana already incarcerates more people per capita than almost any jurisdiction on Earth. This bill would make that worse without making one single child safer.”

Facing questions from Democratic senators, Firment defended his bill, arguing that “common sense tells us that the stiffer the penalty, the less inclined people are to participate in that behavior.”

Sen. Royce Duplessis (D) said that “while I do believe your intent is to deter, I believe that there’s mounds of data…that will suggest that this type of bill actually does not deter and that it does not lead to the outcome that you might be seeking, no matter how good your intentions might be.”

A representative of Gov. Jeff Landry’s (R) office appeared alongside Firment at the hearing in support of the legislation.

In 2021, then-Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) signed a bill decriminalizing marijuana by removing the threat of jail time for possessing up to 14 grams.

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Meanwhile, the Louisiana Senate also recently passed a bill to let patients with terminal and irreversible conditions use medical marijuana in hospitals.

The Senate separately approved legislation to create a psychedelic-assisted therapy pilot program, using opioid settlement dollars to fund clinical trials aimed at developing alternative treatments such as psilocybin and ibogaine.

Another lawmaker also recently introduced a bill to create an adult-use marijuana legalization pilot program in the state to determine whether the reform should eventually be expanded and permanently codified.

Rep. Candace Newell (D)—who has long championed legislation to end cannabis criminalization and filed a similar legal marijuana pilot program measure last session—is sponsoring what’s titled the “Adult-Use Cannabis Pilot Program Regulation and Enforcement Act.”

Getting the bill across the finish line could prove complicated in the conservative legislature, however. Newell’s earlier version of the pilot program legislation didn’t advance to enactment last year, and lawmakers that session also rejected other marijuana reform proposals such as one that would have established a tax system to prepare the eventual legalization of adult-use cannabis.

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