New Hampshire Senate Republicans ran away from debate on a measure that 70% of Granite Staters support: adult-use cannabis legalization.
The GOP-controlled chamber voted almost entirely along party lines, 15-9, on March 5 to table a House-passed legalization measure without discussion, effectively killing the legislation for the year. Sen. Keith Murphy, R-Manchester, was the lone Republican to support having an open debate.
Sen. Bill Gannon, R-Sandown, made the motion to lay the bill on the table during Thursday’s floor session. Gannon chairs the Senate Judiciary Committee, which voted, 2-1, last month that the legislation was “inexpedient to legislate,” recommending that the full Senate kill the bill.
Sen. Donovan Fenton, D-Keene, said that declining to entertain the proposal without floor deliberation ignores the views of the people who elected him and his colleagues to office.
“If I know that Granite Staters want us to debate cannabis legalization, and if I know that Granite Staters overwhelmingly want cannabis legalized, and if I know that this bill will provide roughly $60 million in revenue over three years, money that could help lower costs for New Hampshire residents, provide housing and strengthen child care services, would I now vote no on the tabling motion?” Fenton said.
Sen. Regina Birdsell, R-Hampstead, responded to support the motion to table the bill.
“If I know that we tried to compromise with the House on this in the last Legislature, and I know that we’ve debated marijuana legalization extensively, would I now support the motion to table H.B. 186?” she said.
While the two chambers clashed over the Senate’s proposed state-run “franchise model” for cannabis dispensaries in 2024, the upper chamber hasn’t discussed cannabis legalization since, with Gannon offering the same motion to avoid debate in 2025.
This year, the Senate evaded debate after the GOP-controlled New Hampshire House voted, 208-135, to pass the Democratic-sponsored bill with bipartisan support in early January.
The Senate was originally scheduled to debate the 2026 legislation, House Bill 186, sponsored by Rep. Jared Sullivan, D-Bethlehem, on Feb. 19, when the chamber approved a special order to delay considering the bill. At the time, Senate President Sharon Carson, R-Londonderry, indicated that there would be a “long” debate on the legalization measure.
Sullivan said that when the Senate delays a scheduled vote on a bill, it’s usually because leadership needs more time to count the votes, ongoing negotiations or amendments are being considered, or the senators want more time to review the issue.
However, after the Senate’s Feb. 19 delay, Sullivan correctly predicted that the Senate would kill his bill.
“It keeps the bill alive and ensures it will be addressed soon, but it signals that the chamber was not ready to act on it that day,” he told Cannabis Business Times last month. “It will almost certainly die there. Not sure why they had to do this.”
As a result, New Hampshire remains the lone state in New England without an adult-use cannabis program, despite 70% of Granite Staters supporting legalization, according to an April 2025 survey conducted by the University of New Hampshire.
Sullivan’s bill would have allowed those 21 and older to purchase and possess up to 2 ounces of cannabis flower, 10 grams of cannabis concentrate or 2,000 milligrams of THC in other cannabis products from licensed dispensaries. In addition, adults could have grown up to six plants (three mature) at home for personal use.
A Cannabis Commission and a 15-member Cannabis Advisory Board would have overseen a commercial marketplace, with the state’s 8.5% Meals and Rooms (Rentals) Tax applied to dispensary sales in the absence of a state sales tax.
As a result of the Senate’s blockade, New Hampshire remains the second-oldest medical-only cannabis market in the country, after the Legislature passed legislation in 2013 allowing patients to access the plant.
While possessing up to three-quarters of an ounce of cannabis is decriminalized in New Hampshire, possessing more is punishable by one year behind bars.
