Jackie Alyse Wigder

Cannabis laws · Verified July 2026

Is cannabis legal in Tennessee?

Prohibited

No. Cannabis is not legal in Tennessee for recreational or medical use, and possession is a criminal offense.

No medical or adult-use program. §39-17-402 lets epilepsy patients possess CBD oil under 0.9% THC obtained out of state; no in-state supply. Hemp under 0.3% THC is lawful, regulated by the state Alcoholic Beverage Commission since 2026.

What this status means: Prohibited status means the state has no legal recreational or comprehensive medical cannabis program. Where a narrow exception exists (for example an affirmative defense: a defense someone can raise in court after being charged, not a right to possess), the notes below call it out. "Decriminalized" means small-amount possession carries no jail and no record; unless the facts below flag it, possession can be charged criminally.

The facts, with sources

Possession
0.5 oz (14.175 g) or less: Class A misdemeanor, up to 11 mo 29 days jail + up to $2,500 fine (felony above 0.5 oz or with intent to sell/deliver)
Decriminalized
No
Home cultivation
No Cultivation is a felony from the first plant, charged as manufacture (Class E felony at the lowest weight tier; 10-19 plants is a Class D felony, scaling to Class A at 500+ plants); no medical or adult-use home-grow exists statewide.
Medical reciprocity
No No comprehensive medical program to reciprocate into. The narrow §39-17-402 CBD-oil carve-out covers only out-of-state epilepsy oil and does not recognize other states' medical cannabis cards for cannabis products.

Sources

Verified July 4, 2026

How federal law applies

Cannabis (termed "marijuana" in federal law) generally remains a Schedule I controlled substance. Only FDA-approved products and cannabis held under a qualifying state medical license have been moved to Schedule III (rule effective April 28, 2026); the broader Schedule I-to-III transfer is not finalized and remains pending in DEA's expedited rescheduling rulemaking.

Under the December 18, 2025 Executive Order on "Increasing Medical Marijuana and Cannabidiol Research," DOJ/DEA announced on April 23, 2026 that it was placing FDA-approved cannabis products and state-licensed medical cannabis into Schedule III (rule effective April 28, 2026) but left all other cannabis (unlicensed adult-use, bulk material, and synthetic THC) in Schedule I, and opened an expedited rulemaking (Federal Register, April 28, 2026) to consider rescheduling more broadly. A DEA administrative law judge began hearing evidence in that rulemaking on June 29, 2026; as of this site's last verification of this section, no final rule rescheduling cannabis generally had been issued. State-legal cannabis programs are unchanged by these developments and continue to operate under their own state laws.

A note on terminology: federal statute uses "marijuana" (spelled "marihuana" in the Controlled Substances Act) for what scientific and healthcare literature calls cannabis. This site uses "cannabis" except when quoting official sources.

Federal section verified July 30, 2026 · sources on the map page

Bordering states

See Tennessee on the interactive map, or compare all 50 states and DC.

This information is for educational purposes only and is not legal advice. Cannabis laws change frequently and details (limits, licensing, local rules) vary within states. Always confirm against the linked primary sources or a licensed attorney in your state.

Methodology, sources & AI use

Each jurisdiction was researched against at least two sources: the controlling state statute or state agency page, cross-checked against an aggregate policy tracker. Every state was then independently re-derived in a second, blind research pass, and every disagreement and every nuanced case (low-THC programs, varies flags, recent law changes, DC) was resolved by a third review against primary sources. Access dates are recorded per source and a verification date is shown per state. US territories are not yet covered.

The underlying dataset is available as JSON under a CC BY 4.0 license (opens in new tab); reuse it with attribution and a link back.

How AI was used: This dataset and page were built with substantial help from AI (Anthropic's Claude), directed and reviewed by a human editor. AI research agents gathered the statutes and agency pages cited for each state; a second, independent AI pass re-derived every state's facts without seeing the first pass; and a third pass resolved all disagreements against primary sources. Every cited link was then opened and checked in a real web browser, and dead or outdated citations were corrected by hand before publication. AI can still make mistakes, and laws change quickly.

Spotted an error? Reach out via the contact page and it will be checked against the primary sources and corrected.

Dataset updated July 2026.