Louisiana's Senate Judiciary B Committee voted 3-2 on Tuesday to advance HB 568, a House-passed bill that would impose up to one year in jail and a $1,000 fine on anyone who smokes or vapes marijuana within 2,000 feet of any school property — including college campuses — or on a school bus. The bill now awaits a Senate floor vote.
Rep. Gabe Firment (R), the bill's sponsor, said it "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."
Kevin Caldwell, Southeast legislative manager for the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP), testified against the bill, arguing it would impose mandatory minimum jail time for simple public consumption — not distribution or intent to sell — in a zone that covers most urban neighborhoods. Caldwell warned: "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."
Firment, pressed by Democratic senators, argued 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 data shows such laws do not deter drug use or produce the outcomes their sponsors seek. A representative of Gov. Jeff Landry's (R) office attended the hearing in support of HB 568.
The bill runs counter to a 2021 law signed by then-Gov. John Bel Edwards (D) that removed the jail threat for possessing up to 14 grams of marijuana.
The Louisiana Senate has also recently passed a bill allowing terminally ill patients to use medical marijuana in hospitals, and separately approved a psychedelic-assisted therapy pilot program funded by opioid settlement dollars for clinical trials of psilocybin and ibogaine. Rep. Candace Newell (D) has introduced the "Adult-Use Cannabis Pilot Program Regulation and Enforcement Act," a three-year legalization pilot program; her similar bill last session failed to advance, as did a proposal to establish a marijuana tax framework in preparation for eventual adult-use legalization.
