What are the medical marijuana laws in Vermont?

Here is an overview of the medical marijuana laws in Vermont:

• 2004 – Governor James Douglas passes the “Act Relating to Marijuana Use by Persons with Severe Illness”, alongside Senate Bill 76 (SB 76) and House Bill 645 (HB 645). This removed state-level penalties on the use and possession of marijuana for those with debilitating conditions.
• 2007 – SB 00007 is passed, amending the law to require a bona-fide patient-physician relationship.
• 2011 – SB 17 is passed, providing a framework for the registering of up to 4 medical marijuana dispensaries for the state of Vermont. This is known as “An Act Relating To Registering Four Nonprofit Organizations To Dispense Marijuana For Symptom Relief”.
• 2013 – Two medical marijuana dispensaries open.
• 2015 – In what could be described as an interesting thought experiment, two state representatives facetiously introduced HB502, which would re-illegalize alcohol, giving it penalties equivalent to those for marijuana.
  • In 2015, Senate Bill 95 and House bill 277 were submitted, proposing a regulated system of legal recreational cannabis sales, however neither bill passed during the 2015 legislative session.
• 2017 – 2018 – In May 2017, the Vermont House approved a bill to allow personal possession, use, and cultivation of cannabis but not commercial sales, while the Vermont Senate in April approved a broader bill allowing cannabis commercial sale. On May 10, 2017, a joint bill formerly concerning fentanyl was amended to legalize cannabis, and approved by the entire state legislature, for the first time in U.S. history. The bill, titled S.22 “An act relating to increased penalties for possession, sale, and dispensation of fentanyl”, was amended to allow possession of an ounce of cannabis under title 18 of the Vermont Statutes Annotated.