Indiana’s Two-Ounce Marijuana Bill Died Without a Hearing

Indiana House Bill 1191 died in committee in 2026, leaving possession of even a small amount of marijuana a crime. Rep. Mitch Gore, a Democrat from Indianapolis, filed the measure on January 5, 2026 to drop criminal penalties for two ounces or less. It never received a committee vote.

The same session moved hemp products instead. After adjournment, Gov. Mike Braun began talking about medical marijuana, while the possession statute Gore tried to amend did not move.

A Possession Bill That Never Got a Hearing

Gore authored the bill alone. The House read it once and sent it to the Committee on Courts and Criminal Code, the graveyard for cannabis filings in Indianapolis. Bill-tracking records list no hearing, no amendment, and no roll call after that referral.

House Bill 1191’s official digest is one line: it decriminalizes possession of two ounces or less of marijuana. The introduced draft set an effective date of July 1, 2026, which would have given courts, prosecutors, and police a half-year to change charging habits if the General Assembly had passed it and Braun had signed it.

July 1, 2026, arrived with the old code still in force. Legislative trackers recorded the bill as dead in committee. The Assembly’s own bill page still shows only the January 5 authorship and referral.

That is the whole official life of the proposal. A single Democrat in a Republican House filed a narrow possession bill, and the committee of jurisdiction never took it up.

Gore Drew a Two-Ounce Line

The draft was not a legal market. It would not have licensed growers, stores, or testers, and it would not have made it legal to sell flower. It would have changed what a cop could charge after a search.

WHAT HB 1191 WOULD HAVE CHANGED

• Two ounces or less: Possessing that amount would no longer have been a crime.
• Home grows at that size: Growing two ounces or less would have sat on the same side of the line.
• Above two ounces: Possession would have remained a Class B misdemeanor, the lowest criminal tier.
• The felony line: A Level 6 felony, now tied to thirty grams, would have moved to four ounces.
• Hash and oil: Concentrates would have stayed illegal, and the five-gram felony line for hash oil, hashish, or salvia would not have moved.

A Level 6 felony still carries exposure of up to 2.5 years in prison and a $10,000 fine. Gore’s draft would have made that charge harder to reach on weight alone, and it would have left people with two ounces outside the criminal code. It would not have given them a legal place to buy the plant.

Karen O’Keefe, director of state policies at the Marijuana Policy Project, called Indiana “an outlier on cannabis” when the bill dropped, and said every neighboring state had already enacted medical or adult-use law. “Meanwhile, nearly 9,000 Hoosiers were arrested for cannabis possession in 2024,” she said.

Why Hemp Took the 2026 Docket

Traditional marijuana barely showed up in the 2026 packet. The live fight was hemp-derived THC, the gummies and vapes that proliferated after the federal hemp definition opened a retail channel Indiana never designed.

Only two bills that session aimed at the plant itself: Gore’s decrim file and House Bill 1298 from Rep. Jim Lucas, a Republican from Seymour, which would have reclassified marijuana and THC to follow a federal scheduling shift. Both sat in Courts and Criminal Code. Neither moved.

Hemp files crowded the rest of the board. Senate Bill 250, titled as regulation of hemp, passed the Senate on January 28, 2026, by 35 yeas to 13 nays and later picked up a House committee report to amend and do pass. Other hemp and extract bills were referred to Public Policy, Commerce, and Commerce, Small Business and Economic Development.

CANNABIS FILES IN THE 2026 SESSION

The Assembly’s subject list of marijuana bills filed in 2026 makes the split plain: two plant-marijuana files, and a thicker stack on hemp and low-THC extract. Senate President Pro Tempore Rodric Bray, a Republican from Martinsville, had already said he wanted a hemp bill that tracked coming federal limits.

That choice had a cost on the criminal side. Energy that in other years scattered across decrim and medical drafts went into how to police delta-8 shelves. Gore’s two-ounce line never reached a microphone. Indiana still has a wide hemp-THC retail trade, an accidental cannabis market that lawmakers spent the winter trying to fence, while a bag of flower in a console remains a charging decision.

Possession of a Joint Is Still a Crime

Under current Indiana law, any amount of marijuana can be charged. Possession is a Class B misdemeanor as the base offense. It becomes a Level 6 felony at thirty grams of marijuana, or at five grams of hash oil, hashish, or salvia, and prior drug convictions can still push a case up the scale.

Indiana’s current marijuana criminal penalties remain among the stricter state schemes, with no medical program and no adult-use stores. Sale and cultivation sit in the same criminal article. A traffic stop that turns up a small amount can still mean a record, a fine, and time in jail.

THE STATUTE GORE DID NOT MOVE

• Base charge: Possession of marijuana is a Class B misdemeanor at any amount.
• Felony weight: Thirty grams of marijuana, or five grams of hash oil, hashish, or salvia, is a Level 6 felony.
• 2024 arrests: Nearly 9,000 Hoosiers were arrested for cannabis possession, per O’Keefe at the Marijuana Policy Project.
• Border counties: Possession arrests in some northwest Indiana counties fell between 2021 and 2025 even as Michigan and Illinois sold adult-use cannabis across the line, which did not rewrite the statewide statute.

Falling arrests in a few counties next to legal stores do not retire the charging statute. They show how enforcement already leaks at the edges while the code still treats two ounces as a crime. People in those counties can still be arrested. The rest of the state never got the two-ounce carve-out Gore wrote down.

The Bills That Died Before HB 1191

Gore did not invent this fight. Indiana has spent years filing cannabis bills that stop in committee, including Republican drafts, and then repeating the cycle the next January.

HOW INDIANA HAS PARKED CANNABIS BILLS

1. November 2023: The Interim Study Committee on Corrections and Criminal Code holds a six-hour hearing on adult-use cannabis and issues no recommendations.
2. 2024 session: At least ten cannabis bills die, spanning adult-use, medical programs, and decriminalization paired with regulated sales.
3. January 8, 2025: House Bill 1145, a decriminalization file from Rep. Heath VanNatter, a Republican, is referred to Courts and Criminal Code on first reading and dies there.
4. 2025 session: About eight cannabis bills die, including medical, production, and adult-use drafts, after Republican leadership said it had not seen a compelling case to legalize.
5. January 5, 2026: Gore files House Bill 1191; Lucas files the reclassification bill; both stop in the same House committee.
6. July 1, 2026: The date written into Gore’s draft arrives, and possession law is unchanged.

VanNatter’s 2025 decrim bill is the closest cousin. A Republican put a similar idea on the same committee calendar a year earlier, and it died on first reading too. Bipartisan filings have not been the missing piece. The committee and the leaders who feed it bills have been.

House Speaker Todd Huston put the leadership view in plain words in December 2024, before Gore’s file existed. “If we’re behind on having fewer people use an addictive substance, I don’t know, I’m okay with that,” Huston said. That stance does not need a hearing to kill a two-ounce bill. It only needs the bill to sit.

After Adjournment, Braun Floated Medical Use

Braun did not campaign as a legalization governor. As a 2024 candidate he left room for medical sales and closed the door on recreational ones. During the 2026 session he was not the sponsor of HB 1191, and the bill never reached his desk.

After the session, he started talking. On April 29, 2026, he told reporters he would “do what makes sense,” pointed to traffic heading over the state line, and said a federal move to ease marijuana’s schedule made state action “more likely.” He also put the next step on the House and Senate, not on an executive order.

You’ve got to take what’s evolved over time. If you stick your head in the sand, you’re generally going to make the wrong decision.

Mike Braun, Governor of Indiana, to reporters, April 29, 2026

In May he went further on the medical side. He said Indiana is “surrounded” by four states with medical or adult-use cannabis, that veterans “disproportionately” say it helps, and that he hoped GOP opposition “softens on the medical side.” He still tied his cue to law enforcement. He did not endorse Gore’s possession bill, and he did not promise a recreational market.

A report circulating that same April week put what Hoosiers spend on cannabis near $2 billion a year, money that now leaves the state or stays in the hemp aisle. Medical-marijuana language was already being prepared for 2027 after Braun’s comments. That is a different bill from HB 1191. It would build a program with doctors and licenses. It would not, on its own, do what Gore’s two-ounce line would have done for someone stopped with flower and no card.

Where Hoosiers Already Drive to Buy It

Illinois, Michigan, and Ohio sell adult-use cannabis. Kentucky has a medical program. Braun keeps listing those four because Hoosiers already use them. He has said the border traffic is “noticeable,” and that police know people cross to buy.

Indiana licenses alcohol, taxes it, and still runs a criminal statute for a plant those four states have moved into stores or clinics. The hemp-THC aisle inside Indiana makes the split sharper: a shopper can buy a delta-8 gummy that the state spent 2026 trying to fence, then catch a Class B misdemeanor for a small bag of flower.

Gore has represented House District 89 since 2020. He did not pick up a Republican coauthor on HB 1191. Lucas, who did put a GOP name on a scheduling bill, got the same silent committee. The bottleneck is not the party of the first sponsor. It is a chamber that will argue hemp labels and will not vote on two ounces of marijuana.

House Bill 1191 died in committee after its January 5, 2026, referral, and on July 1, 2026, the date it would have taken effect, Indiana still charged possession of two ounces as a crime.

Disclaimer: This article is news reporting on Indiana House Bill 1191 and related state cannabis law, and it is for information only. It is not legal advice, is not a reading of any person’s criminal case, and is not a guide to what anyone may possess, grow, or buy. Readers with questions about charges, records, or travel with cannabis should consult an Indiana-licensed attorney before acting. Bill status, penalties, and neighboring-state rules reflect the public records and statements cited here and can change if the General Assembly or the courts act.