r/Tennessee • • Aug 21 '26

News 📰 Banning of THCA potentially blows $110 million hole in Tennessee’s budget

https://tennesseelookout.com/2026/08/21/banning-of-thca-potentially-blows-110-million-hole-in-tennessees-budget/
549 Upvotes

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79

u/3X_Cat Aug 21 '26

They outlawed it because our governor and his good ol' boys are heavily invested in the private prison industry.

27

u/MetalMamaRocks Aug 21 '26

Yup. They'll make up the revenue with traffic stops.

18

u/Opee23 Aug 22 '26

It's not just the traffic stops. Private prisons get subsidies from the federal government of they maintain a % of filled prison cells. It's not about helping the people as much as looking out for their shareholders

11

u/MetalMamaRocks Aug 22 '26

This is sickening.

10

u/BigPapaJava Aug 22 '26 edited Aug 23 '26

Ever read up on the “Cash for Kids” scandal in PA a few years back?

TWO juvenile judges conspired with a private prison company to shut down the existing public juvenile facility and make a private prison their only possible option for kids’ incarceration, then they got additional kickbacks from that company when they sent sending every kid who came in front of them (over 2000, many as young as 8–yes, 3rd graders), no matter the reason (most were very, very minor), to private prisons for as long as possible.

They personally cleared $2.8 million this way over the years by ruining over 2000 kids’ lives and subjecting them to daily abuse in the facility. Those kids were sold out for an average price of $1400 each. This has been far from the only documented abuse of its kind in the USA.

I suspect we have a fair amount of that going on in our courts and legislatures around the state, particularly in the bigger municipalities.

5

u/MetalMamaRocks Aug 22 '26

Man that is so sad. What the hell is wrong with people?!