Texas lawmakers have begun a multi-pronged attempt to reshape marijuana rules in the Lone Star State in the wake of voters passing pro-pot initiatives in several states across the country as a result of last week’s election.
At least six marijuana-related proposals have been laid out since Monday when state lawmakers officially became able to file bills to be considered during the 2017 legislative session, The Texas Tribune reported this week.
Days after voters in four states agreed to legalize marijuana for recreational use, Texans may likely decide soon if they want to follow suit and reshape drugs laws of their own.
House Bill 81 offered by State Rep. Joe Moody, El Paso Democrat, would replace criminal penalties for possession of an ounce or less of pot with a civil fine, while House Bill 82 courtesy of State Rep. Harold Dutton Jr. would make it a Class C misdemeanor to be caught with an ounce or less of pot instead of a Class B misdemeanor as it currently stands.
Mr. Moody said HB 81 “is about good government and efficient use of resources,” and said that reducing penalties would allow police officers and prosecutors to concentrate on violent crime instead of low-level marijuana offenders, Fox 7 reported from Austin.
“We’re spending our tax dollars on incarcerating [people that don’t deserve to be incarcerated] because they got caught with a small amount of marijuana,” agreed State Rep. Jason Isaac, a Republican from Dripping Springs. “These are people that we probably subsidize their public education, we probably subsidize where they went to a state school, and now they’re branded as a criminal when they go to do a background check,” he told a local ABC News affiliate.
Another proposal in the House, HB 58 would establish a court specifically to handle pot charges involving first-time offenders. An offering in the Senate, meanwhile, SB 170, would make it a civil offense instead of a criminal one to be caught possessing under an ounce or pot.
State Sen. José Rodríguez, another El Paso Democrat, also proposed a pair of pot-related resolutions this week in an attempt to let Texans outright decide whether or not to legalize marijuana. One of his resolutions would let Texas vote on whether weed should be legal, and a nearly identical filing poses the same question but restricts legal weed to medical patients with valid prescriptions.
“We don’t have that unique opportunity to put it on a ballot and vote on it as a Texan,” Luis Nakomoto, the executive director of pro-weed group NORML, told San Antonio’s KENS 5 News. “In most states that have passed reform, the voters are allowed to look at it on a ballot and say yes or no on reform. Here in Texas, we rely on our state reps to advocate for us.”
“It is long past time we allow the people to decide,” Mr. Rodríguez, the proposals’ author, said in a statement.
Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, a Republican, said previously that that he believed lawmakers would reject attempts to legalize marijuana for purposes either recreational or medicinal. A spokesman for the governor told the San Antonio Statesman this week that Mr. Abbott’s opinion remains the same, the newspaper reported.
Voters in California, Maine, Nevada and Massachusetts approved recreational marijuana initiatives on Nov. 8, while Florida, North Dakota and Arkansas voted in favor of establishing medicinal marijuana programs last Tuesday, bringing the grant total of states with medical pot to 28 and Washington, D.C.
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