Connect with us

Politics

Voters In Bastrop, Texas Will Decide On Marijuana Decriminalization In November, The 3rd City To Put Cannabis On Ballot This Year

Published

on

Voters in the Texas city of Bastrop will decide this fall on how the city should handle low-level marijuana possession crimes. City officials certified last week that a proposed charter amendment campaign secured enough voter signatures to put cannabis decriminalization on the municipality’s November 5 ballot.

Bastrop’s decriminalization measure is the third such measure certified in Texas cities this month following similar efforts in Dallas and Lockhart.

Activists in Bastrop submitted signatures in support of the cannabis ballot initiative earlier this month. The group Ground Game Texas, which has spearheaded a largely successful local decriminalization push in the state during recent years, announced that advocates had submitted more than 600 signatures for ballot placement. They needed approximately 400 to be validated in order to qualify.

In general, the measures that have already been enacted in AustinDenton, Elgin, Harker Heights, Killeen and San Marcos prevent police from making arrests or issuing citations for Class A or B misdemeanor cannabis possession offenses, unless it’s part of a high priority felony investigation for narcotics or violent crime.

“The criminalization of marijuana undermines our individual freedoms and limits career opportunities,” said petition leader Desiree Venable, who’s also a Democratic candidate for a state House seat in November.

“The decriminalization of marijuana is a crucial step toward the criminal justice reform we desperately need and I’m happy to be part of this progress,” she said.

Venable is running to unseat incumbent House District 17 Rep. Stan Gerdes (R).

On social media, Venable said she was “Looking forward to bringing more progress & putting more power in the hands of the people when elected!”

The Bastrop city secretary certified that activists collected enough signatures for the marijuana petition on July 23.

Advocates also scored another win in San Marcos last week after a Texas district judge dismissed a lawsuit from the state’s Republican attorney general that sought to overturn a local decriminalization ordinance in that city.

Paxton filed a lawsuit in January challenging local decriminalization laws that were enacted in five cities: Austin, San Marcos, Killeen, Elgin and Denton. A different district judge had overturned the suit in Austin last month.

Meanwhile, in a setback from advocates, voters in Lubbock rejected a separate cannabis reform initiative last month.

Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has separately lashed out against the municipal cannabis reform efforts.

“Local communities such as towns, cities and counties, they don’t have the authority to override state law,” the governor said in May “If they want to see a different law passed, they need to work with their legislators. Let’s legislate to work to make sure that the state, as a state, will pass some of the law.”

He said it would lead to “chaos” and create an “unworkable system” for voters in individual cities to be “picking and choosing” the laws they want abide by under state statute.

Abbott has previously said that he doesn’t believe people should be in jail over marijuana possession—although he mistakenly suggested at the time that Texas had already enacted a decriminalization policy to that end.

Paxton had used more inflammatory rhetoric when his office announced that it was suing the five cities over their local laws decriminalizing marijuana, vowing to overrule the “anarchy” of “pro-crime extremists” who advocated for the reform.

Shortly after voters in Harker Heights approved their measure, the city council overturned the ordinance over concerns that it conflicted with state law. But activists collected signatures for another initiative and successfully repealed the repeal last year—though officials have still refused to move forward with implementing the will of voters.

In November, Ground Game released a report that looked at the impacts of the marijuana reform laws. It found that the measures will keep hundreds of people out of jail, even as they have led to blowback from law enforcement in some cities. The initiatives have also driven voter turnout by being on the ballot, the report said.

Another cannabis decriminalization measure that went before voters in San Antonio last May was overwhelmingly defeated, but that proposal also included unrelated provisions to prevent enforcement of abortion restrictions.

At the state-level last year, the Texas House of Representatives passed a series of bills to decriminalize marijuana, facilitate expungements and allow chronic pain patients to access medical cannabis as an opioid alternative. But they ultimately stalled out in the Senate, which has been a theme for cannabis reform measures in the conservative legislature over several sessions.

The House passed similar cannabis decriminalization proposals during the past two legislative sessions, in 2021 and 2019.

Separately, a Texas Democratic senator brought the issue of marijuana legalization to the Senate floor last May, seeking to attach to an unrelated resolution an amendment that would’ve allowed Texans to vote on ending prohibition at the ballot box. But the symbolic proposal was ultimately shut down. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) agreed to another member’s point of order, deeming the cannabis amendment not germane to the broader legislation.

Three in five Texans, including a plurality of Republicans, support legalizing marijuana, according to a survey released in May.

Another poll released in 2022 found that nearly three in four Texas voters (72 percent) support decriminalizing marijuana. More than half (55 percent), meanwhile, said they’re in favor of broader legalization. Seventeen percent said it shouldn’t be legal at all.

Last March, the same institution similarly showed that a majority of Texas voters feel that the state’s marijuana laws should be “less strict.”

Florida Marijuana Legalization Ballot Initiative Has Enough Support To Pass, With Bipartisan Majority Of Voters In Favor, New Poll Finds

Photo courtesy of Philip Steffan.

Marijuana Moment is made possible with support from readers. If you rely on our cannabis advocacy journalism to stay informed, please consider a monthly Patreon pledge.
Become a patron at Patreon!

Ben Adlin, a senior editor at Marijuana Moment, has been covering cannabis and other drug policy issues professionally since 2011. He was previously a senior news editor at Leafly, an associate editor at the Los Angeles Daily Journal and a Coro Fellow in Public Affairs. He lives in Washington State.

Advertisement

Marijuana News In Your Inbox

Get our daily newsletter.

Support Marijuana Moment

Marijuana News In Your Inbox

 

Get our daily newsletter.