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The Texas House of Representatives passed a bill to decriminalize marijuana and create a process to facilitate cannabis conviction expungements<\/a>\u00a0on Thursday, officially sending it to the Senate for consideration.<\/p>\n The 87-59 vote on the legislation from Rep. Joe Moody (D) comes one day after the chamber preliminarily approved the measure on second reading. Also on Wednesday, a House committee heard testimony on a separate bill to more broadly legalize and regulate cannabis sales.<\/p>\n The vote comes about a month and a half after the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee<\/a> unanimously passed the measure, which would remove the risk of arrest or jail time for low-level possession of cannabis and allow people to eventually erase cannabis issues from their criminal records.<\/p>\n The House has already\u00a0passed similar cannabis decriminalization proposals<\/a>\u00a0during the past two legislative sessions, in 2021 and 2019. But so far the\u00a0proposals have consistently stalled in the Senate<\/a>\u00a0amid opposition from Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R), who presides over the chamber.<\/p>\n It\u2019s unclear if Patrick will again seek to block the reform legislation. Marijuana Moment reached out to the lieutenant governor\u2019s office for comment, but representatives did not respond by the time of publication.<\/p>\n HB 218<\/a> combines two separate measures from the most recent session, both of which passed on the full House.<\/p>\n It would make possession of up to one ounce of marijuana a Class C misdemeanor, removing the risk of jail time and instead imposing a maximum fine of $500. Existing law classifies possession of small amounts of cannabis as a Class B misdemeanor, which carries penalties of up to 180 days in jail and up to a $2,000 fine.<\/p>\n The bill also specifies that possession of up to two ounces of cannabis would not result in an arrest, meaning violators would be cited and released. Further, people with possession convictions for up to two ounces of marijuana could seek to have those convictions expunged through a court process for a $30 fee.<\/p>\n \u2014 Meanwhile, the House Licensing & Administrative Procedures Committee held a hearing on another bill from Moody on Wednesday that would more broadly legalize marijuana sales. It allow adults to purchase, possess and gift up to 2.5 ounces of cannabis. They could also grow up to 12 plants, so long as they\u2019re kept in a secure, enclosed space.<\/p>\n The Texas Department of Licensing and Regulation would be responsible for administering the program, including developing a process to license marijuana businesses.<\/p>\n The\u00a0bill<\/a>, HB 3562, proposes a 10 percent tax on cannabis products, and revenue would go to local municipalities where marijuana businesses are operating (10 percent), counties where those businesses are located (10 percent), a \u201ccannabis testing and quality control fund\u201d (one percent) and administrative costs. The remainder would support a public school teachers fund.<\/p>\n Localities couldn\u2019t ban marijuana businesses in their area, though they could set rules \u201cgoverning the hours of operation, location, manner of conducting business, and number of cannabis growers, cannabis establishments, or cannabis testing facilities.\u201d<\/p>\n It doesn\u2019t appear that the bill proposes to take any specific steps to support social equity goals, such as expungements or licensing prioritization for people from communities that have been disproportionately impacted by the war on drugs.<\/p>\n Earlier this month, the House separately passed a bill to\u00a0allow medical marijuana as an opioid alternative<\/a>\u00a0for people with chronic pain and also replace the state\u2019s THC limit, sending the legislation to the Senate for consideration.<\/p>\n Nearly\u00a0three in four Texas voters (72 percent) support decriminalizing marijuana<\/a>, according to a University of Texas\/Texas Politics Project poll in December. More than half (55 percent), meanwhile, said they\u2019re in favor of broader legalization. Seventeen percent said it shouldn\u2019t be legal at all.<\/p>\n A more recent survey from the same institution similarly showed that a majority of Texas voters feel that\u00a0the state\u2019s marijuana laws should be \u201cless strict.\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n Texas lawmakers also recently filed a series of new bills aimed at\u00a0promoting and expanding psychedelics research<\/a>\u00a0in the state.<\/p>\n On the local level in Texas, meanwhile, activists have succeeded in enacting municipal cannabis reform policies. Most recently, voters in five cities\u2014Denton, Elgin, Harker Heights, Killeen and San Marcos\u00a0passed marijuana decriminalization ballot measures<\/a>\u00a0in November.<\/p>\n Local officials in some of those municipalities have\u00a0sought to undermine the voter-approved cannabis measures<\/a>, however,<\/p>\n Voters in\u00a0San Antonio as set to decide on a similar cannabis decriminalization initiative<\/a>\u00a0next month.<\/p>\n Bipartisan U.S. House And Senate Lawmakers Reintroduce Marijuana Banking Bill<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n The post Texas House Passes Marijuana Decriminalization And Expungements Bill, Sending It To The Senate<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
The Texas House of Representatives passed a bill to decriminalize marijuana and create a process to facilitate cannabis conviction expungements\u00a0on Thursday, officially sending it to the Senate for consideration. The 87-59 vote on the legislation from Rep. Joe Moody (D) comes one day after the chamber preliminarily approved the measureContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":64324,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64323"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/458"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64323"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64323\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":64325,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64323\/revisions\/64325"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64324"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64323"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64323"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64323"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: Texas House Passes Marijuana Decriminalization And Expungements Bill, Sending It To The Senate<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"