The Republican governor of Texas says that cities seeking to locally decriminalize marijuana\u2014including one that\u2019s set to vote on the reform next week\u2014don\u2019t have the authority to \u201coverride\u201d state law.<\/p>\n
Three months after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) sued five cities over voter-approved cannabis decriminalization policies<\/a>, Gov. Greg Abbott (R) addressed the forthcoming vote in Lubbock, where the reform is on the local May 4 ballot.<\/p>\n The governor told KAMC that his concern was \u201cbigger\u201d than the question of decriminalization itself and was more a matter of localities superseding state laws.<\/p>\n \u201cLocal communities such as towns, cities and counties, they don\u2019t have the authority to override state law,\u201d Abbott said. \u201cIf they want to see a different law passed, they need to work with their legislators. Let\u2019s legislate to work to make sure that the state, as a state, will pass some of the law.\u201d<\/p>\n The governor has previously said that he doesn\u2019t believe people should be in jail over marijuana possession<\/a>\u2014although he mistakenly suggested that Texas had already enacted a decriminalization policy to that end.<\/p>\n In the new interview this week, Abbott said<\/a> it would lead to \u201cchaos\u201d for voters in individual cities to be \u201cpicking and choosing\u201d the laws they want abide by under state statute.<\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s an unworkable system,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Early voting on the Lubbock measure began on Monday, April 22 and goes through Tuesday, April 30\u2014with Election Day coming on the following Saturday.<\/p>\n Paxton, the state attorney general, used more inflammatory rhetoric when his office announced that it was suing five cities over local laws decriminalizing marijuana that voters approved, vowing to overrule the \u201canarchy\u201d of \u201cpro-crime extremists\u201d who advocated for the reform.<\/p>\n He filed lawsuits against the cities of Austin, San Marcos, Killeen, Elgin and Denton. The litigation is still pending, but advocates in Lubbock are moving ahead with their local reform effort nonetheless.<\/p>\n Adam Hernandez, the Lubbock decriminalization campaign director who is also running to become the city\u2019s next mayor, told Marijuana Moment on Thursday that he feels the attorney general\u2019s lawsuits have actually \u201cenergized people\u201d to vote in favor of the reform proposal.<\/p>\n \u201cI don\u2019t know that it\u2019s been working the way that they would like it to work,\u201d he said. \u201cThey\u2019ve been getting a lot of pushback from the community\u2014people calling out a lot of the misinformation that\u2019s been going around.\u201d<\/p>\n Hernandez added that \u201cwe\u2019re not really concerned\u201d about the threat of a lawsuit coming down on Lubbock if the cannabis measure passes, and he pointed out that there\u2019s also a clause in the measure that says, in the event that decriminalization is voided by the state, it would still become the city\u2019s lowest law enforcement priority.<\/p>\n Last December, lawmakers in Lubbock officially approved a resolution to put the local decriminalization initiative on the ballot<\/a> after declining to enact on the reform legislatively.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, activists with Ground Game Texas and Texas Cannabis Collective have been collecting signatures to place local marijuana decriminalization initiatives on the November ballot<\/a>\u00a0in two more cities: Dallas and Lockhart.<\/p>\n In general, the measures that have already been enacted in Austin<\/a>,\u00a0Denton, Elgin, Harker Heights, Killeen and San Marcos<\/a>\u00a0prevent police from making arrests or issuing citations for Class A or B misdemeanor cannabis possession offenses, unless it\u2019s part of a high priority felony\u00a0 investigation for narcotics or violent crime.<\/p>\n Harker Heights wasn\u2019t targeted in the lawsuit, which is likely related to the city\u2019s refusal to implement the voter-approved policy change, which\u00a0prompted<\/a> Ground Game to file suit against officials last December.<\/p>\n Shortly after voters in Harker Heights approved their measure, the city council overturned the ordinance over concerns that it conflicted with state law. But\u00a0activists collected signatures for another initiative<\/a>\u00a0and successfully repealed the repeal last May\u2014though officials have still refused to move forward with implementing the will of voters.<\/p>\n In November, Ground Game released a report that\u00a0looked at the impacts of the marijuana reform laws<\/a>. 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.<\/p>\n Another\u00a0cannabis decriminalization measure that went before voters in San Antonio<\/a>\u00a0last May was overwhelmingly defeated, but that proposal also included unrelated provisions to prevent enforcement of abortion restrictions.<\/p>\n Advocates have faced other issues in certain jurisdictions where voters approved decriminalization.<\/p>\n The Killeen City Council temporarily paused implementation of its local voter-approved ordinance, arguing that there were legal concerns that lawmakers needed to sort through before giving it their approval, which they eventually did. But last April, Bell County filed a lawsuit challenging the policy.<\/p>\n 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\u00a0they ultimately stalled out in the Senate<\/a>, which has been a theme for cannabis reform measures in the conservative legislature over several sessions.<\/p>\n The House\u00a0passed similar cannabis decriminalization proposals<\/a>\u00a0during the past two legislative sessions, in 2021 and 2019.<\/p>\n 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\u2019ve allowed Texans to vote on ending prohibition at the ballot box. But\u00a0the symbolic proposal was ultimately shut down<\/a>. Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) agreed to another member\u2019s point of order, deeming the cannabis amendment not germane to the broader legislation.<\/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 2022. 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 Last March, 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 VP Kamala Harris Highlights Marijuana Pardons At Another White House Event With Presidential Clemency Recipients<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Photo courtesy of Philip Steffan<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n The post Texas Governor Condemns Local Marijuana Decriminalization Efforts As Lubbock Voters Decide On Reform At The Ballot<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
The Republican governor of Texas says that cities seeking to locally decriminalize marijuana\u2014including one that\u2019s set to vote on the reform next week\u2014don\u2019t have the authority to \u201coverride\u201d state law. Three months after Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) sued five cities over voter-approved cannabis decriminalization policies, Gov. Greg AbbottContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"false","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[18,81,126],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74698"}],"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=74698"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74698\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":74699,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/74698\/revisions\/74699"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=74698"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=74698"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=74698"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: Texas Governor Condemns Local Marijuana Decriminalization Efforts As Lubbock Voters Decide On Reform At The Ballot<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"