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A Texas district court judge has dismissed a lawsuit from the Republican state attorney general who sought to overturn a local voter-approved marijuana decriminalization initiative<\/a> in Austin.<\/p>\n Travis County District Court Judge Jan Soifer rejected the challenge, as well as a request for a temporary injunction, from Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) on Tuesday. That means the cannabis reform measure approved by voters in 2022<\/a> remains effective, pending any potential appeal from the AG to a higher court.<\/p>\n Paxton\u2019s office filed lawsuits against the cities of Austin, San Marcos, Killeen, Elgin and Denton over the decriminalization policies that voters passed at the ballot over recent years. This marks the first court-level defeat to the challenge, and it comes in the state\u2019s fifth-largest city.<\/p>\n \u201cThis is a great victory, not only to protect the will of Austin voters, but also to encourage voters in places like Dallas to support our campaigns this year,\u201d Ground Game Texas, which has led the local decriminalization movement in the Lone Star State, said in an email to supporters on Wednesday.<\/p>\n An Austin judge rejected Ken Paxton\u2019s attempt to overrule local democracy and upheld marijuana reform in Austin! This ruling sets an important precedent for other courts to follow. Paxton has no business telling cities how to enforce their laws. pic.twitter.com\/ebKwiSXkCx<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 GroundGameTX (@GroundGameTX) June 12, 2024<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n The court action comes about two weeks after activists in Lockhart turned in what they say are more than enough signatures to qualify a cannabis decriminalization initiative for the local ballot this November. As referenced in the Ground Game email, Dallas is also in play for cannabis reform this election cycle<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cGround Game\u2019s campaign in Austin is what got this organization started. We took our victory here and expanded to five more cities\u2014and have only grown from there,\u201d the organization said. \u201cBy protecting our first policy victory, we keep our statewide momentum going, and encourage more cities to follow suit.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOf course, there\u2019s much more to be done,\u201d it said. \u201cBut for today, please join us in celebrating a victory for Austin voters and a defeat for the Attorney General.\u201d<\/p>\n Travis County Judge Jan Soifer has dismissed the lawsuit brought by Texas A.G. Ken Paxton against the City of Austin for its voter-initiated ordinance that decriminalized misdemeanor possession of marijuana. The ordinance remains in place. Another win for cannabis. pic.twitter.com\/T4SS5W6nXl<\/a><\/p>\n \u2014 Texas Cannabis Collective (@txcannaco) June 12, 2024<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n In a setback from advocates, however, voters in Lubbock rejected a separate cannabis reform initiative<\/a> last month.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has separately lashed out against the municipal cannabis reform efforts.<\/p>\n \u201cLocal communities such as towns, cities and counties, they don\u2019t have the authority to override state law,\u201d\u00a0the governor said late last month<\/a>. \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 He said it would lead to \u201cchaos\u201d and create an \u201cunworkable system\u201d for voters in individual cities to be \u201cpicking and choosing\u201d the laws they want abide by under state statute.<\/p>\n Abbott has previously said that he\u00a0doesn\u2019t believe people should be in jail over marijuana possession<\/a>\u2014although he mistakenly suggested at the time that Texas had already enacted a decriminalization policy to that end.<\/p>\n Paxton, the state attorney general, used more inflammatory rhetoric when his office announced in January 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 In general, the measures that have already been enacted in\u00a0Austin<\/a>,\u00a0Denton, Elgin, Harker Heights, Killeen and San Marcos<\/a> prevent 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 investigation for narcotics or violent crime.<\/p>\n \u2014 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 year\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 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 Three in five Texans, including a plurality of Republicans,\u00a0support legalizing marijuana, according to a survey released this month<\/a>.<\/p>\n Another poll released in 2022 found that nearly\u00a0three in four Texas voters (72 percent) support decriminalizing marijuana<\/a>. 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 Read the Texas district judge\u2019s ruling<\/a> in the Austin marijuana decriminalization case below:<\/p>\n\n Congressional Committee Pushes Federal Agencies To Study State Marijuana Laws And Reconsider Cannabis Use Policies For Government Workers<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Photo courtesy of Mike Latimer.<\/em><\/p>\n The post Texas Judge Upholds Austin Marijuana Decriminalization Law, Rejecting GOP Attorney General\u2019s Challenge<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
A Texas district court judge has dismissed a lawsuit from the Republican state attorney general who sought to overturn a local voter-approved marijuana decriminalization initiative in Austin. Travis County District Court Judge Jan Soifer rejected the challenge, as well as a request for a temporary injunction, from Attorney General KenContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":76222,"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\/76221"}],"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=76221"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":76223,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/76221\/revisions\/76223"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/76222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=76221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=76221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=76221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}\n
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\nRead More: Texas Judge Upholds Austin Marijuana Decriminalization Law, Rejecting GOP Attorney General\u2019s Challenge<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"