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Four in five Texas voters say they want to see marijuana legalized in some form, and most also want to see regulations around cannabis relaxed, according to a new poll, which also shows a lack of support for efforts to crack down on intoxicating hemp-derived products in the state.<\/p>\n
The University of Texas\/Texas Politics Project Poll that was released on Wednesday found that 84 percent of registered voters in the state support allowing legal possession of cannabis under some circumstances. Thirty-five percent say small amounts of marijuana for any purpose should be legal, 16 percent want to legalize possession of any amount for any purpose and 33 percent support legalization for medical purposes only.<\/p>\n
Only 15 percent of respondents said that marijuana possession should be illegal under any circumstance.<\/p>\n
As is the case in most polls, there is a partisan divide on the issue of legalization, with Democrats being more in favor of the reform than Republicans are.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhile 65% of Democrats thought that small (42%) or any amount of marijuana (23%) should be legal for recreational purposes, Republicans were more clearly divided, with the aforementioned 21% favoring a complete prohibition (in line with past results), 39% favoring the legalization of marijuana solely for medicinal purposes, and 40% allowing for recreational usage,\u201d a Texas Politics Project blog post about the poll says.<\/p>\n
The survey further asked voters about their opinion on the extent to which they feel various things should be regulated by the state. Of the six options\u2014including guns, abortion, gambling, immigration and voting\u2014marijuana came in second among issues that respondents said should be regulated less, at 43 percent.<\/p>\n
Thirty percent of voters said cannabis should be regulated more strictly, while 18 percent said the laws should be kept the same and another 8 percent said they weren\u2019t sure.<\/p>\n
While Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) has made it a priority this session to advance legislation to ban consumable hemp products containing any amount of THC, the new poll also shows that voters oppose such a move, 50 percent to 34 percent, with the largest share of respondents (35 percent) saying they \u201cstrongly\u201d oppose legislation \u201coutlawing the production and sale of cannabis-derived products in Texas, including consumable, hemp-based products.\u201d<\/p>\n
The survey<\/a> involved interviews with 1,200 registered voters in Texas from April 18-28, with a +\/-2.83 percentage point margin of error.<\/p>\n Meanwhile in Texas, a House committee last week approved a Senate-passed bill that would prohibit cities from putting any citizen initiative on local ballots that would decriminalize marijuana<\/a>\u00a0or other controlled substances\u2014as several localities have already done despite lawsuits from the state attorney general.<\/p>\n Under the proposal, state law would be amended to say that local entities \u201cmay not place an item on a ballot, including a municipal charter or charter amendment, that would provide that the local entity will not fully enforce\u201d state drug laws.<\/p>\n While several courts have\u00a0previously upheld local cannabis decriminalization laws<\/a>, an appellate court comprised of three conservative justices appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has recently pushed back against two of those rulings, siding with the state in its legal challenge to the marijuana policy in\u00a0Austin<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0San Marcos<\/a>.<\/p>\n Meanwhile, despite the ongoing litigation and advancement of the House and Senate bills, Texas activists have their targets set on yet another city, Kyle, where\u00a0they hope put an initiative before voters to enact local marijuana reform<\/a>\u00a0at the ballot this coming November.<\/p>\n Abbott has 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 last May<\/a>\u00a0\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 In 2023, 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>\u00a0that year was overwhelmingly defeated, but that proposal also included unrelated provisions to prevent enforcement of abortion restrictions.<\/p>\n \u2014 Meanwhile, in March the Texas Senate approved a bill that cannabis advocates and stakeholders said\u00a0would effectively eradicate the state\u2019s hemp industry<\/a>, prohibiting consumable products derived from the plant that contain any amount of THC.<\/p>\n That, as well as another measure from Rep. Joe Moody (D) to decriminalize cannabis statewide, is one of the\u00a0latest of nearly two dozen cannabis-related proposals filed so far in Texas<\/a>\u00a0for the current legislative session. Various other measures would legalize adult-use marijuana, remove criminal penalties for cannabis possession and adjust the state\u2019s existing medical marijuana laws, among others.<\/p>\n Moody\u00a0sponsored a similar marijuana decriminalization bill last legislative session<\/a>, in 2023. That measure, HB 218, passed the House on an 87\u201359 vote but later died in a Senate committee.<\/p>\n The House had already\u00a0passed earlier cannabis decriminalization proposals<\/a>\u00a0during the two previous legislative sessions, in 2021 and 2019. But\u00a0the efforts have consistently stalled in the Senate<\/a>\u00a0amid opposition from the lieutenant governor.<\/p>\n Separately, a Texas House committee has amended and passed two bills designed to prepare the state to provide swift access to therapeutic psychedelics\u00a0in the event of approval<\/a>\u00a0from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).<\/p>\n Pennsylvania House Approves Bill To Legalize Marijuana Sales Through State-Owned Stores<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n\n Photo courtesy of Brian Shamblen<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n The post Four In Five Texas Voters Support Legalizing Marijuana In Some Form, Poll Shows<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Four in five Texas voters say they want to see marijuana legalized in some form, and most also want to see regulations around cannabis relaxed, according to a new poll, which also shows a lack of support for efforts to crack down on intoxicating hemp-derived products in the state. TheContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":458,"featured_media":81152,"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\/81151"}],"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=81151"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81151\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":81153,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/81151\/revisions\/81153"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/81152"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=81151"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=81151"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=81151"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: Four In Five Texas Voters Support Legalizing Marijuana In Some Form, Poll Shows<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"