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Local officials in Houston, Texas have voted to place an initiative to make misdemeanor marijuana possession the \u201clowest possible enforcement priority\u201d<\/a> for local police on the November ballot.<\/p>\n The City Council on Wednesday advanced the measure to voters for their consideration after activists with Ground Game Texas have submitted nearly 40,000 signatures in support of the Houston Freedom Act, which would also ban no-knock warrants in the city.<\/p>\n The cannabis initiative says that its purpose is to \u201ccarefully allocating scarce city resources, reducing the risk of discriminatory enforcement practices, and focusing city resources on the highest priority public safety concerns.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThe City shall update its annual budget, police department manual, and relevant policies and procedures to ensure that public safety resources are not wasted on misdemeanor marijuana enforcement, and are instead targeted at other programs that best promote the health, safety, and general welfare of the people of Houston,\u201d it says.<\/p>\n The measure says the city should support diversion options such as referrals to treatment or participation in community service programs as an alternative to arrest for people accused of Class A or Class B misdemeanor marijuana possession.<\/p>\n Officers will still be allowed to seize any substance that they have probable cause to believe is marijuana, however.<\/p>\n \u2014 If the measure<\/a> is enacted, the city manager will need to ensure that budgets and reporting account for \u201ctotal funds and staff time\u201d spent on THC testing of cannabis-related substances.<\/p>\n There would also need to be a one-time audit of all misdemeanor marijuana enforcement conducted by city police within the past five years, including a breakdown of arrests made and citations issued, with demographic breakdowns for age, gender, race and ethnicity.<\/p>\n \u201cTo the best of their ability, the City shall determine: (a) the average total staff hours required per misdemeanor marijuana charge, including officer time, transit time, and any staff processing time; (b) the average total cost to the City per misdemeanor marijuana charge; (c ) the estimated total spent by the City on THC testing for each year under review; and (d) the estimated total spent by the City on misdemeanor marijuana enforcement, including staff and testing costs, for each year under review.\u201d<\/p>\n Going forward, local officials would also need to issue annual reports on implementation of the lowest-enforcement priority policy for cannabis possession arrests.<\/p>\n \u201cOne of the people who signed our petition was a 67-year-old Black grandmother who told us HPD picked her up over cannabis and held her for two days, while she was a participant in Texas\u2019 Compassionate Use Program,\u201d Catina Voellinger, executive director of Ground Game Texas, told Marijuana Moment. \u201cIs Houston really going to call this abuelita the face of serious criminal activity in Houston?\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cThese punitive policies do more than put people in jail. They box people out of jobs, housing, education, stability and opportunity. They turn one encounter with police into years of consequences,\u201d Voellinger said. \u201cShe signed because she knows exactly what that costs. And nearly 40,000 Houstonians signed because they believe people deserve a path to opportunity not a draconian system designed to keep closing doors on us.\u201d<\/p>\n Ground Game has previously organized efforts to put more far-reaching measures to decriminalize marijuana under local law on the ballot in several cities across Texas, with some passing and some failing.<\/p>\n In general, the measures that have been approved in Austin<\/a>,\u00a0Denton, Elgin, Harker Heights, Killeen and San Marcos<\/a> were aimed at preventing 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 State Attorney General Ken Paxton (R), however, has sued to block enactment of those local cannabis decriminalization laws<\/a>\u2014saying that \u201cwe don\u2019t allow cities the ability to create anarchy by picking and choosing the laws they enforce.\u201d<\/p>\n The Texas Supreme Court sided with the attorney general in his quest to overturn the local voter-approved cannabis laws<\/a>.<\/p>\n Paxton is running for U.S. Senate this November. His Democratic opponent James Talarico recently said that keeping marijuana illegal is an \u201cinsane\u201d form of \u201ccorruption\u201d<\/a> that benefits alcohol and tobacco companies.<\/p>\n Meanwhile in Texas, regulators have moved to ban certain hemp-derived THC cannabis products<\/a>, including those containing delta-8 and delta-10 THC. Now classified as Schedule I drugs, possession is treated as a felony, carrying\u00a0a punishment of 180 days to two years in prison and fines of up to $10,000.<\/p>\n The restrictions are being\u00a0challenged with a federal lawsuit filed by hemp companies<\/a>.<\/p>\n The post Houston Will Deprioritize Marijuana Arrests If Voters Approve Measure Cleared For November Ballot<\/a> appeared first on Marijuana Moment<\/a>.<\/p>\n
Local officials in Houston, Texas have voted to place an initiative to make misdemeanor marijuana possession the \u201clowest possible enforcement priority\u201d for local police on the November ballot. The City Council on Wednesday advanced the measure to voters for their consideration after activists with Ground Game Texas have submitted nearlyContinue Reading<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":459,"featured_media":86605,"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\/86604"}],"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\/459"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=86604"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86604\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":86606,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/86604\/revisions\/86606"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/86605"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=86604"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=86604"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cannabiscultivatornews.com\/home\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=86604"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
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\nRead More: Houston Will Deprioritize Marijuana Arrests If Voters Approve Measure Cleared For November Ballot<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"