According to a recent poll, four in five Texas residents want marijuana to be legalized, in one form or another. Most also support a relaxation of regulations surrounding cannabis. The survey also found that there is little support in Texas for the efforts made to curb intoxicating products derived from hemp.
According to a poll released by the University of Texas/Texas Politics Project on Wednesday, 84 percent of Texas registered voters support legalizing cannabis possession in certain circumstances. A third of voters say that small amounts
A majority of respondents (16%) support the legalization of possession and use for any or all reasons.
Only 15% of respondents agreed that the possession and use of marijuana in any circumstances should be criminalized.
Like in many polls, the debate on legalization is divided by partisanship, with Democrats more favorable to the change than Republicans.
Texas Politics Project, in a blog about the survey, says: “While 65% Democrats believed that marijuana of any size (42%) and marijuana of any quantity (23%) would be legalized for recreational uses, Republicans were clearly divided. 21% of Republicans favor an outright prohibition, which is consistent with past results. 39% of Republicans favor the legalization solely of marijuana for medicinal purposes. And 40% of Republicans allow recreational usage.
Further, the poll asked respondents to rate the degree of regulation they felt the government should have over various issues. Of the six options—including guns, abortion, gambling, immigration and voting—marijuana came in second among issues that respondents said should be regulated less, at 43 percent.
Thirty-percent of voters believe cannabis laws should remain the same, 18% said that they should not change and 8 percent were unsure.
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A total of 1,200 voters registered in Texas were interviewed between April 18 and 28. The margin of error was +/-2,83 percent.
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 or other controlled substances—as several localities have already done despite lawsuits from the state attorney general.
According to the proposed amendments, the state law will be changed so that local authorities “may not put an item on the ballot that provides that they local entity won’t fully enforce state drug laws, such as a charter, or a charter amendment.”
While several courts have previously upheld local cannabis decriminalization laws, 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 Austin and San Marcos.
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 they hope put an initiative before voters to enact local marijuana reform at the ballot this coming November.
Abbott has attacked the local cannabis reform initiatives.
“Local communities such as towns, cities and counties, they don’t have the authority to override state law,” the governor said last May “If they want to see a different law passed, they need to work with their legislators. We should legislate so that we can ensure the state as a whole will adopt some laws.
It would create “chaos”, and voters could “pick and choose” which state laws they wanted to adhere to.
Abbott has previously said that he doesn’t believe people should be in jail over marijuana possession—although he mistakenly suggested at the time that Texas had already enacted a decriminalization policy to that end.
In 2023, Ground Game released a report that looked at the impacts of the marijuana reform laws. The report found that these measures would keep hundreds out of prison, even though they had led to a backlash from the law enforcement agencies in certain cities. Report said that the initiatives had also increased voter participation by appearing on ballots.
Another cannabis decriminalization measure that went before voters in San Antonio that year was overwhelmingly defeated, but that proposal also included unrelated provisions to prevent enforcement of abortion restrictions.
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Meanwhile, in March the Texas Senate approved a bill that cannabis advocates and stakeholders said would effectively eradicate the state’s hemp industry, prohibiting consumable products derived from the plant that contain any amount of THC.
That, as well as another measure from Rep. Joe Moody (D) to decriminalize cannabis statewide, is one of the latest of nearly two dozen cannabis-related proposals filed so far in Texas for the current legislative session. Other measures include legalizing adult-use cannabis, removing criminal penalties for possession of cannabis, and adjusting the existing state medical marijuana laws.
Moody sponsored a similar marijuana decriminalization bill last legislative session, in 2023. That measure, HB 218, passed the House on an 87–59 vote but later died in a Senate committee.
The House had already passed earlier cannabis decriminalization proposals during the two previous legislative sessions, in 2021 and 2019. But the efforts have consistently stalled in the Senate amid opposition from the lieutenant governor.
Separately, a Texas House committee has amended and passed two bills designed to prepare the state to provide swift access to therapeutic psychedelics in the event of approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).
Pennsylvania House approves bill to legalize marijuana sales through state-owned stores
Brian Shamblen is the photographer.
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