Following the legalization of retail marijuana sales in Colorado and Washington, and medical marijuana in 22 states with more to follow, marijuana legalization appears inevitable — even in “law and order” states such as Texas. The question is no longer if Texas will legalize, but when? This question has important policy implications for incarceration costs, civil liberties and medical marijuana patients. In this Baker Institute Viewpoints series, five leading experts on marijuana reform examine the question, “When will Texas legalize marijuana?”
Read other posts in this series:
- Texas will legalize marijuana in 2019, by Rob Kampia, co-founder and executive director of the Marijuana Policy Project
- Marijuana won’t be legal in Texas anytime soon, by Mark Jones, Baker Institute fellow in political science
- When will marijuana be legal in Texas? Maybe not till 2023, by Jerry Epstein, co-founder and president of the Drug Policy Forum of Texas
- Texas voters will push for marijuana legalization by 2019, by Zoe Russell, assistant executive director of Republicans Against Marijuana Prohibition
As president of the Houston chapter of NORML (National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws), I get the question “When will Texas change its marijuana laws?” all the time. We had this discussion in the Drug Policy Forum of Texas online email list, and the answer depends on what you consider legalization. In the marijuana law reform community we have started referring to it as “regulation,” because in some people’s minds, “legalization” means weed all over the place — but when people hear “regulation,” they seem to be more comfortable with the idea and view it as a more thought-out process with limits.
On the question of when Texas will legalize marijuana, I am an optimist. We have had some improvement in Texas from the draconian laws of the 1970s that made possessing any amount of marijuana a felony, so the process of regulating marijuana in Texas has started, though it has stalled as of late. The latest reform bill was passed in 2007, HB 2391, which was a general crime reform bill that allowed police officers to issue a summons instead of arresting people for certain class B misdemeanors. This reform has only been used in a few counties thus far, though Harris County Sheriff Adrian Garcia recently talked about using it within his jurisdiction.
For medical marijuana, I predict Texas will pass legislation in 2015, though it will be very limited. A recent Kinder Institute poll found that 72 percent of Houston-area residents think we should fine instead of incarcerate people for possessing small amounts of the drug, and 65 percent think medical marijuana should be legalized. Sanjay Gupta’s CNN special report “Weed” brought attention to the benefits of medical marijuana, especially regarding children who use medical marijuana for epilepsy and other debilitating conditions. This was definitely an eye-opener for Americans — the public can no longer be told that marijuana has no medical value and be expected to believe it.
Another option for medical marijuana reform is a bill allowing CBD (cannabidiol), a nonpsychoactive component of marijuana that has many medical benefits. A few states have passed CBD bills that allow for an orally ingested oil that would contain less than 1 percent of THC. While this is great news for patients with epilepsy and other conditions this ratio works best for, we need to keep in mind that some patients need other parts of the plant. This may partly explain why Marinol — a legal alternative to natural cannabis — did not become more widely used. It is synthetic THC, so patients that needed the other properties of the plant could not benefit from this pharmaceutical replacement.
State Rep. Elliott Naishtat is planning on reintroducing his affirmative defense bill, which permits individuals to use medical need as a defense in court for a charge of marijuana possession, though this is not technically a medical marijuana bill. Some patients do not like this bill because it puts too much onus on the patient — they would rather not get arrested at all and have to go through a trial just to prove a doctor recommended their medicine. I haven’t heard of any other medical marijuana bills being considered yet, but things can change quickly once the elections are over in November.
I believe a bill that would regulate marijuana similarly to alcohol can be achieved in the next three years. People are realizing that the sky hasn’t fallen in Colorado, and the amount of tax revenue being generated shows how much money is being taken out of the black market and put into a regulated market. It has also been proven that marijuana will cause no more harm to your body than alcohol, so at the very least it should be regulated like alcohol. This idea resonates with people, especially when they relate the failures of marijuana prohibition to alcohol prohibition in the 1920s.
Regulating marijuana is the best option in my opinion, as law enforcement already knows how to enforce alcohol laws. Moving distribution from the black market to a regulated market would provide consumers with the safeguards of a legal marketplace. One medical marijuana patient told me that he was once held up at gunpoint and robbed while trying to get his medicine. When dealing with a criminal element, business disagreements are not handled in a court of law. They are handled on the streets. You don’t have that problem with normal commerce.
Whether legalizing or regulating marijuana, it is not a matter of “if” anymore, but “when.” The glaring problems of marijuana prohibition are coming to light as more and more people see that it does more harm than good. There are some people who shouldn’t use marijuana, but if someone has a problem with the drug, they need treatment, not incarceration.
It is time to be bold, Texas — expose marijuana prohibition for what it is, and send it the way of alcohol prohibition.
Steve Nolin is the executive director of the Houston chapter of the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws (NORML), a nonprofit organization dedicated to educating the public about marijuana and lobbying for a change in local, state and federal law. He has also been a reporter for the award-winning radio show “Cultural Baggage” and a producer and technical director for the television program “Drugs, Crime and Politics” on Houston Mediasource.