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The lawmaker takes a conservative, religious approach to the issue:
- Click here for HB 2165.
The lawmaker takes a conservative, religious approach to the issue:
In Texas, a conservative lawmaker filed a bill to completely deregulate marijuana in the Lone Star State Monday, proposing to strike any mention of the psychoactive plant from state law.
"Everything that God made is good, even marijuana" said state Rep. David Simpson, R-Longview, who filed the bill. "The conservative thought is that government doesn't need to fix something that God made good."
The 24-page bill begins: "The following provisions are repealed," then lists dozens of Texas statutes related to marijuana. If the Legislature were to approve the bill, pot in Texas would be regulated like any common crop.
In a press release, Simpson said he supported regulating marijuana like the state regulates "tomatoes, jalapeños or coffee."
It's a markedly different approach to marijuana law reform than other states have adopted. In the last year, blue states Colorado, Washington, Alaska and Washington, D.C., have voted to legalize pot within a detailed framework of taxation and regulation. But it would not be so with Simpson's bill, which would offer no such restrictions.
In his column, Simpson reflected on his Republican beliefs in small government and individual liberties, and he invoked biblical verse to explain his initiative to repeal marijuana prohibition. He told KETK he wants to "reframe the current marijuana discussion" by talking prohibition repeal in terms of common conservative values.
