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A majority of Texas voters would like to see the state go the way of Washington and Colorado and legalize possession of marijuana, according to a new poll conducted by Public Policy Polling for the Marijuana Policy Project.Second
According to the poll, 58 percent of the 860 respondents said they either "strongly support (41 percent)" or "somewhat support (17 percent)" changing the law in Texas to regulate marijuana similarly to alcohol, licensing stores to sell the substance to adults age 21 and older. Of those in opposition, 14 percent "somewhat oppose" the full legalization of marijuana and 24 percent "strongly oppose" such a change.
Sixty-one percent of respondents said they would like to remove criminal penalties for those in possession of an ounce or less of marijuana and make it a civil rather than criminal offense, punishable by a fine of up to $100 with no jail time. Under the current law, a person in possession of a small amount of the drug faces up to a year in jail and a fine of up to $2,000.
"I would take this poll seriously, because it does generally track with Gallup and Pew polls nationwide," said Nathan Jones, a postdoctoral fellow in Drug Policy at Rice University's Baker Institute.
"This shows that a majority of Texans are in support of fully legalizing marijuana."
Jones attributes the poll results in part to Texans' libertarian attitudes on spending tax dollars to enforce the state's marijuana policy and the cost of incarcerating drug offenders. The state also loses money due to lost productivity, when a non-violent offender is released from prison and is unable to find a good job.
Notice that some of the support for legalization has less to do with attitudes about the drug than concerns over the costs of prosecution.
Texas Rep. Steve Stockman, R-Friendswood, has recently backed a bill to require federal officials to comply with state marijuana laws, which was introduced in April and has since garnered support from Congressmen on both sides of the aisle.
The Respect State Marijuana Laws Act of 2013, introduced by California Rep. Dana Rohrabacher, a Republican, would bar federal drug enforcement agents from penalizing any person abiding by the marijuana laws in their own state.
The law “shall not apply to any person acting in compliance with State laws” — that is, people who are in compliance with their state laws regarding possession, manufacture or use of marijuana will not be subjected to federal penalties.
Twenty-one states and Washington, D.C. have already legalized medical marijuana, and both Washington and Colorado legalized marijuana for both medicinal and recreational use.
Stockman’s name was added to the bill as a sponsor on Saturday. He currently is the only Texas Congressman to cosponsor the bill, which has a total of 19 cosponsors. The bill was referred to to the Subcommittee on Crime, Terrorism, Homeland Security, and Investigations in April.
