Legalized pot has taken great strides in Texas over the past couple of years, thanks in part to a surprising ally – a conservative lawmaker and fundamentalist Christian who actually used the Bible to make the case for legalizing weed.
As The Texas Observer reports, David Simpson wrote House Bill 2165, which would have purged mention of marijuana from state law and left the plant totally unregulated. However, the bill didn’t pass. But that didn’t stop it from helping make 2015 a banner year for pot reform in Texas, paving the way for Gov. Greg Abbott’s signing of Texas’ first – albeit very limited - medical marijuana law.
And while there was little action on the legislative front concerning pot this year, strides have been made at the local level with officials from some of the Lone Star State’s biggest counties and cities embracing softer policies for dealing with marijuana-related charges. One example of this is the cite-and-release law, which gives police departments the discretion of whether to arrest people on marijuana-related charges.
