Texas lawmaker files bill to legalize marijuana

See some of the wildest things said about marijuana by politicians and public figures. less A Republican Texas lawmaker filed a bill Monday to completely deregulate marijuana in the Lone Star State, striking any mention of the plant from state laws. See some of the wildest things said about marijuana ... more A Republican Texas lawmaker filed a bill Monday to completely deregulate marijuana in the Lone Star State, striking any mention of the plant from state laws. Photo: Craig F. Walker, Getty Images Photo: Craig F. Walker, Getty Images Image 1 of / 104 Caption Close Texas lawmaker files bill to legalize marijuana 1 / 104 Back to Gallery

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The 24-page bill begins: "The following provisions are repealed," then lists dozens of Texas statutes related to marijuana.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 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 its current form, the bill has virtually no chance of winning legislative approval and the governor's signature, according to Gary Hale, a former intelligence chief in the Drug Intelligence Agency's Houston division and a drug policy scholar at the Baker Institute for Public Policy in Houston.

"A blanket decriminalization of marijuana and classification as a vegetable is not going to happen," he said. "Overall legalization will happen but in my opinion it will happen in incremental baby steps."

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.

That unique angle makes Texas' first stab at legalization stand out dramatically from other states' efforts, said Dean Becker, a Houston based radio host on the Drug Truth Network.

"I think it's the first time in America that such a bold and semi religious presentation of thought has been put forward about the cannabis plant," he said.

But Simpson's perspective resonates with 85-year-old Houstonian Ann Lee, who founded the group Republicans Against Marijuana Prohibition and traveled to Washington D.C. last week to advocate legalization at a conservative political conference.

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"Prohibition goes against the fundamental principles of the Republican party. Prohibition is against the fundamental principle of freedom," she said. "When you look at the facts, it's not conservative to support prohibition."

In June 2014, Lee was one of about 7,000 delegates to the Texas Republican Party convention in Fort Worth, where she spoke in favor of legalizing medical marijuana in the state, citing the benefits it's provided to her son. But the party voted to oppose marijuana legalization in its official platform.

"It's the official party position that we don't favor legalization of marijuana, however it should be noted that a sizable minority voted in favor of allowing medical marijuana usage," said Steve Munisteri, chairman of the Republican Party of Texas. "It was hotly contested by a sizable number of delegates on both sides."

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The national Republican Party did not respond to repeated requests for their official party platform.

In February, Pew Research reported that 63 percent of Republican millennials favor marijuana legalization (compared to 77 percent of same-aged Democrats), noting that the younger generation supports reformed drug laws much more widely than their parents do. But Simpson, 54, said that many of his Republican peers also support repeal of prohibition, and consider the Drug War an "abysmal failure."

"The conservative approach—the liberty approach—is to recognize force and violence is not a good way to deal with drug abuse," Simpson said. "Putting people in prison and teaching them a whole lot about crime, separating them from the family, taking away the breadwinners simply for possessing a plant that God made—that's wrong."

Indeed, the number of federal prisoners in the United States has quadrupled since the early 1990s, largely due to a crackdown on drug use. Almost half of all federal prisoners are currently jailed for drug-related offenses.

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AJ Lauderback, spokesman for the Sheriff's Association of Texas said, "we'll oppose [Simpson's] bill and any bill that wishes to legalize marijuana in the State of Texas."

He said it was a gateway drug, bore high social costs for drug rehabilitation programs and posed a danger, as users could drive under the influence.

But even in the unlikely event that pot became legal in Texas, federal authorities could trump state law and procesute marijuana crimes. Gale said the Obama administration has opted to "look the other way and not prosecute marijuana cases in states where legalization has been passed," but noted that federal law enforcement like the DEA and FBI still go after pot in states where it's legal.

Becker said he fears that the next president could reverse Obama's policy and prosecute marijuana growers and sellers across the country in spite of state laws.

But Simpson said his conservative values of small government with limited reach into civilian life led him to believe that not even state law enforcement has business with marijuana.

"We should use out resource in law enforcement to deal with murder, with rape, with theft, but just possessing a substance that God made is not wrong," he said. "If you use it irresponsibly, then sure. If you drive off the road from marijuana, then sure, but I don't know anyone who's run off the road because of marijuana. I do know people who have fallen asleep because they ate too much."