Two more Austin-area cities, Bastrop and Lockhart, have voted to decriminalize the possession of small amounts of marijuana. About 69% of voters in Bastrop and 67% of voters in Lockhart approved the ballot measures this election.
In Dallas, a similar proposition passed with about 67% of the vote. Dallas is now the largest Texas city to decriminalize small amounts of pot.
The propositions ban local law enforcement from citing or arresting people for possessing less than 4 ounces of marijuana, in most instances. They also prohibit police from using the smell of pot as probable cause for a search or seizure, and forbid using city funds to test whether a substance qualifies as marijuana, except in limited cases.
“As someone who grew up in Lockhart and volunteered to collect signatures, I’m glad to see Prop A win in a landslide,” Lockhart resident Mike Lewis said. “So many amazing people organized, collected signatures and made their voices heard to ensure fair ballot language.”
Why are so many Texas cities decriminalizing weed?
If this sounds familiar to you, it’s because decriminalizing marijuana has consistently appeared on local ballots across the state over the past three years.
Bastrop, Lockhart and Dallas now join Austin, San Marcos, Killeen, Elgin, Denton and Harker Heights as cities with decriminalization ordinances.
And these campaigns are no coincidence. They are the work of one group: Ground Game Texas.
There’s not a way for voters in Texas to get an initiative on the ballot statewide. So Catina Voellinger, the executive director of Ground Game Texas, and her team are pursuing what she calls a “trickle up” effect to get marijuana decriminalized in as many places as possible.
“I think it’s important when we can’t exercise that statewide message, that we leave these little receipts, that this is what we want, this is common-sense policy,” she said.
This patchwork approach has been almost perfect — so far, only Lubbock voters have rejected a Ground Game Texas proposition.
Decriminalizing for racial justice
Voellinger said these marijuana decriminalization propositions have made a real impact in reducing arrests, particularly of Black and brown people.
While marijuana usage is generally the same across racial demographics, citations and arrests for possessing weed are not. Black people are about three times as likely to be arrested for marijuana possession in Texas, and Latinos are twice as likely, according to Ground Game Texas data.
After the proposition passed in San Marcos in November 2022, arrests decreased overall by 85%.
In Killeen, arrests dropped 78%. Before it passed in Killeen, Black residents made up about 71% of the marijuana-related arrests there, despite them only being 39% of the population, according to the Killeen Police Department.
Voellinger said she hopes similar outcomes will be true for Bastrop and Lockhart, although neither city makes many marijuana-related arrests.
Bastrop Police Chief Vicky Steffanic said only 20 marijuana arrests were made last year in the town of about 11,000; some of those were in conjunction with higher level crimes, not small possession cases.
In Lockhart, a city with roughly 15,000 people, 99 marijuana-related arrests were made last year.
Still, voters in both cities did not treat the ballot measure as a nonissue.
Kathleen Clough, a Lockhart resident of 30 years, said she was excited the measure passed.
“It’s something we don’t need to instruct the police department to do … arrest people for small amounts of marijuana,” she said. “It’s not something that we need to be spending time and energy and resources on.”
The road to statewide legislation
Voellinger isn’t expecting marijuana to be decriminalized statewide any time soon. Republican leaders, including Sen. Ted Cruz – who was reelected Tuesday for a third term – haven’t exactly shown interest in progressive marijuana policies.
But so far, Ground Game Texas’ decriminalization policies have at least stood up to state pushback.
Earlier this year, Attorney General Ken Paxton sued five Texas cities for passing weed decriminalization measures. The suits against Austin and San Marcos were dismissed over the summer.
Voellinger said moving forward, Ground Game Texas is going to focus on making sure cities abide by the new decriminalization rules and start planning campaigns in more cities for 2025.
And while statewide weed decriminalization policy is unlikely, it’s possible that in the coming years, a majority of Texans will live in cities that have decriminalization ordinances through Ground Game Texas’ ballot measures, Voellinger said.
“I think people are just tired of outdated, draconian marijuana laws in Texas,” she said. “I think [the success in Dallas] just proves that these state laws at the state level aren’t in line with the needs of Texas residents.”
