While the future of cannabis in Texas is still surrounded by debates between advocates, lawmakers and law enforcement, cannabis reform-supporting Texans may have received a possible symbol of hope today from our turquoise and adobe-clad neighbors to the west. Today, April 4th, 2019, New Mexico governor Michelle Lujan Grisham signed into law a significantly more punitively relaxed decriminalization measure than any single piece of legislation filed in the 2019 Texas Legislative Session. With this signing by Gov. Grisham, The Land of Enchantment becomes the 24th state to pass some degree of a cannabis decriminalization measure.
The law, which would go into effect July 1st, reduces the criminal penalties of possession of half an ounce or lower to only a $50 fine, a policy significantly less financially and criminally punishing than the hotly debated and widely covered Texas House Bill 63. Paraphernalia possession would also be similarly considered a civil offense. However unlike HB 63, the amount of times one may be civilly charged with possession of ½ an ounce or less of cannabis in New Mexico before the charge is upgraded to a Class B misdemeanor has yet to be announced.
While it’s certainly a step in the right direction against decades of cannabis criminalization, the measure isn’t the least bit surprising to anyone who’s followed recent cannabis politics in New Mexico. Last month, a bill to legalize the retail sale of recreational cannabis was passed by the New Mexico House of Representatives but sadly fell short and didn’t make it to the Senate floor voting stage by the end of the legislative session, diminishing the hopes of those who wished for recreational dispensaries in the state.
Also, the recently elected Governor Grisham ran on a relatively strong pro-legalization campaign compared to some of her contemporaries in the New Mexico gubernatorial election.
“I am committed to working with the legislature to move toward legalizing recreational cannabis in a way that improves public safety, boosts state revenues and allows for New Mexico businesses to grow into this new market.” Grisham said during the early stages of her campaign (2). And during her time serving in the New Mexico Legislature, Grisham voted in favor of House Amendment 1086, which “would prohibit states from penalizing a bank for providing financial services to cannabis businesses” as well as House Amendment 748, which prohibited federal agencies from preventing states to authorize medicinal cannabis usage (3).
As a state so physically close to Texas, New Mexico may serve as a microcosm of Texas on how decriminalization is the ethically right step in correcting the wrongs of the obviously failed War on Drugs. For the many Texas state representatives that fear our neighbors loosening their cannabis policies will result in interstate trafficking of the geographically prohibited plant, the decriminalization measure in New Mexico may end up showing that those concerns of floods of cannabis coming into Texas may not be entirely possible.