Following a lengthy Criminal Jurisprudence Meeting that had a widely diverse group of individuals from veterans with PTSD to state/federal prosecutors and social scientists who factually explained the socio-economic problems with low-level prohibition, Texas House Bill 63 has passed the Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence by a majority vote of 5-2. The decriminalization bill will now be sent to the Committee on Calendars where legislation debate will be scheduled.
In stark contrast to the very apparent diversity of those in favor of HB 63, those who spoke in opposition to the passing of HB 63 were exclusively law enforcement. They cited their decades of experience when they spoke of the occasional dangers of cannabis usage as well as the well-refuted claim that cannabis is a gateway drug. They only spoke in anecdotal evidence and solely gave the most extreme examples of drug addiction without acknowledging the overwhelming majority of cannabis users wouldn’t transition to harder substances if given the option to. Above all else though, the police chiefs’ statements stayed consistent with the narrative that the passing of HB 63 would have devastating public health consequences and unequivocally opposed any lowering of criminal penalties associated with low-level cannabis possession.
However, in a press conference earlier today at the Texas State Capitol, the message of the Texas Police Chiefs’ Association didn’t seem to stay as consistent and the comments made by those law enforcement officers seemed to only be based upon worst case scenario situations and other anecdotes about cannabis that aren’t based on the average reality. Also, many of the officers would state statistics without stating their sources that either didn’t line up with the truth or were wildly impossible.
Although not all their statements were as questionable in terms of truth, the most obvious example of a stated statistic being wildly untrue was from Grand Prairie Police Chief Steve Dye, who claimed the number of joints able to be produced from one single ounce of cannabis was a hundred. As the standard joints rolled in legalized states fluctuate from about .6 of a gram to a full gram and an ounce has 28.35 grams, you’d have to be rolling mosquito leg joints to produce 100 joints.
Chief Dye also urged the Texas legislators not to expand medical or decriminalize cannabis and to base their decision on “the facts of marijuana and to place public health and quality of life above popular movements among our small percentages of our population.” In actuality, a poll from June 2018 done by University of Texas and Texas Tribune states that only an average of 15 percent of Texans among all age groups want cannabis to stay prohibited, but I digress (1).
However, there were two civilians who spoke about how their communities were affected by illegal cultivation operations or how their children became mentally unstable and acted dangerously to the point of permanent physical damage due to cannabis. While I’m not disputing the impacts that illegal cannabis operations could have on communities, the story by the parent who spoke about her son’s life being horribly impacted by cannabis also detailed extreme mental illness that existed in her son before cannabis usage. It seemed true that cannabis usage may have been detrimental towards this young man, it’s common cannabis safety that the plant shouldn’t be used if it causes adverse effects of any kind, be that mental or physical.
The most confusing part however occurred during the end of Chief Dye’s speech and into the introduction of Collin County Sheriff and Texas Sheriff’s Association representative Jim Skinner. Dye finished his speech by not only quoting the aforementioned false statistic but by also recommending that lawmakers change the criminal charge of possession of an ounce or less to a Class C misdemeanor, indirectly supporting the legislation of House Bill 63 in the process.
As soon as Sheriff Skinner began to speak, he immediately stated that “Texas Sheriffs oppose further legalization of marijuana and the lowering of criminal penalties for the possession of marijuana.”
So, either Chief Dye and Sheriff Skinner disagree on how to handle cannabis possession cases or Sheriff Skinner was speaking only on behalf of Texas Sheriffs. Even if you disregarded the conflicting viewpoints of members of Texas Police Chiefs’ Association within their own organization, Chief Dye also stated that politicians and public officials in states that have legalized cannabis have become “corrupt from cannabis revenue” without any substantial evidence whatsoever.
Overall, it appeared to be a very confusing press conference and those who spoke mainly relied on extreme cases of improper cannabis usage or the ever present worries that cannabis will fall into the hands of youths. When asked about the painfully obvious racial disproportion of those arrested and prosecuted for cannabis possession, Chief Dye said that racial profiling among police officers was a separate problem apart from cannabis arrests.
It’s worth noting that the none of the police chiefs from Austin, San Antonio, Dallas nor Houston were present, showing that even some police chiefs within the same state disagree with the strongly prohibitionist of The Texas Police Chiefs’ Association.