Marijuana Legalization, Let’s Reunite Families
Fellow Republicans, can we take an easy win, please? The public overwhelmingly supports marijuana legalization, yet Texas Republican leaders and the GOP-run U.S. Senate are resisting. For Christmas, could we not end this silly prohibition, thereby bringing many incarcerated parents home to their children?
Particularly during the holiday season, I’ve been making it a point to count my blessings. Gratitude is something I continuously express. Sadly, others must spend their holidays behind bars due to our party’s failure to end criminalization of pot. This tragic state of affairs baffles me. Why do we criminalize a small-time vice, especially when that policy has wrought such havoc?
On December 4, the U.S. House passed legislation to decriminalize marijuana use at the federal level. Only five Republicans supported the measure: Reps. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), Brian Mast (R-FL,) Tom McClintock (R-CA), Denver Riggleman (R-VA), and Don Young (R-AK). Sen. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) has declared himself uninterested in giving the bill a vote in his chamber. State-level legalization bills were introduced in the Texas Legislature this November, also with little hope of getting needed Republican support.
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Gov. Abbott, is criminalizing marijuana worth an inner-city kid growing up fatherless? Majority Leader McConnell, should we not end the cycle of delinquency that these youth often succumb to when we remove parents from their lives? Are we not the party of strong families?
Unleashing the Agricultural Power of Texas
The Texas legislature made the correct choice to legalize hemp with House Bill 1325, which the governor signed into law in June 2019. The Lone Star State must now take steps to allow the production and use of marijuana. Other states such as Nevada are gaining a competitive advantage over Texas because of the latter’s inaction. Texas can exceed that advantage, as the cropland here is far superior to the deserts where Nevada grows its cannabis. One estimate places the value of a Texas marijuana industry at $3 billion.
The 15 states and Washington, D.C., which allow recreational use of this product, plus medical use elsewhere—including, to a limited extent, in Texas—already fuel a multibillion-dollar industry that employs nearly 250,000 full-time workers. The analytics firm New Frontier Data estimates that the number of jobs sustained by marijuana, if it were legal nationwide, would reach 1.63 million by 2025.
Making Us Safer
With Texas not allowing the production or consumption of marijuana, black markets have filled much of the void. Cartels have been smuggling the product in, creating networks for more dangerous poisons, such as Chinese-made fentanyl. The one policy that has mitigated cannabis smuggling has been decriminalization by other states.
Another safety concern that legalization would alleviate is vaping illness. Of the 1,782 patients surveyed after they were hospitalized for vaping-related ailments by the end of 2019, 80 percent said they used vaporizers containing THC, marijuana’s main psychoactive component. Because e-cigarette users largely get THC vapor fluids from the black market, they are often subjecting their lungs to substances of poor quality. As of December 2019, states that legalized weed reported roughly 6.7 fewer lung injuries per million than states where recreational use remained banned.
Addressing Family Separation
What is the dearest cost of policing this plant? Many offenders get excessive fines or prison time, but the worst damage occurs when families are split. Consider that about 40,000 people are in American jails today because of marijuana offenses. Approximately 20 percent of all U.S. prisoners are busted for non-violent drug offenses. A nontrivial number of those convicts undoubtedly have kids who endure an arguably even crueler punishment than their parents do. Children need mothers and fathers in the home. The status quo must end.
We have seen definitively that traditional law enforcement cannot cure substance abuse. Reincarceration is far too common. Escaping chemical dependence requires treatment by specialized health professionals. Texas has made some progress in this regard, creating special drug courts that help nonviolent drug users end their addictions and that only impose jail time if an offender fails to comply with a court-imposed treatment program. Yet these courts do not oversee all marijuana cases. And only legalization will crush the black market and gain Texas a foothold in this burgeoning industry.
To wrap up, I implore my brothers and sisters in the GOP to take the easy win, save families, and unleash Texas agriculture with the decriminalization of marijuana.
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