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United States News Title: Why the Christian Right Is Backing Marijuana Reform in Texas "As the saying goes, everythings bigger in Texasbut the state hardly has an outsize reputation for progressive marijuana reform. If this legislative session is any indication, that could be changing. While previous sessions have seen one or two marijuana-related bills introduced, 11 bills taking on various facets of marijuana prohibition were introduced this sessionincluding an effort to decriminalizeand on Wednesday the most comprehensive among them survived the Texas House of Representatives Criminal Jurisprudence Committee. Introduced and backed by Rep. David Simpson of Longviewa Republican, Christian legislator who is supported by the Tea PartyH.B. 2165 would legalize marijuana possession for both recreational and medicinal use and create a system for the legal sale of the plant." Big hair. Big barbecue. Big sky. Big guns. As the saying goes, everythings bigger in Texasbut the state hardly has an outsize reputation for progressive marijuana reform. If this legislative session is any indication, that could be changing. While previous sessions have seen one or two marijuana-related bills introduced, 11 bills taking on various facets of marijuana prohibition were introduced this sessionincluding an effort to decriminalizeand on Wednesday the most comprehensive among them survived the Texas House of Representatives Criminal Jurisprudence Committee. Introduced and backed by Rep. David Simpson of Longviewa Republican, Christian legislator who is supported by the Tea PartyH.B. 2165 would legalize marijuana possession for both recreational and medicinal use and create a system for the legal sale of the plant. The bill will now move to a full floor debate and vote in the House. While marijuana legalization may bring to mind more liberal states such as Colorado and Washington or a dorm room full of hippies, the movement in Texasand elsewhere in the countryis increasingly backed by conservatives. From a fiscal perspective, most Republicans already think marijuana use is not a major risk to public safety, Zoe Russell, assistant director of Texas-based Republicans Against Marijuana Prohibition, told TakePart. That message resonates across the board. The Houston-based reform group, which also has a chapter in North Carolina, is teaming up in its advocacy efforts with the nonpartisan reform organization the Marijuana Policy Project, along with other grassroots organizers. The group was founded a few years ago by an octogenarianand lifelong Republicanwho saw pots positive effects firsthand when it was successfully used in treating her paraplegic sons muscle spasms. The success of H.B. 2165 thus far has been a game changer that shows legislators are ready to take actionif you ask Heather Fazio, the political director of the Marijuana Policy Projects Texas chapter. Whether theyre interested for social justice reasons or because theyre fiscal conservatives, Texans all across the state are supportive of this, Fazio told TakePart. According to Fazio, H.B. 2165 is carefully crafted not just to remove criminal penalties for medical marijuana but also to tax and regulate the drug for recreational use for Texans age 21 and up. Rep. Simpson wants marijuana to be regulated like jalapeños, Fazio added. In other words, Simpson thinks it should be regulated like any other plant-based product on the market. While first motivated by the medical needs of some of his constituents in northeastern Texas who had been failed by traditional medicine, Simpson decided to advocate for a tax-and-regulate system. The idea is to protect medical marijuana patients from federal prosecution if a new president decided not to follow the Obama administrations lead and ramped up drug prosecutions. Even if H.B. 2165 fails, this legislative session demonstrates that the movement for marijuana reform in Texas is picking up speed. While it might not become the next Washington or Colorado this year, Texans on both sides of the aisle are starting to agree that their states marijuana policy needs to change. [Marijuana is] not a problem that government needs to fix, Fazio told TakePart. The government needs to get out of the way.
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#1. To: Deckard (#0)
From a fiscal perspective? WTF is that gobbledygook?
I could explain it, but I'd need charts, and graphs and an easel. Simple answer - The War on Drugs is a waste of money. We throw billions at "eradicating" drug use with no effect. Addiction rates have not fundamentally changed and they never will until we start treating drug use in a more productive manner. Now I'm sure you think we aren't being "strict" enough and you would like to see drug use become a capital offense. However even in the fascist societies which you so richly praise, even that is not a deterrent.
Why not say that rather than, "From a fiscal perspective, most Republicans already think marijuana use is not a major risk to public safety? And what does a waste of money have to do with public safety? Your "explanation" is as much gobbledygook as the original statement. "We throw billions at "eradicating" drug use with no effect." So now you're saying, therefore, that if we ended this "War on Drugs", drug use would not increase. There went your credibility.
That's right, unless you are saying that you and the millions of others like you would go out and pick up a dime bag of weed and get high? There went your credibility. That comment, coming from someone who has zero credibility, made me laugh.
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