Texas GOP, embrace legalizing marijuana
The Texas GOP should claim a crown policy jewel of its rivals — marijuana legalization.
Yes, Texas is the land of hippie haters and the Texas GOP opposes legalizing “illicit and synthetic drugs.” But the Texas Republican Party is loosening up on the issue. In June, delegates to the state convention said they wanted to move to decriminalize, to allow medical marijuana, and even to reclassify marijuana on the Controlled Substances Act.
It’s the smartest play they could make, and they should play it hard.
Supporting marijuana policy change would be commercially and politically wise. Marijuana is a lucrative business and will never again be nationally illegal. Nationally, Republicans support the issue more and more. Texas as both a party stronghold and a business leader should take the challenge.
The hemp-spun noose is tightening. Marijuana has never been a more popular policy platform, as the Los Angeles Times recently noted.
A June 20 poll from Center for American Progress found 7 in 10 Americans support legalization, including 57 percent of Republicans. Our neighbor and fellow red state Oklahoma allowed medical pot in June, making it the 31st U.S. state with either medical or recreational marijuana. Canada fully legalized a national recreational marijuana industry to begin Oct. 17, 2018. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration approved a marijuana-derived drug, Epidiolex, for human use.
National leaders see this trend. Congress is littered with legalization bills, including two this summer from Sens. Cory Gardner, D-N.J. and Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y. President Donald Trump, in the middle of his 88 percent Republican Party approval rating, said he’d probably support Schumer’s bill.
If 88 percent of the GOP supports Trump through the last few bruising weeks, his support for Schumer’s bill should give them direction.
Democrats have marijuana reform to themselves in the public’s eye. Even the Texas Democratic Party put marijuana reform on its platform, mirroring the national convention. CNN noted most Democratic contenders for the 2020 presidential election back marijuana bills.
Democrats lead the fight for social justice reasons, but in truth, marijuana reform is as much a conservative issue as a liberal one. It involves states’ rights, personal freedoms, and most importantly, sound business.
Texans might be surprised to learn that legalization is far less Cheech and Chong than it is Procter and Gamble. Stoners vote for pot ballots, but a fast-growing industry fuels and sustains them.
Western states are making bottomless duffle bags of taxable cash on the Green Rush. There’s a global $200 billion market for cannabis, if you believe the estimates of Brendan Kennedy, CEO of the North American cannabis conglomerate Privateer Holdings. U.S. sales alone will climb to $20-50 billion, depending on which guesstimate you believe.
It isn’t just in the United States, either. Marijuana is now a definitively global industry. Nations are changing drug laws and opening trade routes at warp speed, from the Americas and Europe to Oceania. Right
now, Canada controls the global cannabis market that Texas, as the nation’s agricultural hub, could dominate.
Texas is a fertile field for the budding industry. Texas leads in jobs creation. Texas leads in gross domestic product growth. Texas has more farms than any other state. The low-regulation, business friendly atmosphere would be a welcome change for the industry, which is used to heavy-handed rules from its liberal lawmakers.
Texas is also fertile ground for the national GOP to formalize its already broad informal support for reform. Republicans have been easing their stances and support pot reform more and more.
The bipartisan Congressional Cannabis Caucus keeps adding members. Half of legalization bills have Republican sponsors. Conservative Alaska legalized recreational pot, and Arizona, Florida, Montana, Arkansas and North Dakota all have legal medical pot. Even ultraconservative Utah broadly supports a statewide legalization attempt.
The Texas GOP should embrace the inevitable and claim it as its own. The economy and the party in general are both ready for it. Legalization has reached critical mass. There is no going back. Texas can either decide to take the reins or hang back — and let the Democrats open a massive global industry to the American business community.
Summers is a Houston-based journalist and author of “The Business of Cannabis: New Policies for a New Marijuana Industry,” published in March by ABC-CLIO. He can be reached at djsummers100@gmail.com.