Lawmakers in Lubbock, Texas have officially approved a resolution to put a local marijuana decriminalization initiative on the ballot next spring after declining to enact on the reform legislatively.
The Lubbock City Council voted on Tuesday to schedule a special election on the issue for May 4, 2024. This comes one month after legislators unanimously rejected the decriminalization proposal that was put on the agenda after activists submitted enough signatures to force its consideration.
The committee behind the marijuana initiative first filed paperwork for the Freedom Act Lubbock ordinance with the city secretary in August. After activists turned in more than 10,000 signatures, officials confirmed that the campaign submitted enough petitions to move ahead in the process earlier this month.
Local lawmakers in Lubbock, which is Texas’s tenth largest city by population, had 30 days to hold a hearing and make a decision as to whether they would enact decriminalization. They did so in November, opting to defeat it and put the issue to voters instead.
One day before the vote to schedule the May 2024 cannabis election, Adam Hernandez, communications chair for the group Lubbock Compact, which helped lead the effort to collect signatures for decriminalization, announced his bid for mayor
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