Texas House-passed bills to decriminalize marijuana, facilitate expungements and allow chronic pain patients to access medical cannabis as an opioid alternative are officially dead for the year with Senate leadership refusing to bring up the measures for consideration ahead of Monday’s end of the legislative session.
Advocates had held out hope that the Senate would be more amenable to the modest reforms this session than in the past, but Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R), who presides over the chamber, continued what has effectively been a years-long blockade on cannabis legislation by not advancing the bills to the floor.
Last month, the House passed a bill that would have removed the risk of arrest or jail time for low-level possession of cannabis and allow people to eventually erase cannabis issues from their criminal records.
The chamber had already passed similar cannabis decriminalization proposals during the past two legislative sessions, in 2021 and 2019. But so far the proposals have consistently stalled in the Senate amid opposition from Patrick.
This year’s bill, HB 218, combined two separate measures from the most recent past session, both of which passed on the full House.
It would have made possession of up to one ounce of marijuana
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