Flirting with more rational pot policies

Grits returned yesterday from a much-needed vacation in cooler climes, only to find Texas #cjreform news gushing like a fire hydrant pried open to beat the summertime heat.

Let's start with marijuana. Just before I left town, we learned that the Texas Legislature had altered marijuana laws to make it difficult-to-impossible to prosecute low-level marijuana cases. Bexar County DA Joe Gonzalez took leadership on the issue, announcing he would not prosecute possession cases without a lab result. DAs in Tarrant, Fort Bend, Nueces, and Williamson Counties followed suit, with Williamson County Attorney Dee Hobbs citing the risk of false convictions. And the Fort Worth Star-Telegram's editorial board quoted Grits in a post calling for District Attorneys to use the opportunity as a natural experiment to see what would happen if pot were decriminalized.

Notably, while on vacation in Quebec, Grits got a first-hand look at how marijuana legalization plays out in the real world. Two words: boring and lucrative. Pot smoking wasn't any more prevalent in public than previously, said the locals, but the dispensaries were bustling with commerce and filled with satisfied customers. Prices were 40-50% less than black-market prices in Texas, even though Canadian taxes on weed are significant. All in all, it seemed to this writer like the epitome of a win-win policy; just a very grown-up way to handle the matter.