Measures aimed at loosening prohibitions on marijuana possession received hearings in a Texas House committee on Tuesday, as lawmakers across the political spectrum appear ever more inclined to revise low-level drug penalties.
The passel of bills that came before the Texas House Committee on Criminal Jurisprudence would reduce penalties for small amounts of marijuana possession through a variety of proposals, including:
• Eliminating arrests altogether.
• Lowering the penalty to a Class C misdemeanor.
• Opening the way to an expungement of a criminal record.
• Lowering the penalties for possession of marijuana concentrates, which can be used in cooking marijuana brownies.
Three dozen other states, to varying degrees over the past decade, already have loosened pot penalties, as libertarians, criminal-justice-reform-minded liberals and fiscal conservatives anxious about the high costs of imprisonments have banded together.