Texans' attitudes shifting along with U.S. on legalizing pot

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SAN ANTONIO — Whether it's for economic, medical or personal liberty reasons, more and more Texans are taking the position that marijuana should be legal.

About half of Texans — 49 percent — support legalizing small amounts of marijuana for recreational use, and 77 percent support legalizing medical marijuana, according to a University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll released this week. Nationally, 58 percent of Americans say pot should be legalized, according to an October Gallup poll.

“Texas, like the rest of the country, is coming to the realization that we can no longer afford to imprison thousands of our citizens for consuming a substance much less harmful than alcohol and much less addictive than cigarettes,” said Gerry Goldstein, a nationally renowned defense attorney based in San Antonio who has represented drug cartel kingpins and journalist Hunter S. Thompson, among others.

About 73,611 adults in Texas were arrested last year for marijuana possession, according to Department of Public Safety data, accounting for 59 percent of all drug possession arrests in the state.

Goldstein said the state spends more than $50,000 a year to house each prisoner.

“We could be sending these folks to Harvard,” he said.

Mike Helle, president of the San Antonio Police Officers Association, said his organization has “so many different pressing issues right now that legalizing marijuana is not a priority,” but that if police did not have to worry about Class B misdemeanors for pot possession, “you could free up thousands, if not millions, of dollars in manpower alone.”

“You want to talk about freeing up resources,” Helle said. “But as police officers, we enforce the laws, not create them.”

In Texas, an offender with less than 2 ounces of marijuana can be sentenced to up to 180 days in jail and a fine of up to $2,000. An offender with more than 5 pounds faces up to two years in jail.

Ana Yañez-Correa, executive director of the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, a policy research group advocating for criminal justice reform, said she isn't surprised at the poll results.

“People in general understand arresting someone for the use of marijuana is more likely to waste taxpayer dollars and law enforcement's time than to deter use,” Yañez-Correa said. “That's why you see libertarians, members of the tea party and Democrats all saying the same thing on this issue.”

At an international conference last month, Gov. Rick Perry touted Texas drug courts and forms of decriminalization, or lessening of criminal penalties, for marijuana use, calling it an economic issue.

Perry made clear he does not support legalization, but said he supports individual states' rights to legalize the drug and predicted Texas would not do so anytime soon.

The governor's comments added fuel to an already burning issue across the country and state. Washington and Colorado became the first states to legalize marijuana for recreational use for adults last year, and more than 20 states have legalized pot for medicinal purposes.

State Sen. Wendy Davis, a Fort Worth Democrat running to replace Perry as governor, has said she supports medical marijuana. Attorney General Greg Abbott, the likely Republican candidate for governor, has said he opposes decriminalization or legalization and that Texas' current laws — outlawing any use of marijuana — should be better enforced.

“Legalizing drugs would encourage drug use, which affects every sector of society, straining our economy, our health care and criminal justice systems, and endangering the lives of future generations,” a spokesman for Abbott said last month.

The Texas poll, which surveyed 1,200 registered voters, found only 23 percent of respondents said marijuana should remain illegal in all cases in the state. About 49 percent said marijuana should be legal for any use, including recreational, either in small quantities (32 percent) or any amount (17 percent).

“How can we as a society deny people who need marijuana for medical treatment?” Yañez-Correa said.

Marijuana is prescribed for a wide range of medical issues in states that allow medicinal use.

For example, it is prescribed to glaucoma patients, people undergoing chemotherapy for cancer to boost their appetite, insomnia, pain relief, seizures and muscle spasms.

The University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll methodology has been criticized by other polling outfits and some media outlets because it is an Internet opt-in survey.

In 2011, the American Association for Public Opinion labeled the methodology as unreliable because it is not completely random.

The poll was conducted Feb. 7-17 and the margin of error is 2.83 percentage points.

“Hundreds of thousands of people around the world have died from an overdose of aspirin,” Goldstein said. “Find me a physician who has ever admitted a patient for an overdose of marijuana.”

kparker@express-news.net

Twitter: @KoltenParker