A Texas legislative panel has unanimously approved a bill to decriminalize marijuana possession.
The House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee voted 9-0 on Tuesday to advance Rep. Joe Moody’s (D) legislation, which would remove 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 action comes about a week after the panel heard testimony on the measure at a hearing.
“Basically, the person is given a ticket goes to court, they’re assessed a fine, then the court tells them, ‘You’ve got six months to pay and you need to stay out of trouble during that time,’” Moody, who chairs the committee, said at the hearing.
“If the person does their part, the court dismisses the charges, and on a request of the individual, deletes the entire record of it,” he said. “The person walks away lighter in the wallet but without any criminal record whatsoever.”
The full House of Representatives has 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 Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R), who
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