Texas Activists Rally Support For Another Local Marijuana Decriminalization Ballot Initiative For 2025

Texas activists have their targets set on yet another city where they hope put an initiative before voters to locally decriminalize marijuana at the ballot in November.

The organization Ground Game Texas announced on Thursday that it is “gearing up to bring the fight for marijuana decriminalization to Kyle, Texas—one of the fastest-growing cities in the state.”

“This isn’t just about one policy—it’s about people taking power into their own hands,” the group said. “We’re organizing alongside Kyle residents to demand a future where our neighbors aren’t criminalized for low-level marijuana possession.”

“We know how to win—we’ve done it before. Now, we’re ready to do it again.”

At this stage, Ground Game is still finalizing the text of the ballot measure, a spokesperson told Marijuana Moment. In the interim, they’re calling on supporters to donate to the grassroots effort, with a $50,000 goal over the next month to “put organizers on the ground, get petitions into the community, and give Kyle voters the chance to make this change themselves.”

Ground Game Texas Executive Director Catina Voellinger told Marijuana Moment that “over the past two decades, Kyle has undergone a rapid transformation, exploding in population from around 5,000 residents to over 60,000 today.”

“The population is young, diverse, and ready for change that centers their needs: ending low-level cannabis enforcement that’s been used to punish working class-people for too long,” she said.

“As our country teeters on the verge of a severe recession, and our civil rights and social safety nets are being rapidly stolen at the state and federal levels, reducing the harm done by overcriminalization is more urgent than ever,” Voellinger said. “Texas has some of the lowest voter turnout numbers in the country—people are waiting for something real that meets the moment and moves with them. If we want to drive Texans to turnout, we’ve got to fight for people—every damn day.”

Once the text is finalized and the campaign hits the ground, organizers plan to collect about 3,000 signatures in order to qualify for the ballot later this year.

Kyle is one of a growing number of Texas cities that Ground Game has worked to decriminalize cannabis, and this latest effort comes in the background of litigation from the state’s Republican attorney general who has sought to overturn other local voter-approved reforms.

But despite the state’s resistance, activists have seen several courts rule in their favor amid the legal challenges.

For example, in February, a Texas judge has ruled that a cannabis decriminalization law approved by Dallas voters last year can continue to be implemented—denying a request from Attorney General Ken Paxton (R) that sought to temporarily block the reform as a lawsuit proceeds.

This doesn’t mean the lawsuit from Paxton is dead altogether. But, at least for the time being, the judge has determined that the decriminalization policy can continue as the litigation unfolds.

Dallas Police Department had previously instructed officers to stop arresting or citing people for possession of up to four ounces of marijuana, in accordance with the voter-approved ballot initiative.

Numerous Texas cities have enacted local decriminalization laws in recent years, and, last January, the attorney general similarly sought to block the reform in Austin, San Marcos, Killeen, Elgin and Denton.

State district judges dismissed two of the lawsuits—which argue that state law prohibiting marijuana preempts the local policies—in Austin and San Marcos. The city of Elgin reached a settlement, with the local government pointing out that decriminalization was never implemented there despite voter approval of the initiative.

Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has lashed out against the municipal cannabis reform efforts.

“Local communities such as towns, cities and counties, they don’t have the authority to override state law,” the governor said last May “If they want to see a different law passed, they need to work with their legislators. Let’s legislate to work to make sure that the state, as a state, will pass some of the law.”

He said it would lead to “chaos” and create an “unworkable system” for voters in individual cities to be “picking and choosing” the laws they want abide by under state statute.

Abbott has previously said that he doesn’t believe people should be in jail over marijuana possession—although he mistakenly suggested at the time that Texas had already enacted a decriminalization policy to that end.

In 2023, Ground Game released a report that looked at the impacts of the marijuana reform laws. It found that the measures will keep hundreds of people out of jail, even as they have led to blowback from law enforcement in some cities. The initiatives have also driven voter turnout by being on the ballot, the report said.

Another cannabis decriminalization measure that went before voters in San Antonio that year was overwhelmingly defeated, but that proposal also included unrelated provisions to prevent enforcement of abortion restrictions.

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Meanwhile, late last month the Texas Senate approved a bill that cannabis advocates and stakeholders said would effectively eradicate the state’s hemp industry, prohibiting consumable products derived from the plant that contain any amount of THC.

That, as well as another measure from Rep. Joe Moody (D) to decriminalize cannabis statewide, is one of the latest of nearly two dozen cannabis-related proposals filed so far in Texas for the current legislative session. Various other measures would legalize adult-use marijuana, remove criminal penalties for cannabis possession and adjust the state’s existing medical marijuana laws, among others.

Moody sponsored a similar marijuana decriminalization bill last legislative session, in 2023. That measure, HB 218, passed the House on an 87–59 vote but later died in a Senate committee.

The House had already passed earlier cannabis decriminalization proposals during the two previous legislative sessions, in 2021 and 2019. But the efforts have consistently stalled in the Senate amid opposition from the lieutenant governor.

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Photo courtesy of Philip Steffan.