Four In Five Texas Voters Support Legalizing Marijuana In Some Form, Poll Shows

Four in five Texas voters say they want to see marijuana legalized in some form, and most also want to see regulations around cannabis relaxed, according to a new poll, which also shows a lack of support for efforts to crack down on intoxicating hemp-derived products in the state.

The University of Texas/Texas Politics Project Poll that was released on Wednesday found that 84 percent of registered voters in the state support allowing legal possession of cannabis under some circumstances. Thirty-five percent say small amounts of
marijuana for any purpose should be legal, 16 percent want to legalize possession of any amount for any purpose and 33 percent support legalization for medical purposes only.

Only 15 percent of respondents said that marijuana possession should be illegal under any circumstance.

As is the case in most polls, there is a partisan divide on the issue of legalization, with Democrats being more in favor of the reform than Republicans are.

“While 65% of Democrats thought that small (42%) or any amount of marijuana (23%) should be legal for recreational purposes, Republicans were more clearly divided, with the aforementioned 21% favoring a complete prohibition (in line with past results), 39% favoring the legalization of marijuana solely for medicinal purposes, and 40% allowing for recreational usage,” a Texas Politics Project blog post about the poll says.

The survey further asked voters about their opinion on the extent to which they feel various things should be regulated by the state. Of the six options—including guns, abortion, gambling, immigration and voting—marijuana came in second among issues that respondents said should be regulated less, at 43 percent.

Thirty percent of voters said cannabis should be regulated more strictly, while 18 percent said the laws should be kept the same and another 8 percent said they weren’t sure.

While Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick (R) has made it a priority this session to advance legislation to ban consumable hemp products containing any amount of THC, the new poll also shows that voters oppose such a move, 50 percent to 34 percent, with the largest share of respondents (35 percent) saying they “strongly” oppose legislation “outlawing the production and sale of cannabis-derived products in Texas, including consumable, hemp-based products.”

The survey involved interviews with 1,200 registered voters in Texas from April 18-28, with a +/-2.83 percentage point margin of error.

Meanwhile in Texas, a House committee last week approved a Senate-passed bill that would prohibit cities from putting any citizen initiative on local ballots that would decriminalize marijuana or other controlled substances—as several localities have already done despite lawsuits from the state attorney general.

Under the proposal, state law would be amended to say that local entities “may not place an item on a ballot, including a municipal charter or charter amendment, that would provide that the local entity will not fully enforce” state drug laws.

While several courts have previously upheld local cannabis decriminalization laws, an appellate court comprised of three conservative justices appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott (R) has recently pushed back against two of those rulings, siding with the state in its legal challenge to the marijuana policy in Austin and San Marcos.

Meanwhile, despite the ongoing litigation and advancement of the House and Senate bills, Texas activists have their targets set on yet another city, Kyle, where they hope put an initiative before voters to enact local marijuana reform at the ballot this coming November.

Abbott 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, in March 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.

Separately, a Texas House committee has amended and passed two bills designed to prepare the state to provide swift access to therapeutic psychedelics in the event of approval from the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA).

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Photo courtesy of Brian Shamblen.