Now, advocates with the progressive group Ground Game Texas say they’ve exceeded the threshold of gathering valid signatures from more than 25 percent of registered voters to qualify the measure in Harker Heights for the upcoming midterm election.

“Following the success of Prop A in Austin and the recent securing of ballot initiatives in Killeen and San Marcos, Ground Game Texas is proud to give Harker Heights residents the opportunity to decriminalize marijuana,” Julie Oliver, the organization’s executive director, said in a press release.

“Ground Game Texas continues to demonstrate that popular policies around issues like workers, wages and weed can help expand and electrify the electorate in Texas when they’re put directly in front of voters.”

The Harker Heights Freedom Act would, if enacted, would mandate that “police officers shall not issue citations or make arrests for Class A or Class B misdemeanor possession of marijuana offenses,” except in limited circumstances such as when investigating a violent felony or a felony-level narcotics case that has been “designated as a high priority investigation” by a top police official.

Also, the measure says police cannot issue citations for residue or paraphernalia in lieu of a possession charge. And they could not use the odor of cannabis alone as probable cause for a search or seizure.

City officials will need to formally authorize that the signatures are valid to ensure that the measure reaches the ballot.

The Harker Heights initiative is a part of a broader activist-led effort to enact cannabis policy reform one city at a time since there is no process for citizens to put initiatives on the statewide ballot.

Austin voters overwhelmingly approved a ballot measure to decriminalize marijuana, in addition to banning no-knock warrants by police, at the local level in May. That was also the product of Ground Game Texas’s campaign work.

On June 1, the group and its allies with the criminal justice reform organization Mano Amiga said they submitted more than enough signatures to put marijuana decriminalization on the ballot in San Marcos.

In late May, the Ground Game Texas said activists amassed enough signatures to put a decriminalization proposal before voters in Killeen.

Meanwhile, activists also recently announced that they have collected enough signatures to place cannabis decriminalization on the November ballot in Denton.

And, organizers said recently that they have submitted enough signatures to qualify a measure to decriminalize cannabis in Elgin.

In each jurisdiction, local officials on city councils will have the opportunity to simply enact the proposals as municipal law instead of allowing the measures to go to the ballot.

While localized, the success so far shows a strong desire to move away from marijuana criminalization.

Activists are also looking ahead to qualifying cannabis measures in additional cities in 2023 and 2024, though they haven’t publicly announced specific targets.

While localized, the success of the signature gathering and votes that have taken place so far under the leadership of activists shows a strong desire to move away from marijuana criminalization in the Lone Star State.

On the same day that the Austin reform initiative was certified for ballot access earlier in 2022, Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said that he doesn’t believe people should be incarcerated over low-level marijuana possession. However, he misstated state statute on decriminalization, suggesting that the policy is already in place.

While Austin, as well as other Texas cities like Dallas, have already independently enacted law enforcement policy changes aimed at reducing arrests for cannabis-related charges by issuing citations and summons, the ordinances that Ground Game Texas and other activists have been pursuing go further.

There is no statewide, citizen-led initiative process that would enable advocates to put an issue like marijuana decriminalization or legalization on the Texas ballot. But at the local level, there are limited cases where activists can leverage home rule laws that allow for policy changes.

A recent poll found that a strong majority of Texans—including most Republicans—support even broader reform to legalize marijuana for adult use. A separate survey released in May found that cannabis legalization is more popular in Texas than the state’s top elected officials and President Joe Biden.

Drug policy reform did advance in the 2021 legislative sesssion, but not at the pace advocates had hoped.

Drug policy reform did advance in the state legislature during the 2021 session, but not necessarily at the pace that advocates had hoped to see.

A bill to expand the state’s medical cannabis program and another to require a study into the therapeutic potential of certain psychedelics for military veterans were enacted.

Advocates remain disappointed, however, that lawmakers were unable to pass more expansive cannabis bills—including a decriminalization proposal that cleared the House but saw no action in the Senate.

The House approved a cannabis decriminalization bill in 2019, but it did not advance in the Senate that session.

The Texas Republican Party adopted a platform plank endorsing decriminalization of marijuana possession in 2018.

A 2021 Texas poll found that 60 percent of voters in the state support making cannabis legal “for any use.”

Separately, the state Supreme Court heard testimony in March 2022 in a case concerning the state’s ban on manufacturing smokable hemp products—the latest development in a drawn-out legal battle on the policy first proposed and challenged in 2020.

Photograph via Texas Department of Public Safety

This story was originally published by Marijuana Moment, which tracks the politics and policy of cannabis and drugs. Follow Marijuana Moment on Twitter and Facebook, and sign up for its newsletter.

The post Five Texas Cities Have Now Qualified Marijuana Decrim for November Ballot appeared first on Filter.

But in March 2020, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDCJ) implemented a new policy that largely banned incarcerated people from receiving greeting cards in prisons, saying the measures would prevent delivery of contraband. Families could send cards directly from approved vendors to prisons, but couldn’t write in them.

“Mail received on colored, decorated, card stock, construction, linen or cotton paper,” was banned. Letters could not contain “perfume, stickers, lipstick, bodily fluid, powdery substances or artwork using paint, glitter, glue or tape.”

The department is now partially walking back its policy, according to a letter sent to the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition on February 24 and obtained exclusively by Filter.

TDCJ will “soon be announcing” that facilities will allow greeting cards “for a period of time leading up to Mother’s Day, Father’s Day and Christmas,” according to the letter, which was sent from Texas Board of Criminal Justice Chairman Patrick O’Daniel to TCJC Peer Policy Fellow Maggie Luna. On a February 25 call with advocates, TDCJ said it would permit greeting cards postmarked two weeks before these holidays. 

“The times were chosen based on demand and time [of] year not necessarily a particular holiday,” TDCJ Director of Communications Jeremy Desel told Filter by email. 

“If they can implement three holidays, then they can just allow cards, period.”

Though some holidays, like Hanukkah, regularly fall within the approved window in which greeting cards are accepted in December, the cards may still be banned around other religious holidays. The end of Ramadan will also coincide with the Mother’s Day mailing period this year.

Incarcerated people still won’t be able to receive cards for their birthdays (unless they happen to fall around the three approved holidays) or other occasions. 

Activists and people formerly incarcerated questioned why TDCJ had the ability to only process and inspect greeting cards for certain holidays, including Christmas—when many staff might request time off—but not other occasions.

“If they can implement three holidays, then they can just allow cards, period,” said Walker, who was released from the Lockhart Correctional Facility in December. 

A Punitive Policy

Texas first announced the new restrictive mail policies in January 2020, saying that the more stringent measures would protect both prisoners and staff. In addition to the greeting card ban, dogs would now search visitors, and if one signaled that someone was carrying illicit drugs, that person would be turned away. 

“When offenders are harming themselves, they’re harming each other, they’re harming the staff, they’re creating a toxic environment that makes it hard for the people who are trying to do the right thing,” then-TDCJ Director Lorie Davis said at a press conference announcing the policy changes. 

Activist organizations quickly criticized the “Inspect 2 Protect” policy. More than three dozen groups, including TCJC, the ACLU of Texas and the Texas Civil Rights Project wrote a letter to the Board in protest, describing how the policy would detrimentally impact rehabilitation efforts. 

“Although TDCJ has stated that, ‘These policy revisions are not punitive but are needed to allow for detection and interdiction of easy-to-conceal drugs and technology,’ the reality of the situation is that for us (families, advocates, nonprofits and incarcerated individuals), they are punitive,” the letter stated. 

“Greeting cards are one of the few sources of cheer and color in an otherwise dull and depressing atmosphere.”

“Eliminating all cards is extreme and detrimental to family and community connection … greeting cards are one of the few sources of cheer and color in an otherwise dull and depressing atmosphere.”

As COVID began spreading across the United States, maintaining the family connection became more difficult. The Department also shut down family visits in March 2020; incarcerated people have now spent a full year without seeing the faces of family members and friends.

“It hurt a lot of people’s morale not to be able to get cards from their loved ones,” said Tracy Williams, who was released from TDCJ’s Coffield Unit in December. “To not have visitation and for most of the year to be on lockdown, in prison, you can [have] a lack of hope. People can’t sometimes see purpose.”

Inspect 2 Protect ended many incarcerated people’s only lifeline to the outside world, Walker said. Church groups and pastors would still mass-mail cards into detention facilities, but the March policy prevented prisoners from ever receiving them.

Electronic communications could still be sent, but that’s much more difficult for some people to navigate than post mail. Some people don’t have regular computer or internet access. Others don’t know how to use them. Technological problems abound.

“I have to help them download JPay and show them how it works. And even then, some people don’t have credit cards and you have to use a credit card to load stamps,” Luna said. “They’re just making everything more difficult.”

Letter from Board Chairman Patrick O’Daniel to Texas Criminal Justice Coalition

Twelve days before the Board sent Luna the February 24 letter, she and other activists had again urged Chairman O’Daniel to “examine the collateral costs” of Inspect 2 Protect, criticizing it as an “arbitrary policy.”

On the subsequent phone call with advocates, Correctional Institutions Division Director Bobby Lumpkin claimed Inspect 2 Protect had decreased the volume of drugs entering prison facilities, but that he couldn’t share specific numbers because it was sensitive.

When asked for concrete figures detailing how much Inspect 2 Protect had impacted contraband recovered from incarcerated people, Desel told Filter that “due to the pandemic and the changes associated with it there are no comparable numbers available.” There is little if any evidence that restrictive mail policies in prisons affect the flow of contraband.

“I do not think that the bulk of drugs coming into the system comes through families,” Jennifer Erschabek, the executive director of the Texas Inmate Families Association, told Filter.

Decades of studies have shown that connections between incarcerated people and their loved ones positively impact recidivism rates. “Research shows that incarcerated people who maintain supportive relationships with family members have better outcomes—such as stable housing and employment—when they return to the community,” a 2011 Vera Institute report stated. 

To Williams, Inspect 2 Protect reflected a more fundamental flaw in the way Texas approaches incarceration. 

“People forget that these are people,” he said. “These are humans, and the greeting cards, and lack of visitation, and all the things that went in effect was very detrimental to a lot of people and who knows the effects it’s going to have on people down the line … we need to have better ideas of how to restore people back to society.”

Photograph via Pixnio

The post “Extreme and Detrimental”—Texas Prisons’ Crackdown on Greeting Cards appeared first on Filter.

People incarcerated in the state’s prisons and jails couldn’t escape as temperatures plummeted and water stopped flowing. Cold air wafted through windows that had been smashed over the summer to deal with the sweltering heat. Those detained at the Victoria County Jail received one water bottle each day. In the Harris County Jail, which holds almost 9,000 people—nearly 90 percent of whom are in pre-trial detention—an overpowering smell of urine emanated from toilets that couldn’t flush.

Faith Blake, a woman incarcerated at the Federal Medical Center in Carswell (FMC Carswell) told the Star-Telegram that her fingers turned blue from the cold. The Intercept reported that Reality Winner, also incarcerated at FMC Carswell, said that women were removing feces from toilets with their hands. Prisons across the state experienced similar conditions.

“They are trapped in there with feces, with water up to their ankles. They do not have anywhere to defecate at. There’s no cleaning supplies. There’s no water made available,” Cynthia Simons, the women’s fellow at the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, told Filter. Even as the prisons restore regular functioning, she said, incarcerated people aren’t getting necessary medical attention. 

Texas has the largest state-run prison system in the country. In 2019, the Texas Department of Criminal Justice (TDJC) managed the incarceration of more than 158,400 people.

Thirty-two prisons had to rely on generators for power, according to TDCJ Director of Communications Jeremy Desel. Thirty-three facilities experienced low water or lost external water sources, forcing them to rely on backup supplies.

“We deal with severe winter weather in parts of the state every year and hurricane situations in the southern parts of the state nearly every year as well, so we are very accustomed to both preparation for events and the response to them,” Diesel said in an email statement to Filter. “The difference here is the statewide scope of the emergency.” 

According to Diesel, the TDCJ took “significant actions” to prepare for the storms, including issuing prisoners additional warm clothing and water and topping off emergency generators.

“You know that you’ve lost power, you’ve lost water and the guards don’t want to come say anything to you.”

Maggie Luna, the mental health peer policy fellow for the Texas Criminal Justice Coalition, questioned why the state hadn’t prepared further. 

“I understand this was all a disaster we all had to suffer … but when you have people’s lives in your hands, and you know the unit is not fit for a hurricane, much less a winter storm, there should have been something in place,” said Luna, who was incarcerated in the Lucile Plane State Jail during Hurricane Harvey.

“I know what it’s like to be sitting in a cage and you have no idea what’s going on on the outside. You just know that you’ve lost power, you’ve lost water and the guards don’t want to come say anything to you.”

Over the past week, Luna had been contacted with a stream of horror stories from people with incarcerated loved ones, including one about a man in the Smith Unit who didn’t have enough water to take his medicine.

During 2017’s Hurricane Harvey, the state’s incarceration facilities suffered crippling shutdowns. Floodwaters poured into facilities. Water shut off, preventing prisoners from flushing water. Access to drinking water diminished. Some 6,000 incarcerated people were evacuated as the storm inundated the state. The National Lawyers Guild called conditions in Texas’s federal and state-run prisons “persistently unconstitutional,” noting that the Bureau of Prisons knew of the dangers brought by the hurricane but failed to ensure that incarcerated people could receive necessities.

As climate change increases the number of extreme weather events, Texas, like states around the country, will face more strain on its essential infrastructure. TDCJ did not respond to Filter’s question about how the state prison system would adapt its emergency planning after dire conditions struck facilities last week. 

The way the department prepares for disasters now, Simons said, is “just very inhumane.”

Photograph via Wikimedia Commons/Creative Commons 4.0

The post In Texas Prisons, Horror Stories Emerge From Catastrophic Blackout appeared first on Filter.