Texas City’s Marijuana Decriminalization Law Saved Nearly Half A Million Dollars As Arrests Plummeted, Report Shows

As the Republican attorney general of Texas ramps up legal challenges to local marijuana decriminalization laws, a new report from a key advocacy group estimates that the policy change in one city led to nearly a half million dollars in cost savings over two years as law enforcement largely stopped making arrests for simple possession.

The analysis from Ground Game Texas, which has spearheaded many of the local reform ballot initiatives, looked at the city of San Marcos, where voters approved a decriminalization measure in 2022 and where an appellate court recently sided with the state in its lawsuit challenging the city’s law, temporarily enjoining its enforcement.

According to the analysis, from 2023 to 2024, while the decriminalization policy was in effect, San Marcos arrests for simple possession of cannabis decreased by 83 percent. That decrease translated into an estimated total savings of $444,150 for the city, which has a population of 71,569. The cost-savings estimate is based on a figure from the ACLU that determined the average cost of an arrest to be $4,500.

The report also showed that the number of possession arrests dropped from 201 in 2018 to just 19 in 2024.

“This analysis just confirms what voters in San Marcos already understood—locking people up for low-level marijuana possession is a waste of public dollars that should be going to keep families housed, keep the lights on, and help people build a future,” Catina Voellinger, executive director of Ground Game Texas, said in a press release.

“Communities like ours are tired of watching our priorities pushed aside while outdated policies drain resources,” she said. “We’re calling on the police chief to honor the will of the people, just like Austin’s police chief has, and do what’s right: protect our community and focus on care, not criminalization.”

Whether San Marcos police resume cannabis arrests at their pre-decriminalization rates is yet to be seen, but last month the state Fifteenth Court of Appeals did overturn a lower court ruling that denied a temporary injunction to prevent the law from being enforced, effectively invalidating the cannabis reform measure that was approved by 81 percent of voters.

“As a community-led organization based in San Marcos, Mano Amiga knows all too well the struggles residents face in providing for their families and accessing needed services,” Eric Martinez, executive director of Mano Amiga, which has also championed local decriminalization ballot initiative, said.

“Both the city of San Marcos and Hays County should focus on increasing the quality of life for their constituents and reducing government abuse,” he said. “We call on our City Council to continue to fight for the San Marcos Freedom Act in the courts, and to immediately implement policies that deprioritize unnecessary marijuana enforcement as we wait for a final ruling.”

Amid the recent litigation from the state Attorney General Ken Paxton (R), the city council of another Texas city, Denton, voted 4-3 on Tuesday to repeal its own decriminalization ordinance in another setback for advocates.

While several courts have previously upheld local cannabis decriminalization laws, the appellate court comprised of three conservative justices appointed by Gov. Greg Abbott (R) that targeted San Marcos’s policy also recently pushed back against another one of rulings by siding with the state in its legal challenge to the marijuana law in Austin.

Meanwhile, a House committee recently 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.

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.

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 separate 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.

— Marijuana Moment is tracking hundreds of cannabis, psychedelics and drug policy bills in state legislatures and Congress this year. Patreon supporters pledging at least $25/month get access to our interactive maps, charts and hearing calendar so they don’t miss any developments. Learn more about our marijuana bill tracker and become a supporter on Patreon to get access. —

Meanwhile, Texas lawmakers sent the governor a controversial bill that would ban hemp-derived products containing any traces of THC, despite federal law allowing cannabis containing up to 0.3 percent THC by dry weight.

Another bill that would significantly expand Texas’s medical marijuana program has passed both chambers in differing forms and is set to be reconciled soon.

Those proposals, as well as another measure from Rep. Joe Moody (D) to decriminalize cannabis statewide, are two of the nearly two dozen cannabis-related proposals filed 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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