San Marcos voters to tackle marijuana decriminalization in November

Should marijuana be decriminalized in San Marcos? Voters in the county seat of the nation’s fastest-growing county will get to decide for themselves in the general election this November. Nonprofit groups Mano Amiga and Ground Game Texas announced Wednesday that they have collected enough signatures to get marijuana decriminalization on San Marcos’ November ballot. The announcement culminates a monthslong campaign that began Feb. 1 at Texas State University to get the required 4,400 signatures — 10 percent of San Marcos’ registered voters — to place the referendum on the November ballot. The groups said in a joint news release that they got over 4,600 verified signatures on their petitions within the required 180-day timeline.

“Clearly, a substantial portion of the San Marcos electorate has spoken and it is now the duty of City Council to afford voters the opportunity to approve it at the ballot box in November,” said Alyssa Garza, a San Marcos City Council member, in a news release Wednesday. The proposed ordinance would end citations and arrests for misdemeanor marijuana possession, prohibit San Marcos police officers from citing “odor of marijuana” as probable cause for search or seizure, and prohibit the use of city funds for THC concentration testing, among other things. The measure has strong support from Hays County Judge Ruben Becerra, a Democrat running for re-election who was among the first to sign the petition at a launch campaign Feb. 1. The San Marcos campaign is one of 10 ballot campaigns Ground Game Texas has launched across the state of Texas to “bring new voters into the fold and mobilize them behind progressive change,” the group said in the news release. Ground Game Texas successfully collected enough signatures to secure a similar marijuana decriminalization ballot initiative in Killeen.