Texas Tea Party Wants To Legalize Pot Because "God Given Right"

[stromboli]

http://www.ksat.com/content/pns/ksat/news/2015/05/06/texas-house-committee-approves-bill-to-make-marijuana-legal-for-.html

A proposal seeking full legalization of marijuana on religious grounds has cleared an unlikely legislative hurdle.

Republican state Rep. David Simpson of Longview argues marijuana comes from God and therefore shouldn't be banned by government.

The tea party stalwart has repeatedly championed what he calls the "Christian case" for legalization.

Simpson's bill (HB 2165) languished for weeks before the House Criminal Jurisprudence Committee.

Three committee Democrats and two Republicans surprisingly voted to support it Wednesday, though, and it passed 5-2.

Republican state Rep. David Simpson of Longview argues marijuana comes from God and therefore shouldn't be banned by government.

That makes Simpson's bill eligible for consideration to reach the House floor before the legislative session ends June 1, although that's still highly unlikely.
State law currently makes no exceptions even for medical marijuana, making outright legalization unthinkable.

Still, advocates hailed the committee vote as "unprecedented progress" for Texas marijuana rights.

Nearly three out of five Texas voters (58%) support making marijuana legal for adults and regulating it like alcohol, according to a statewide survey conducted by Public Policy Polling in September 2013.

Four states have adopted laws that regulate and tax marijuana similarly to alcohol. Two of them, Colorado and Washington, have established regulated systems of marijuana cultivation and sales.

Alaska and Oregon are in the process of implementing similar systems.

Statement from Heather Fazio, Texas Political Director for the Marijuana Policy Project:

“Marijuana prohibition’s days are numbered in the Lone Star State. Texas voters recognize that punishing adults for consuming a substance that is safer than alcohol is a waste of law enforcement resources and an affront to individual liberty. It appears most of the committee members agree.

“State officials are increasingly becoming fed up with the failed federal government policy of marijuana prohibition, and they’re taking action. Like most Americans, most Texans are ready for a more sensible, fiscally sound.

Should have asked me, I'd have told them that 40 years ago.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Well then shouldn't opium poppies be just as legal?  I see absolutely no reason to stop anyone from easing pain with a  "god given" plant.. 

[dtq123]

Get stoned boys! Religion helped us out for once!


...ONCE!

[GSOgymrat]

What exactly doesn't come from God? I assume if God didn't want something to exist it wouldn't. 

[AllPurposeAtheist]

What exactly doesn't come from God? I assume if God didn't want something to exist it wouldn't. 

Like god himself? 

[GSOgymrat]

Like god himself?

I'm sorry, there I go trying make sense of Christianity again.

[Munch]

I get the impression that a tea party members version of being stoned is having a sugar rush.

[stromboli]

I get the impression that a tea party members version of being stoned is having a sugar rush.

CAFFFEEEEIIINNNNEEEEEE!

[hrdlr110]

Even so-called synthetic materials have natural roots.  We can only make things from things that existed on the planet in the first place.  You can't get something from nothi...........wait a minute???

[stromboli]

Even so-called synthetic materials have natural roots.  We can only make things from things that existed on the planet in the first place.  You can't get something from nothi...........wait a minute???

Right. Nearly every drug had some original natural counterpart, Aspirin being the first to come to mind. Opiates now are synthetic, but came from plants, obviously. Cocaine, caffeine, many others.

[AllPurposeAtheist]

You mean those space flights to and from the ISS aren't bringing us new stuff from distant planets yet? 

[AllPurposeAtheist]

Wait,  doesn't Texas have bigger fish to fry fending off the entire US military takeover when Jade Helm kicks off? 

[Mike Cl]

It's funny how any argument is okay if a christian wants something.  It would not surprise me if next year these very same people would argue that pot is unnatural and not of god.

[Jason Harvestdancer]

Wait,  doesn't Texas have bigger fish to fry fending off the entire US military takeover when Jade Helm kicks off? 

Can't you be happy that they're actually right about something, even if it is for an odd reason, without bringing in crap from elsewhere?

[stromboli]

And hopefully the Tea Partiers will actually smoke some and get a clue that maybe they are full of shit.