Houston voters to consider deprioritized enforcement of cannabis laws, ban on no-knock warrants – Houston Public Media

Voters in the city of Houston will consider deprioritizing enforcement of cannabis laws and banning no-knock warrants when they head to the polls in November.

The city council approved the ballot referendum on Wednesday, after progressive advocacy organization Ground Game Texas submitted a petition with more than 40,000 signatures — about 15,000 more than required under city code.

Ground Game Texas executive director Catina Voellinger called the effort a “class struggle campaign.”

Cannabis deprioritization

In Texas, possession of up to 4 ounces of marijuana is a misdemeanor offense, punishable by up to a year in jail and a $4,000 fine.

The petition calls for the Houston Police Department (HPD) to make misdemeanor cannabis possession its “lowest possible enforcement priority.”

Under a program operated by the Harris County District Attorney’s Office, which prosecutes crimes in a county that includes Houston, officers already have the ability to divert people from jail into a 90-day community supervision and 4-hour cognitive class.

“We’re just bringing equity to the city,” Voellinger said, pointing to an ACLU Texas report finding Black people are more than two times as likely to be arrested for cannabis possession than white people in the state.

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An HPD spokesperson declined to provide figures on cannabis-related arrests in recent years, referring Houston Public Media to the weeks-long public records request process.

Ground Game Texas passed similar measures in multiple other cities, like Austin and San Marcos, but lost a court fight against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Voellinger said the most recent petition language was crafted with legal challenges in mind.

Banning no-knock warrants

The renewed push to ban no-knock warrants comes more than seven years after a controversial drug raid by HPD officers on Harding Street left Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nicholas dead.

“This is just good policy,” Voellinger said. “Harding Street raids were in the back of our minds when crafting this policy and hearing from the pain that still resonates with lots of Houstonians still to this day.”

Following that drug raid as well as the murder of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis and the death of Breonna Taylor during a no-knock raid in Louisville, Kentucky, then-Houston Mayor Sylvester Turner faced pressure to implement reforms to HPD policies in 2020. Among other changes, he pledged to ban no-knock warrants for non-violent offenses.

Under an executive order issued in 2020, officers are “prohibited from executing a ‘no knock warrant’ unless the warrant has been approved in writing by the HPD Chief of Police.” An HPD spokesperson declined to answer further questions about the policy.

The petition language from Ground Game Texas is more stringent. It would require officers to “knock and announce their presence and wait at least 15 seconds prior to execution” for all search warrants.