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Kyle McClenagan\/Houston Public Media<\/p>\n
A Houston Police Department vehicle on July 9, 2026.<\/p>\n
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. <\/p>\n
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 \u2014 about 15,000 more than required under city code. <\/p>\n
Ground Game Texas executive director Catina Voellinger called the effort a “class struggle campaign.” <\/p>\n
Sign up for the Hello, Houston!<\/a> daily newsletter to get local reports like this delivered directly to your inbox.<\/p>\n Cannabis deprioritization <\/b><\/p>\n 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. <\/p>\n The petition calls for the Houston Police Department (HPD) to make misdemeanor cannabis possession its “lowest possible enforcement priority.”<\/p>\n 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. <\/p>\n “We\u2019re just bringing equity to the city,” Voellinger said, pointing to an ACLU Texas report<\/a> finding Black people are more than two times as likely to be arrested for cannabis possession than white people in the state. <\/p>\n RELATED: Texas THC ban continues as federal judge rejects emergency motion<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n 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. <\/p>\n Ground Game Texas passed similar measures in multiple other cities, like Austin and San Marcos, but lost a court fight<\/a> against Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton. Voellinger said the most recent petition language was crafted with legal challenges in mind. <\/p>\n Banning no-knock warrants<\/b><\/p>\n The renewed push to ban no-knock warrants comes more than seven years after a controversial drug raid<\/a> by HPD officers on Harding Street left Dennis Tuttle and Rhogena Nicholas dead. <\/p>\n “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.”<\/p>\n 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. <\/p>\n