According to an announcement from Texas activists on Wednesday, enough signatures have been collected to qualify a marijuana decriminalization initiative for the local November ballot in Killeen.
Ground Game Texas is a progressive advocacy group that also recently championed a decriminalization measure in Austin that voters overwhelmingly approved at the ballot earlier this month.
Ground Game Texas Political Director Mike Siegel told Marijuana Moment that the group collected more than 2,400 signatures, and 1,400 have been pre-verified for Killeen.
“We feel confident this will be enough to secure verification of the initiative,” he said.
“In a quickly growing and thriving community like Killeen, there’s no excuse for the continued over-policing and incarceration of community members for marijuana use,” Julie Oliver, executive director of Ground Game Texas, said in a press release.
“On the heels of voters approving our similar initiative in Austin last week, we’re proud to give Killeen voters the same opportunity to end enforcement of marijuana offenses—which disproportionally hurts diverse communities like Killeen.”
Recently Gov. Greg Abbott (R) said that he doesn’t believe people should be incarcerated over low-level marijuana possession.
The Killeen ordinance would make it so police could not issue citations or make arrests for class A and B misdemeanor marijuana possession offenses, with limited exceptions such as if the violation connected to an investigation into a felony-level narcotics case.
