Attorney General Ken Paxton sues Dallas over pot proposition.
Paxton has filed a lawsuit after voters approved an amendment to the city charter that bars police officers from arresting anyone found in possession of marijuana weighing 4 ounces or less. The amendment also removes the smell of marijuana as probable cause for a search. Paxton listed as defendants the city of Dallas, Mayor Eric Johnson and the entire City Council, interim City Manager Kim Tolbert, and interim Dallas Police Chief Michael Igo.
Proposition R, Paxton argues, is in violation of state law, which still considers the use and possession of marijuana illegal. “Municipalities cannot refuse to enforce Texas drug laws concerning possession and distribution of marijuana—an illicit substance that psychologists have increasingly linked to psychosis and other negative consequences,” his office said in a statement.
This was to be expected. Mayor Johnson and councilmembers Cara Mendelsohn and Gay Donnell Willis failed at an attempt to append language to the proposition that would have stopped it from being enacted unless state law changed. Instead, the Council, Tolbert, and Igo agreed to enforce the proposition, a decision that preceded the lawsuit. Paxton in January sued the cities of Austin, Denton, Elgin, Killeen, and San Marcos for similar attempts to codify decriminalizing marijuana.