Move Over Oil, Make Room for Marijuana: Texans Want Legalization

Even suggesting the legalization of marijuana in Texas used to be a form of political suicide. Not a single representative of the Lone Star State would dare talk about it, but with the recent successes in Colorado, which just raked in over $3.5 million in tax revenue from recreational and medical marijuana sales in the first month of the year, and other states looking to cash in on the same pot train, it looks like notoriously conservative Texas might be changing its tune.

Voters certainly favor legalization. A poll conducted by The University of Texas and the Texas Tribune showed that 77 percent of registered voters in Texas believe in some form of legalization. Of that, 28 percent would agree only to medical legalization, while 49 percent are in favor of blanket legalization.

It makes sense that Texas would set their sights on the big business aspects of marijuana sales. This is a state that lived up to its moniker, ‘everything is bigger in Texas’ by making billions off of the oil rush which ended up putting over 41 Texans on the Forbes ‘richest people’ list (among them also Walmart heiress, Alice Walton, and Michael Dell, the computer billionaire).

Read: Colorado Rolling in Marijuana Tax Money

Texas has a lot more real estate than Colorado on which both hemp and marijuana could be grown, and it could turn old cattle and oil country into a marijuana boom that would make J.R. Ewing of Dallas fame blush. Texas also has a larger population and could meet both local and international demand for pot. Colorado is land-locked, and Texas has several important international ports along its Gulf Coast. It’s a prime spot for marijuana sales, cultivation, and export.

Texas could see double the numbers of Colorado and Washington if they legalized, and that’s no small change. The governor of Colorado has predicted that the next fiscal year will bring the state $98 million in cannabis sales and taxes, and Washington state is still in the early days of its blanket legalization, nevertheless, forecasters predict that the state will see as much as $190 million over a four-year period, starting in 2015.

Add to all this – higher employment rates, and lower crime rates, and its an easy business decision. You can contact your Texas representatives and tell them you want legalization like the other 77 percent polled, here.