With the adoption of Prop R, a citizen-driven ballot initiative, Dallas has joined a growing list of Texas cities that have decriminalized cannabis locally.
From Marijuana Moment:
The Dallas, Texas Police Department is instructing officers to stop arresting or citing people for possession of up to four ounces of marijuana, in accordance with a voter-approved ballot initiative.
In an internal memo, Dallas Interim Police Chief Michael Igo also clarified that officers cannot “consider the odor of marijuana as probable cause for search and seizure, except as part of a violent felony or high priority narcotics felony investigations.”
Now, with cannabis decriminalized and high-THC hemp products on the market, the City of Dallas has passed an ordinance that institutes restrictions on public consumption of cannabis, similar to tobacco.
From KERA News:
[The City] changed the definition of “smoke or smoking.” The new policy includes devices used to smoke tobacco or “plant products.”
“…Whether natural or synthetic, including marijuana or cannabis in any manner or in any form,” the ordinance reads.
Areas where smoking is banned include indoors or enclosed areas of the city, within 15 feet of a building entrance, on park property and any area designated nonsmoking.
Deputy Mayor Pro Tem Adam Bazaldua was one of a handful of elected officials to publicly support the proposition leading up to election day. “This is only regulating where these items can be used, not prohibiting them all together,” Bazaldua said about the ordinance in a text to KERA. “I don’t see this passage conflicting with [Proposition] R.”
Council Member Chad West, who represents District 1, also advocated for the passage of the ballot measure. He told KERA the new ordinance is focused on public health. “It makes sense to treat marijuana the same as tobacco in that regard,” West said in a text. “Prop R was about protecting Dallasites from criminal citations for having marijuana in their pocket or glove compartment rather than creating a free reign to smoke wherever, whenever.”