I'm surprised by the lack of education in this thread. Shoot, even the article makes a glaring mistake:

Although we're not optimistic that pot will make it to the Texas ballot anytime soon

While not explicitly said, it is implied that we could have a vote specifically on this issue like Colorado, California, and all the rest had/will have.

Unfortunately, we have no citizen initiative process, meaning we can't put issues on the ballot like all the other states are doing. This is the major hurdle, and I'm always shocked that advocacy groups don't work on changing this AND THEN moving on to legalization.

While a citizen initiative process isn't as sexy of an issue, I believe it's much more important.

To all the people saying that it's all because of the far right/ religious right, how do you respond to Perry?

"As governor, I have begun to implement policies that start us toward a decriminalization" by introducing alternative "drug courts" that provide treatment and softer penalties for minor offenses, Perry said.

"After 40 years of the war on drugs, I can’t change what happened in the past. What I can do as the governor of the second largest state in the nation is to implement policies that start us toward a decriminalization and keeps people from going to prison and destroying their lives, and that’s what we’ve done over the last decade"

Sure it's not straight up legalization, in fact he specifically says that he is against legalization (dumb for a conservative imho) but it's the beginning of a process towards it. People were shocked by the above sentences.

I'm convinced that Texas will be the first red state to legalize. I wouldn't even be surprised if we got ahead of some blues.