Full legalization is coming, one way or another, and states opposing it are only hurting themselves.
I used to think this, and it may be true in the very long run. However, the country is clearly in the midst of a long pivot backwards. The current backsliding has been going on for the better part of a decade, and there are no indications that it is near its end.
I guess we'll see.
In the last couple years, I've had several work conversations where someone off hand mentioned the edibles they took for a concert the previous weekend, or the weed vape they took camping, or some other personal life story involving weed. Not in a hushed private conversation, it's in the small talk before a meeting kicks off. It's become very normalized. Even 5 years ago I would be shocked at someone casually discussing their weed usage with coworkers.
And the tax money. Oh boy the tax money.
The shops I’ve visited in US were very high end, you get carded, etc. While in The Netherlands patrons seem to be pretty low class, occasionally borderline mental.
And every municipality loves the tax implications - a side effect of the lackadaisical recovery of local budgets from Covid.
Carl Sagan understood this, among many others:
https://bigthink.com/health/carl-sagan-on-smoking-marijuana/
are not a homogeneous group. Part of the backsliding is that the subset that is socially liberal is losing power, being replaced by those who seek to promote yet more restrictions on individual liberties. There's rich guys on both sides of this.
There's a chasm between legalize and banning. Banning would prevent the compassionate use that has already been allowed. This banning is a knee-jerk reaction to those that have found the loop hole carved out in the compassionate use limits still allow for enough THC that recreational use can still be achieved. Rather than restricting the loop hole to still require prescription, they instead want to ban out right
> the "narrowly focused, dogmatic" politicians run the two chambers?
Yes. This is VERY Texas. The state government is 100% conservative republican.
"Texas is a majority Republican state with Republicans controlling every statewide office.[1] Texas Republicans have majorities in the State House and Senate, an entirely Republican Texas Supreme Court, control of both Senate seats in the US Congress."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_of_Texas#:~:text=Texa...
but yes, to answer your question
There's some inertia. For a long time, being against cannabis legalization went hand in hand with being "tough on crime". A politician coming out in support of it ran a high chance of being called "soft on crime" by their opponents. There can also be a racial edge due to people who primarily see crime and cannabis as minority-driven problems.
The legislature has a 'mandate' from the people because it was elected. The governor has a 'mandate' from the people because he was elected.
Does one have more of a mandate than the other, or are they equal? What happens when they have different policies?
This is one of the weakness of presidential systems:
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Presidential_system#Efficienci...