"Grassroots Texas?"

“Citizens for a Safe and Healthy Texas” is built to read as concerned local Texans who organized on their own. The structure behind it tells a different story.

The chain

The group’s leadership also runs a national project, Every Brain Matters, which was founded as a project of Parents Opposed to Pot and operates as a primary project of the Parent Action Network. That network was launched by Smart Approaches to Marijuana (SAM), the Virginia-based organization that is the largest and best-funded opponent of legalization in the country.

So the line runs: national organization, to its parent network, to its project, to the Texas storefront. The “citizens” at the top of the Texas branding are a node in that structure, not an independent local movement.

The tell

One detail makes the point concretely. The director of the Texas group relocated from Colorado in 2018, and as recently as this year’s legislative sessions the Texas Capitol’s own witness records still listed her hometown as Pueblo, Colorado, while she registered to testify for a statewide ban.

Why it matters

There is nothing improper about a national organization running state campaigns. There is something misleading about dressing one up as spontaneous local concern. When lawmakers hear from “Texas citizens,” they should know whether they are hearing from their neighbors or from the Texas outpost of a national operation. Here, it is the latter.

Sources

• SAM / Parent Action Network launch materials, 2022.
• Every Brain Matters and Parents Opposed to Pot published materials.
• Texas Legislature witness lists, 89th session.