Texas Water Shortage

Austin is currently under Stage 2 water restrictions. This means residents of Austin cannot wash their cars at home, cannot have charity car washes, restaurants cannot serve water to a table unless it is requested by the customer, and lawns can only be watered on certain days of the week.

Cities and towns around the state of Texas have similar watering restrictions to Austin. Texas is running out of water. Coupled with the growing population and recent droughts, if actions are not taken now, there will be serious problems for the people of Texas in the future.  Texas Tribune wrote that recent reports found that Texas would be short 1-2 trillion gallons of water by 2060 if we did not change our watering ways. While these reports make a lot of assumptions, like that there will be agriculture expansion, and some of these assumptions may not play out, currently the aquifers are dropping quickly. Some of the biggest drops in the past sixty years have been recorded for the Ogallala aquifer.

Texas needs to start building more infrastructure to conserve water. The one problem: Cities are losing money because of water conservation. The Texas Tribune reported that Fort Worth lost an estimated 11 million in water sales because of water conservation. This is a big conflict of interest. While Texas must start to conserve water and build water conservation infrastructure for the future generations living in Texas, it is not the optimal thing to do now. Cities could instead make money letting their citizens use all the water they want, which would hurt people in the future, or they can do things like raise the rates of water, which will hurt people now.

If we do not face the future Texas water shortage now, we will be in trouble in the future. We must make sure Texas has the things it needs to still be prosperous in the future. This includes taking actions to make sure everyone conserves water and building infrastructure, like water treatment plants, to help save water. 

We Must Wait

As Bluebonnets, Roadkill, and Texas Politics stated in their blog, Keep Taxes Low by Keeping Texas High, Colorado has had a significant increase in their revenue since the legalization of pot. Texas could likely have a increase in state revenue if it legalized marijuana as well, but there are still too many flaws in the system to do so.

First, there is still a large black market for marijuana in Colorado. Ben Buckland, who CNBC talks about in their article about the black market of weed in Colorado, is a contributor to this market. The black market allows people to get marijuana for less money, than someone would buy at a licensed store, and they do not have to worry about being 21. Because there is still a black market, police still have to be on the lookout for the illegal buying and selling of marijuana. To add, if someone is in possession of marijuana and they are not 21, they can still be in legal trouble. People are still going to jail because of marijuana in Colorado. It did not relieve the police of crime in that aspect.  

Individuals can also get into legal trouble, specifically they can receive a DUI, for driving under the influence of marijuana. There is currently no test, like someone would compare to a breathalyzer, to see if a driver is under the influence of marijuana. Instead, law enforcement officers must be trained to know when someone is likely under the influence. It is crucial for scientific tests to be preformed to see at what point people should be considered intoxicated and to find a test that will show if someone is currently under the influence of marijuana.

Three deaths have been linked to marijuana infused foods that are making people too high, and in some cases hallucinate. There has often been over consumption of edibles that have marijuana in them. To add, parents are not keeping the edibles away from their children and children have been eating them thinking they are normal lollipops or brownies.

While legalizing marijuana in Texas could bring the state more revenue, it is not safe enough to legalize yet. It is critical to allow Colorado and Washington to work out the quirks before other states think about legalizing it and putting more people at risk.