The United States Supreme Court last week declined to take up a pair of cases that challenged a state’s decision to not include medical cannabis in its workers’ compensation program.

Given all of the seismic activity in the high court as of late, you are forgiven if you missed that.

From abortion to guns to prayer in school, the emboldened, conservative Supreme Court has taken on seemingly every hot button issue but cannabis, issuing a series of decisions that are poised to reshape American life and deepen the country’s polarization.

No decision rendered by the court in the last week—or perhaps in the last 50 years—has inflamed passions and divided the nation more than Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which overturned Roe v. Wade and ended the constitutional right to an abortion.

In a 6-3 ruling, the court’s conservative justices effectively handed abortion policy back to the states. The result was swift, with outright abortion bans taking effect immediately in a handful of states: South Dakota, Wisconsin, Missouri, Oklahoma, Arkansas, Kentucky, and Alabama. A number of other states with their own highly restrictive abortion laws also were triggered by the ruling.

In overturning Roe, which had enshrined the right to an abortion in the United States for nearly 50 years, the court essentially laid the groundwork for a country in which abortion is widely available in liberal blue states, but severely restricted—if not outlawed completely—in conservative red states.

“Roe was egregiously wrong from the start,” Justice Samuel Alito wrote in the majority opinion. “Its reasoning was exceptionally weak, and the decision has had damaging consequences.”

The court’s liberal bloc wrote a scathing dissenting opinion.

“With sorrow—for this Court, but more, for the many millions of American women who have today lost a fundamental constitutional protection—we dissent,” the three justices wrote jointly.

The decision sparked immediate nationwide protests and is poised to animate this year’s midterm elections and the 2024 presidential campaign.

A day before it announced its decision in Dobbs, the Supreme Court handed down another decision that will likely have ripple effects throughout the country.

In a 6-3 ruling, the court struck down New York’s century-old law that imposes strict limits on an individuals’ ability to carry a gun outside their home.

Writing for the majority, Justice Clarence Thomas asserted that the Second Amendment ensures “an individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home.”

The law, which had been in place since 1911, required “applicants for a license to carry a gun outside of their homes to have a ‘proper cause’ to do so,” according to NBC News.

Per The New York Times, the decision “is expected to spur a wave of lawsuits seeking to loosen existing state and federal restrictions and will force five states — California, Hawaii, Maryland, Massachusetts and New Jersey, home to a quarter of all Americans — to rewrite their laws.”

On Monday, the Supreme Court continued its string of contentious decisions by ruling in favor of a Seattle area high school football coach who conducted a prayer at the 50-yard-line following his team’s games.

In yet another 6-3 ruling, the court’s majority said that the coach’s ritual is protected under the First Amendment.

“Respect for religious expressions is indispensable to life in a free and diverse republic — whether those expressions take place in a sanctuary or on a field, and whether they manifest through the spoken word or a bowed head,” Justice Neil Gorsuch wrote for the majority.

The coach, Joseph Kennedy, had been suspended by the school district when he refused to stop the post-game prayer.

Gorsuch contended that Kennedy’s prayers were done quietly and discreetly, a point that Justice Sonia Sotomayor fiercely disputed.

In her dissenting opinion, Sotomayor noted that “Kennedy consistently invited others to join his prayers and for years led student-athletes in prayer.” Her opinion also included a photo of Kennedy kneeling in prayer with a large group of players. The prayer resulted in undue pressure on members of the team, Sotomayor argued.

“Students look up to their teachers and coaches as role models and seek their approval,” Sotomayor wrote. “Students also depend on this approval for tangible benefits. Players recognize that gaining the coach’s approval may pay dividends small and large, from extra playing time to a stronger letter of recommendation to additional support in college athletic recruiting.”

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The 2022 Texas State Republican Convention was held last week between June 16-18 for the first time in-person since 2018. There, the party voted to establish 275 platform planks, or principal policies of the Republican party, to address a multitude of agenda topics.

Democratic gubernatorial candidate Beto O’Rourke posted on Twitter some of the “extreme agenda” among these planks as: “abolish abortion, defund public schools, take away health care, repeal gun laws, deny voting rights, reject marijuana legalization.”

The Report of the Permanent 2022 Platform & Resolutions Committee policy list briefly addresses cannabis, marijuana, hemp and synthetic drugs.

It only mentions cannabis once, which is described as “Cannabis Classification: Congress should remove cannabis from the list of Schedule 1 and move to Schedule 2.”

However, it also uses the term marijuana as well. “Marijuana Remains Illegal: Oppose the legalization of recreational marijuana and offer opportunities for drug treatment before penalties for its illegal possession, use, or distribution.”

Finally, it briefly refers to hemp. “Reduce Business Regulations: We believe that the following businesses should be minimally regulated at all levels,” which among a list of 14 laws in question, it states “Use of hemp as an agricultural commodity.”

The party will still need to formally tally and approve these planks. Until then, it is uncertain if the planks will become officially recognized.

In 2018, the Texas Republican Party endorsed cannabis decriminalization, and also called for a change to the herb’s federal classification of Schedule I.

Earlier this year in January, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott has stated his support for cannabis reform with decriminalization. “Marijuana is now a Class C misdemeanor in the state of Texas, and so one thing that I believe in—and I believe the state legislature believes in—and that is prison and jail is a place for dangerous criminals who may harm others, and small possession of marijuana is not the type of violation that we want to stockpile jails with,” said Abbott. “So, we have been making steps in that regard.” However, his statement was incorrect in referencing the current law, with low-level cannabis possession still being a Class B misdemeanor and can lead to up to six months in jail.

A recent poll conducted by The Dallas Morning News and The University of Texas at Tyler, Texas voters from all political parties want to see medical cannabis legalization. According to the poll results released in May, 91% of Democrats, 81% of Independents and 74% of Republicans reported support. The same question asked participants about their support or opposition on adult-use cannabis, but were not as strong as opinions on medical cannabis (76% of Democrats, 64% of Independents and 42% of Republicans respectively).

Meanwhile, cannabis advocates are proceeding along toward decriminalization on the ballot. So far, the cities of Harker Heights, Killeen, San Marcos, and Denton all have working ballot initiatives, and recently a decriminalization and no-knock warrant initiative called Prop A in Austin was approved by voters on May 7. These efforts were driven by Ground Game Texas. “Following the success of Prop A in Austin and the recent securing of ballot initiatives in Killeen and San Marcos, Ground Game Texas is proud to give Harker Heights residents the opportunity to decriminalize marijuana,” said Ground Game Texas’s Executive Director Julie Oliver in a press release. “Ground Game Texas continues to demonstrate that popular policies around issues like workers, wages, and weed can help expand and electrify the electorate in Texas when they’re put directly in front of voters.”

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