Analysis: Texas politicians can change their minds. But it helps if the public goes first.

Neither of the top candidates for governor of Texas wants to keep jailing people for possession of marijuana. Reefer madness has been replaced by reefer indifference.

The shift at the top level of politics reflects a shift in public opinion — politicians are nothing if not sensitive to voter sentiment — and a change in popular culture that has turned the proverbial “gateway drug” into one that’s legal in 20 states and the District of Columbia and has decriminalized in several more.

Texas isn’t on that list of states, at least not yet. While public policy hasn’t shifted much, public opinion has.