A Republican district attorney in West Texas recorded herself smoking marijuana on Saturday and posted it live on social media in an unusually direct and legally perilous protest against the state’s ban on recreational use of the drug.
The district attorney, Sarah Stogner, is not a typical Texas Republican, and the social media stunt was not her first.
She propelled herself to statewide notoriety in 2022 with a similarly audacious bid for attention, a campaign ad in which she rode nearly naked on an oil field pump jack. She lost the race, for a seat on the Texas Railroad Commission, but gained the attention of Republican operatives looking for candidates in far-flung corners of the state — even if she didn’t fit so well with the party’s traditional social conservatism.
She’s at it again. Saturday’s livestream on TikTok showed Ms. Stogner under a tree outside her home in Ward County, Texas, smoking a joint that she said she had purchased legally at a dispensary over the border in New Mexico. Roosters were heard crowing in the background.
Her goal was to draw the attention of Texas lawmakers who are considering a ban on hemp products loaded with T.H.C., the intoxicant in marijuana, during a special legislative session in Austin.
“I don’t think there should be a ban on anything” when it comes to marijuana, Ms. Stogner said in an interview before recording the video. “Texans are tired of it. We’re behind the times.”
Ms. Stogner, who previously worked on suing oil companies over environmental damage, was elected last year despite never having tried a criminal case before, in part because there were few lawyers who could even run for the role in her rural corner of oil country.
She has struggled at times to fit in with the Texas Republican Party. She dislikes President Trump, for one.
Now she’s at odds with Gov. Greg Abbott, a marijuana opponent, and the powerful lieutenant governor, Dan Patrick, who is pushing for a ban on intoxicating hemp products. The State Senate, which Mr. Patrick runs, voted to advance a ban this week.
The state’s continued prohibition on marijuana as legal hemp proliferates has created law enforcement challenges, she said. A man arrested this spring with more than 300 pounds of what appeared to be marijuana in the back of a van argued that he was transporting hemp. Ms. Stogner said she sent the substance to be tested but still did not have laboratory results back.
“I have real crimes to prosecute,” she said.
By broadcasting her violation of the law, Ms. Stogner acknowledged the risk of being arrested on a misdemeanor possession charge. She said she lined up a defense lawyer — one she usually contends with as opposing counsel in court — and alerted the local district judge.
“He just laughed,” she said of the judge.
She could also be subject to removal from office under a Texas law that lets any local resident petition for the ouster of a local county official who has shown “gross carelessness” or “gross ignorance” of their duties.
Ms. Stogner shrugged. Who else is there to be the district attorney?
J. David Goodman is the Houston bureau chief for The Times, reporting on Texas and Oklahoma.
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