It's going to take clear heads to devise the medical marijuana law that the voters in their dubious wisdom authorized in November's elections. For here, as the state's official motto and our own front page declares every day: Regnat Populus. Which must be Latin for The People Misrule to judge by some of the results. It was the late great iconoclast H. L. Mencken who told us long ago that democracy "is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it, good and hard."
This time what We the People are getting is the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Commission (Ronda Henry-Tillman, chairperson), which is reviewing the commission's draft of all the rules, regulations and general rigmarole it'll take to hear from the public and the Legislature on this contentious issue. Then the commission will have to get this Rube Goldberg system clanking into state law, which in turn may not jibe with federal law.
Reporting and commenting on this hazy mess can drive an observer around the bend. Happily one member of this medical marijuana commission has held on to the first requisite of sanity in these mixed-up matters: a sense of humor. Carlos Roman piped up to ask if, in light of all the public interest in matters marijuana-ish, would it be possible to hold that public hearing in War Memorial Stadium in Little Rock? Why not? If the showmen who ran Ringling Bros./Barnum & Bailey or whatever their latest appellation can put on their circus in a big tent, War Memorial would surely be the proper venue for this other spectacle.
"The only concern I have," says Brother Roman, "is seeing this thing set up for a successful launch." The way the giant (and fake) cannon at the circus must be set up to shoot an acrobat into a safety net at the other end of the arena. Let's wish all concerned good luck, for they'll surely need it. Questions abound, such as whether the dispensaries licensed to sell marijuana in this state should be allowed to grow it, too. Vertical integration, it's called in business, and vertical disintegration shouldn't be much more difficult to master. Any more than mastering the rest of the local, state, national and international bureaucracy required to sell dope.
Lest we forget, in the end Al Capone didn't wind up at Alcatraz on charges of murder, extortion or any of the other requirements that a big-time criminal enterprise requires, but because he didn't pay income taxes on his ill-gotten gains. Even he could be brought lower by the demands of bureaucracy.
Dope dealing has come a long way from buying a joint from your friendly neighborhood pothead on the corner. Making the trade legal may make it vastly more complicated. An applicant who'd like to run one of these 20 to 40 now perfectly legitimate dope dispensaries would have to put up proof of his assets or a surety bond of $1 million and proof of at least $500,000 in readily cashed-in assets. The applications alone run $15,000 apiece. And there'll be a $100,000 licensing fee every year on top of all that, along with an initial $500,000 performance bond.
By the time a couple of the state's other bureaucracies get involved--the Alcoholic Beverage Control Division of the Department of Finance and Administration plus the Department of Health--it won't be easy untangling all these tangles. Then the lawyers will play their well-paid parts in this tragicomedy, supplying all the legalese you can stand and maybe more. So thanks for the business, hurry back and here's your change--if you have any left after all these low-jinks have taken their toll on your pocketbook and your nerves, too.
They say crime doesn't pay, and it may not compared to all this legally licensed larceny. And to think--this tottering edifice grew out of the simple, perfectly human desire to do the wrong thing right. It hasn't worked out well since old Ned was going to and fro and up and down in the land, looking for suckers.
The question occurs: How do you do the wrong thing right?
Editorial on 02/13/2017