So there'll be
No more smokin' and feelin' tense
When I see them a'come
I don't have to jump no fence
-- Peter Tosh, "Bush Doctor"
My neighbor is in the cannabis business.
His house is a lot bigger than mine.
That's all right; I like my house and what I do, and recognize that he earned his house by taking some entrepreneurial risk. His business is legal now, but there was a time when someone in his position wouldn't have been considered a respectable businessman.
It took courage and vision to jump into the industry when he did, and he had the capital and the wherewithal to carve out a space in a highly competitive marketplace.
Now, he's hoping we vote to take the next step. If Issue 4 passes, it would legalize marijuana for recreational use for adults in Arkansas, 21 and over, allowing them to possess up to one ounce of the drug at a time. Medical marijuana dispensaries already in place--like my neighbor's shop-- would be authorized to sell the product. An additional 40 licenses would be handed out via a lottery system.
I don't know that this is the best or fairest plan; but the biggest consequence might be that it would put a lot of street dealers out of business. The rich and the lucky would benefit, but your personal connection might not be lucky enough to secure a license. That's tough.
I don't smoke marijuana or use edibles or any cannabis products simply because I prefer other methods of getting to where they presumably get you. I have inhaled when it seemed like the polite thing to do, and have been in a lot of situations in both my professional and personal life where drugs were central to the proceedings.
In the early '80s, I sat in an unmarked police car with a stressed-out detective who rolled a joint and sparked up in front of me. It was off the record so I've never written about the incident in any detail, but I don't think any less of that man for doing that; it was a way he'd developed to deal with the relentless stress of deep-cover work.
And when my father was dying in the hospital, I was grateful that some of his younger co-workers smuggled in some hashish to help relieve his pain, and that the doctors and the nurses looked the other way. I think my father would have told me the same stories had he not been high, but the dope helped him.
We all understand that there are legitimate medical uses for weed, including certain gastrointestinal disorders, epilepsy and pain and stress relief, even if some of these effects have been overstated (Peter Tosh: "Only cure for glaucoma, mon").
Yet I don't condone the illegal drug trade that an awful lot of my friends--I am a boomer, after all--still engage in. I understand they have incorporated marijuana use into their daily lives, and that they are successful and fulfilled people, but I also understand that every illegally sourced joint has the blood of innocents on it. People died so you can have your 420 moments.
That's not the fault of the plant, but of the military-industrial apparatus that makes alcohol acceptable while demonizing THC, and maybe of the narrow-minded unhip people who have bought into the myth of marijuana as a particularly insidious substance and bringer of heartbreak.
But, as Matthew Arnold tells us, there is a world of ideas and a world of practice, and here in the world of practice where we live, your drug money is funneled back to a murderous syndicate led by people much, much worse than Mitch McConnell or Nancy Pelosi.
But that's easy for me to say because I don't get high on weed. I'd rather sip a Knob Creek on the porch in the evening.
And if someone wants to toke up on their porch in the evening, I feel OK about if there's a fair chance that their habit isn't helping to finance a Mexican fentanyl factory. At the very least, Issue 4 will bother the bootleggers, which is reason enough for moral folks to support it. Even if you don't like the dope-smokin' morons, anything that messes with those Sinaola boys is an objectively good thing.
My neighbor has not asked me to put a pro-Issue 4 sign in my yard, which is good because neither my employer nor my homeowners' association would like it if I did. But I do not mind if you do.
I acknowledge that I'm not completely comfortable with the proposal; it's cleverly written to provide an in-crowd with an advantage. People ought to be able to grow their own plants for personal use. And a lot of people will; there will probably be spikes in the sales of grow lights and other horticultural tools. I don't think law enforcement will be particularly interested in ferreting out small-scale plant operations. But I could be wrong about that.
I also think the 10 percent tax rate is too low. ("What kind of ally is this guy?" some Issue 4 proponents are no doubt thinking.) If you buy a mixed drink in a restaurant in Little Rock, you'll pay taxes amounting to 33 percent of the total cost. (That is too high.) The market bears it. I have paid that tax many times.
And if, as a lot of people in government seem to think, the proper tax rate is the one that maximizes the state's revenue, the average pothead would be willing to pay at least as much as the average sot for their particular pleasure. So a sin tax of 18 percent might not result in diminishing returns.
Finally, if I'm going to mount an argument for Issue 4, I won't pretend that under our current medical marijuana statutes almost everyone who wants to legally smoke pot is legally smoking pot. I haven't asked my doctor, but my anxiety levels (imposter syndrome, heavy deadline pressure, the quotidian cares of adulthood) probably qualify me for a medical marijuana card. If you want to smoke weed legally in Arkansas now, you can do it. All it takes is a wink and a nod.
Which I admit is kind of icky; grown-ups shouldn't have to fudge the truth or make up symptoms to be able to buy themselves the mild buzz that cannabis provides. (It's stronger now than it was in my youth. Science rolls on.) It's hard to believe that those of us who grew up in the '60s and '70s are still debating this stuff.
But we are. Passing Issue 4 would be incremental process toward accepting the world's reality. And I'm all for embracing reality.
Philip Martin is a columnist and critic for the Arkansas Democrat-Gazette. Email him at pmartin@adgnewsroom.com.