The fundamental problem with the marijuana legalization efforts moving forward state by state in the United States today is that the federal government has not ended the federal prohibition on marijuana. This situation has been recently criticized by U.S. Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, who said this past June, “Once comprehensive, the Federal Government’s current approach is a half-in, half-out regime that simultaneously tolerates and forbids local use of marijuana. This contradictory and unstable state of affairs strains basic principles of federalism and conceals traps for the unwary.” Both Missouri and Oklahoma have fallen into such traps, albeit for different reasons. In Oklahoma, a citizen’s ballot initiative passed the nation’s most free-market medical marijuana program—but because of the lack of regulation and enforcement in the program, criminal gangs and cartels have come to Oklahoma, growing marijuana in nominally licensed operations and then shipping product out of state, primarily to the East Coast. This year in Oklahoma, we estimate a staggering four million pounds of marijuana will be grown—far more than the market demand from Oklahoma citizens. In Missouri (and dozens of other states) a medical marijuana ballot initiative campaign funded by special interests put significant licensing restrictions in the Missouri Constitution—leading to immense public controversy, the appearance of corruption in the licensing process and legislative investigations, and hundreds of lawsuits when over 1,800 applications were arbitrarily denied. In 2018, the Federal Bureau of Investigation put out a national bulletin warning of public corruption and bribery in states where licenses were restricted in this manner—and dozens of federal investigations into public corruption and bribery have indicated this situation is a persistent threat to the very legitimacy of our state governments. Now, in 2022, adult-use (sometimes called recreational) marijuana campaigns are moving forward with ballot initiative campaigns in both states, and because these campaigns are not willing or capable of engaging all stakeholders on this issue and putting the interests of our citizens first, we are faced with the hard truth of Justice Thomas’s statement.
Marijuana Moment, Marijuana Moment, 03/03/2022 09:20:00