Our View

Our View

Who will get the medical marijuana golden tickets?

Well, the deadline has past and 322 applications have been received. Now it is just a matter of five members of the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Commission — with the help of the state Alcoholic Beverage Control — deciding who the lucky contestants will be to legally operate 32 dispensaries and just five cultivation facilities.

Those applicants seeking to operate the cultivation facilities were required to fork up $15,000 each, half of which will be returned to those individuals that weren’t selected.

The remaining 224 applicants wanting to set up dispensaries — to be evenly distributed in locations across the state — had to come up with $7,500 each with half of that being returned to those individuals not selected.

As we’ve pointed out before, this is chump change in comparison the millions upon millions of dollars these “pot” peddlers and weed growers are getting ready to rake in from those “sickly” people who have gotten their physicians to issue them the proper certification to purchase this dope to supposedly ease the pain caused by their certain diseases and illnesses.

Regardless of voter approval, for the state to get into the “pot” business, there are those individuals who are skeptical about this whole money-making endeavor, which by the way, is still illegal under federal law.

We would have thought that before everyone is going wild over getting into this business, one would question why marijuana hasn’t been required to undergo the same Federal Drug Administration’s testing as conventional drugs. Furthermore, where is the absolute documentation that marijuana actually is more effective than conventional drugs? This entire movement throughout the country, particularly in the more liberal states, is being based more on emotion than fact, but nevertheless, it’s something we’re just simply going to have to deal with.

During this entire process that began when voters approved Arkansas Medical Marijuana Amendment, or Issue 6, in November, there have been scores of public meetings to set requirements for ownership and to design an application. It was interesting that there are several communities that have already passed ordinances to keep this type of business out of their communities — West Memphis or Marion certainly not being among them.

Opponents have made it very clear they simply don’t want marijuana stores on their Main Streets, and they don’t want drug users wandering around their parks and playgrounds. Let’s not be so naive’ to think that set of circumstances hasn’t been occurring, only illegally.

As we’ve said, there is a tremendous amount of money to be made in this type of operation, and one of the financial benefactors will be the state.

The question has been raised as to just how effective this will in curtailing the illegal drug activity in our communities? Based on statistics from states that already grow and sell marijuana for both medical and recreational purposes, there still remains a strong illegal black market for marijuana.

That is because there are no rules or regulations on the quality of marijuana being grown and sold on the black market, which means dope peddlers can market their products claiming to be better than what can be purchased legally.

As we’ve said time and time again their remains a number of unknowns when it comes to Arkansas getting into the “pot” business, and it will be interesting to see how this all shakes out.