Don't Light Up Just Yet, Oklahoma

The headline writers at OKC's daily paper, The Oklahoman just went all cute on us. After voters overwhelmingly passed a bill legalizing the sale and use of marijuana for medical purposes yesterday, the bold print this morning proclaimed, "High Turnout."

Get it? I tell you they're a bunch of real wits down at, The Oklahoman. This journalistic bon mot came after the paper spent feet, not inches, of copy telling everyone how awful the passage of State Question 788 would be for Oklahoma, it's children, and more importantly the way businesses keep tabs on their employees personal lives.

Those of us who have spent most of our existence in this state and are of a certain age watched the campaign unfold rather like a Franz Kafka short story. Oh sure the polls said the measure was in the lead from nearly day one, but deep down there was a part of us which kept whispering in our ear, It will never pass, not here.

Personally I was going to vote for it from the beginning, but in truth I was only lukewarm about the issue. I will admit to an affinity for cannabis laced edibles, but I'm not an avid consumer and I don't go out of my way to purchase them--unless we are someplace where they are legally sold to the adult public. And I certainly wasn't planning on jumping into a conspiracy to commit medical fraud with an iffy physician in order to score some here.

That being said, the anti SB788 campaign took a nasty turn in the two weeks, or so prior to last night's election. OKC cable TV--and presumably every other market in the state--was inundated with ads spewing the most vicious and outlandish lies about the bill imaginable. The breathtaking scope of the misinformation was so epic it sounded as if it came straight out of a Donald J. Trump political rally.

That's right ladies and gentlemen, this bill has nothing to do with medical marijuana. It is meant to legalize recreational weed. Stoners will be allowed to fire up joints at tables next to you in restaurants where you're eating with your kids. Anyone will be able to get a two year license without a doctor's approval to not only buy and smoke pot, but cultivate it in quantities so huge it will dwarf what they're able to do in Colorado. College freshman will even be able to grow it in their dorm rooms for God's sake. 

Just to make sure Oklahoma's sea of ultra conservative loons got the message, words ran across the screen at the end of each spot saying, "This will be the most LIBERAL marijuana law in the country." Then below those words, "Let's do this the right way by voting No!"

The Oklahoman trotted out print ads and op-ed pieces only slightly less frantic and hysterical. Everyone from U.S. Senator and Opie Taylor impersonator, Jim Lankford to medical professionals and Better Business Bureau poohbahs showed up on the pages of the daily telling everyone education, health, and industry is doomed, fucking doomed I tell you, if the dope fiends get their way.

Suddenly people like myself who had actually read the bill, but remained taciturn about it became energized--not because we were going to immediately go out and find some quack to give us a license, (although some of us might now, solely out of spite) but simply because of the crude and terrible lies being spread about the law.

It became so weird social media rumors started to swirl yesterday afternoon that dark forces at some polling sites were attempting to withhold the separate ballot which contained the measure from voters. It speaks to the age we're in that many of us thought these tales might be true. Luckily for the electoral process, as of now, the rumors remain completely unconfirmed and more than likely are just another instance of internet bullshit.

When the smoke, so to speak, cleared the tally was 497,164, or 56.8% pro vs. 377,995, or 43.2% against with less than 30 precincts left to be counted. The totals matched what the last pre election polls had predicted almost perfectly.

Don't light up just yet though. Lame Duck governor Mary Fallin is promising to fill the loopholes and reign in loose strings with a special session of the legislature. The people may have spoken, but by God that doesn't mean they know what is good for them. We, however, do and before we're done we'll have restrictions and penalties in place so draconian it will make your head spin.

Also, don't think this begins some tectonic shift to the left in Oklahoma politics. When added together the top three republicans in a 10 man field running for the gubernatorial nomination pulled in more votes than the outright winner on the democratic side and he won with over 61% of his party's support.

Yes, the victory was significant in ways, but for the cynical it feels as if nothing has really changed. Come November we're still going to end up being stuck with a bunch of rabid ultra-right wing werewolves in the legislature and a governor who thinks Don Trump is a really swell guy.

Trust me that's the way things roll around here.


sic vita est


6-27-18