You have to hand it to outgoing Oklahoma Governor, Mary Fallin. She is a sly one.
Think not? First she flummoxed the NRA and that vast gaggle of state legislators who are in their pocket. This summer, right before the state house and senate adjourned for the year, both chambers overwhelmingly voted to allow anyone--including the dude who shot up Louie's Grill and Bar after hearing demonic ducks--to openly carry a handgun without any sort of training, or permit.
Fallin waited until after the session ended before vetoing the measure, thus avoiding the ugliness and humiliation of having her veto overridden, which it surely would have been. Her act forced the gun fetishists to do one of two things. Either call a special session themselves, which would have stranded them in Oklahoma City during the middle of the primary election season, or wait until next year when she is out of office to pass it again. They chose the latter.
So, good for her right? I mean at least she temporarily foiled those demented goofs who are convinced they can't have sex if the government messes with their, "right," to unrestricted possession of firearms.
Yeah, well, besides being against untrained idiots packing guns she also opposed State Question 788, which legalized marijuana use for medical purposes. Unfortunately for her and the rest of the anti cannabis crowd, that bill went before the voters rather than the state legislature. In June it passed big time.
However, the new law wasn't very specific when it came to rules and regulations concerning the distribution and makeup of medicinal pot. Everyone, including myself, assumed she would be forced to call a special session of the legislature to hash out, so to speak, the details.
Silly us.
Fallin immediately saw such a move was fraught with danger for not only herself, but the GOP rubes in the senate and house. First, there are still some runoff races a few of the law makers have to deal with in late August and then the general election arrives in November. Second, the very last thing your average Oklahoma legislator wants to do in an election year is hand the public yet another reason to throw their ass out. Let's face it, even they know fouling up a measure which was just approved in a landslide by voters isn't particularly smart politics.
Indeed, you almost could smell the ads coming, Ladies and gentleman the incumbent is imposing impossible sanctions and regulations on a measure you, the voting public, passed by a large margin. He, or she is deliberately subverting your will! Elect me, because I will never betray you in that way!
No that's not something a local pol wants to deal with when the prevailing popular sentiment already is to oust everyone at NE 23rd and Lincoln on general principle alone.
In addition, Fallin had her own problem with a special legislative session. Once those crazy bastards got back to the capitol building there wouldn't be anything stopping them from moving past the marijuana question to, you guessed it, scuttling her veto of the aforementioned gun bill.
So what does she do? Why, hand the whole business off to Department of Health bureaucrats who not only aren't accountable to voters, but also vehemently opposed State Question 788 in the first place. In other words the same people who ran anti SQ788 ads so perversely false and misleading no reputable TV station should have aired them, were given free rein to regulate it.
Within days, after a series of secret, not to mention possibly illegal, meetings, all sorts of new, "rules," meant to hamstring the distribution of medical marijuana were put in place. Like the one that bans licensed outlets from selling pot which can be smoked. Or another which forbids edible marijuana to come in the form of candy, or any sort of confection which, "might" appeal to children. Then there are restrictions on the amount of THC each product can contain--it is a level so low at least one wag compares it to the state law which says cold beer can only be sold if it contains less than 3.2% alcohol. (A law which voters repealed two years ago, but still hasn't been acted on thanks to legislative fol-de-rol) My personal favorite, though, is a stipulation which states each dispensary must have a pharmacist on duty during operating hours.
All this in a state where highly addictive opioids, manufactured by an amoral multi-billion dollar industry, are handed out and consumed as if they are M&Ms and the most profitable rural business is manufacturing meth.
The only good news to come out of the right wing subterfuge is a spike in support for State Question 797. It is now over two thirds of the way to the required number of signatures which would land it on the ballot in November. That's right, Governor Fallin and the rest of you assholes, fuck with us and we the people will fuck with you. If it passes SQ 797 will legalize marijuana for recreational purposes throughout the state of Oklahoma.
If it makes it to the ballot does it stand a chance? Conventional wisdom says no, but then that's what many said about the now gutted SQ 788 and it won with over 57% of the vote.
Evangelicals, arch right wing corporate types, and slaves to big pharma shouldn't worry though. Even if it were to pass the same slime who are in the process of neutering State Question 788 will be in charge of regulating recreational marijuana.
And if they are willing to screw over the chronically ill and dying like they are now, just think what they'll do when it comes to recreational users.
It is a scary thought.
7-16-18
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