On a unanimous vote, the House Rules Committee gave support to the work of the Bicameral Interim Study; Approving their recommendations for establishing statutory laws to replace the expiring emergency rules created by the Health Dept. Board.​
  Echols assured the committee that he would be back to the committee with a handful of other bills to address the taxes, disposal, and other issues which still do not have clarity.
  Other legislators also have filed measures but this appears to be the first piece of legislation which will be debated on the floor, this session. It may be presented as early as Monday.

  In 2016 he convinced the Libertarian Party to place him on the ballot as Gary Johnson's running mate.  Libertarians soon had buyer's remorse when Weld spent much of his campaign efforts in praising Hillary Clinton.
  SoonerPolitics is conducting a poll of voters to gauge support for the Weld campaign. It appears to be below 25%. We did find some indications of what kind of voter would opt for a change. In reviewing social media profiles we found that the drug policy reform effort was a consistent theme. Most of these Weld supporters supported a move to reschedule medical marijuana and Weld seems to support that objective. Trump has not yet signaled any intention to end the federal oppression of medical applications of "full spectrum" cannabis medicines.

  Some believe this could be the most violent day of the "Gilets jaunes:" (Yellow Vest) uprising.
  A key figure in France’s "gilets jaunes” (yellow vests) movement has been secretly filmed claiming paramilitaries are ready to intervene in the anti-government protest.
Christophe Chalencon — whose recent meeting with Italy’s deputy prime minister Luigi Di Maio intensified a diplomatic row between Rome and Paris — made the assertion to journalists.
​ 

Some news services are carrying live coverage from within the crowd.

  The Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority is under a siege of new applications and many are going unprocessed beyond the statutory 14 day mandate for processing.
 Last week the OMMA announced the closing of their robust call center, so that the personnel which takes more than 1000 calls per week can help dig out the processing department. 
  Melissa Miller, a spokesman for the State Health Department's Medical Marijuana Authority said that every effort is being made to hire more competent personnel.
  Up until Thanksgiving, the rate of granting patient license applications for patients was about 1000 per week. But the rate since the holidays has been higher than 2500 per week. Now the agency is admitting that they are failing to meet the legal mandate. 
  As a result, patients are going without their medicine or being forced to buy from the black market, and face prosecution just to get medical care for cancer care, epilepsy, chronic pain care, and severe mental disorders including veterans with PTSD.

  ​The Proposed new Omnibus Medical Marijuana Bill is now published. It will be presented as a "Committee Substitute" of an existing 'shell bill'.

• It creates a few statutory changes and adds clarity to a number of matters, including product testing standards (food safety protocols).
• It fails to address the tax issue. Voters believed it established a 7% sales tax on the medicine, but the Tax Commission imposed a double tax and more than doubled the assessment.
• It adds occupational licensing requirements ($50)
• It adds educational certification for training & research.
• It adds transportation licensing.
• It converts most of the existing agency  'emergency rules' to permanent statutes.
• It removes the OBNDD from oversight authority.
• It establishes clarity of patient rights & protections.
• It's requesting emergency implementation upon passage into law.

  We're waiting to hear which committee will receive this assignment, and when they will take action.

  Sen. Ron Sharp wants to defund the education of some struggling students. But only the students whose families have found their local school districts to be the problem, and have turned to a virtual public school and education in the home environment.
  Ron Sharp believes that virtual charter schools should only be funded to repay the cost of the successful students. These are often the same students who were discarded by the local big public school district.   Sharp only wants a charter school to get reimbursed if a student recovers his studies and advances a whole grade level. That mentality would discourage public educators from taking on the task of educating our most 'at-risk' pupils.

Now Epic Charter is fighting back;
​  Shelly Hickman, Assistant Superintendent with Epic Charter Schools, said Epic is already shorthanded, only receiving 57 cents for every dollar that Tulsa Public Schools get.

"If Senator Sharp wants to apply that model of funding public charter schools, he's going to have to apply that model for all public schools,” said Hickman.

 He wants our tax dollars to be used to bribe big business to the state. He wants public education to get a lot more money. 
​Here 's a 'grocery list' of the points he made.
1. $1200 more for public school teachers.
2. Consolidation of licensing agencies and tax filing.
3. Reforms & innovations in how education happens.
4. More local funding of schools, without losing state aid.
5. "Reimagining of school districts."
6. Student-centered reforms, not bureaucracy-centered.

  When the night shift at the Pawhuska Police Dept. pulled over a semi rig last January 9th, the cop may have set in motion a federal legal action because of the many failures of the district court officers who didn't say, "No" to the prosecution.
  The payload of the semi contained 18,000 lbs.. of hemp mulch from a farm in Kentucky which was on it's way to Colorado's Panacea Life Corporate processing facility, to be used in developing CBD oil and other homeopathic health products.
  Even though the payload sat for weeks before the first lab testing was done, the 11 samples came back mostly under the 0.3% industry limits ascribed by federal & state law. But even if the average samples were 3 times as potent, but under the 1% ceiling, then no state is allowed to hinder the liberty of the individuals involved in the shipping. And that's actually a federal law which Oklahoma appears to have broken.

 The 4-member Creek County Platform Committee did not unanimously agree to include the plank in the official committee report, but there is sufficient support to bring the plank as an amendment.  The committee generally supports the language,
  Many Conservatives are now realizing that the Drug War has killed multitudes, but Medical Cannabis has killed no one.
  The convention is scheduled for next Saturday, Feb. 9th.
   Ford, who serves as a Mounds city Trustee and liaison to the police dept. in Mounds; is fully supporting the language as follows;

Platform Committee member, Ben Ellis originally submitted a longer version of the plank.  Ellis questions the fundamental authority of the federal govt. to declare a prohibition on any drug.
  Nearly a century a go the federal govt. needed a constitutional amendment in order to secure a liquor prohibition. In the interest of brevity, it was condensed. Here's the more elaborative text;

  The City govt. of El Reno, is refusing a business permit to a fully legal medical marijuana dispensary. The rationale of the council seems to be claiming that a church will be suffering irreparable harm by having this medical dispensary in a commercial district which a church previously chose to also set up in.
  The council moved quickly to make special ordinances specifically targeted at banning the new class of medicine, just weeks after the people of Oklahoma voted to remove the ban for those whose physicians directed such care.
  Attorney Ronald Durbin posted this statement;

State law says; "​F. No city or local municipality may unduly change or restrict zoning laws to prevent the opening of a retail marijuana establishment. "

A lot of adults can learn from a  remarkable youth named Nick.
His quiet confidence and poise exhibited the character that is largely missing in the public square.

  By now you've heard the radicle swing in the narrative of what happened at 'ground zero', last weekend.

  The ecumenical effort to end abortion in the USA was largely sponsored by traditional Roman Catholic organizations. Covington is a suburb of the predominantly catholic Cincinnati metro area. the Catholic schools enjoy more public support than the public school systems.
​
  Covington Catholic sponsored their annual bus trip to Washington for a weekend of events. The March for Life was just one of the educational events. The kids were then allowed to visit memorials and museums. 

  With the passage of Oklahoma's State Question 788, Medical Marijuana became a reality for thousands of patients. Within months the first real cannabis medicine was cultivated and harvested. Dispensaries opened and product was put in consumers hands.
  While the medicine was legal as of October 26th, the growers were waiting for optimal harvesting conditions, which mostly occurred after Thanksgiving.
  So most licensed dispensaries waited until December to officially open and dispense to patients.
  Today is January 15th. This is the day that monthly commerce reporting for December is due, to the Oklahoma Medical Marijuana Authority.  Melissa Miller of the OMMA explains that these reports are mandatory even if a licensed Medical Marijuana Business (MMB) has no sales to report or even product acquired for future sales.
  We asked if these reports will be made public, or at least the accumulative numbers released. We're still waiting for that answer.
But the OMMA has been very forthcoming with licensing data. They provide weekly status data, announcing totals and breaking down each category.