Cannabis Wars - Several libertarian advocates are at odds with the new marijuana industry trade group and the lobbyists who run the consortium of financial entities, who seem to be seeking to gain as much of the market as they can maneuver. Today the spat spilled over onto the pages of NonDoc, an online news service which focuses on the state capitol and govt. agencies. The expletives have been flying and nerves are raw. Two people at the center of the disagreements are Chip Paul (one of the original authors of the newly enacted initiative statute) and Bud Scott (a long-time lobbyist for various corporate interests & recent founder of a venture trade group which is seeking subscribers). Scott has many well-established contacts in the seat of Govt. He wants the initiative petition to be changed in many substantive ways... ways that will benefit his investors and the corporations who want market stabilizing regulations. |  |
Chip Paul has long worked with medical patients and their families to find ways to get legal medications into Oklahoma to meet needs which are not being addressed. Chip Paul and the rest of the writing team specifically wrote the measure so that the state health dept. could authorize patients to cultivate a few plants in their homes so that market fluctuations would not impair access to the patients whose lives depend on the treatments.
But Rep. Collin Walke (D-OKC) specifically wants to avoid the situation where patients would ever have that kind of freedom because he says it may make the industry weak for the corporate producers. Many libertarians are speculating that Walke may be one of the first politicians 'on the take' from lobby groups who hope to convert political muscle into big profits and then use the profits to buy more political muscle, though gifts to politicians and donations to election campaigns.
Shawn Jenkins is a parent of a severely disabled boy who needs the cannabis medicines to control the daily seizures and help his son's brain to develop optimally. His family's modest income would be devastated by an over-taxed and artificially high-priced treatment costs.
Bud Scott has been very blunt in his criticism of Gov. Fallin for not calling a special session to overturn key aspects of the original language of SQ788. Scott wants his corporate clients to have strong profits, stable markets, and favorable regulations.
The Oklahoma Health Dept. has impressed all of Oklahoma by immediately rolling out a set of sensible regulations to fill in the vague aspects of the statutes without fundamentally overturning any of the key provisions.
Patients insist that the empowerment to grow their own limited supply is vastly better than the otherwise inevitable demand for medicaid to provide a massive new entitlement. But the corporate producers are determined otherwise. they hope that one day the state healthcare authority will be the #1 source of funding for this new class of natural medicine.
On Tuesday, July 10th, the Health Dept. board is planning to vote on the draft set of rules. The meeting is in room 1102 of the Dept. of Health building at 1000 N.E. 10th St., in OKC. the meeting commences at 11am, but the public is advised to arrive plenty early. The plan is to make a final report and order the agency personnel to begin setting up the system. Then the patients can begin consulting with their own healthcare professionals and make plans where necessary, to adopt treatment protocols.
