Pubdate: Sat, 07 Jun 2014
Source: Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (Little Rock, AR)
Copyright: 2014 Arkansas Democrat-Gazette, Inc.
Contact: http://www2.arkansasonline.com/contact/voicesform/
Website: http://www2.arkansasonline.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/25
Note: Accepts letters to the editor from Arkansas residents only
Page: 6B
Bookmark: http://www.mapinc.org/decrim.htm (Decrim/Legalization)

HEY, YOU SKIPPED A STEP

Who's Trying to Jump Ahead in This Game?

Well I double-dog dare ya! Now it was serious. A double-dog dare. 
What else was there but a triple dare you, and then, the coup de 
grace of all dares, the sinister triple-dog dare. I triple-dog dare 
ya! Schwartz created a slight breach of etiquette by skipping the 
triple dare and going right for the throat!

- -From the best scene in A Christmas Story

WHAT'S happened here? This week the attorney general of Arkansas 
approved a ballot title for a constitutional amendment to legalize 
the possession and use of marijuana. Not just medical marijuana, 
either. The latest proposal would legalize the whole, dopey crop. For 
use next door, downstairs, across the way, or at the kitchen table. 
Not that any of this is the attorney general's fault. Dustin 
McDaniel's job, or one of them, is to make sure ballot titles meet 
constitutional standards, that's all, and he says this latest 
proposal does. So he did his duty. But still. Did we skip a step 
here? Here's the way the game is supposed to be played: First comes 
approval of medical marijuana. A proposition its pushers say would 
only allow the weed to be used by the sick and hurting who need the 
dope to assuage pain and increase appetite. Not that many of us, or 
maybe any of us, ever bought that. Because you know the kids always 
manage to find a way to get into the stash. (Think back to when you 
were a teen and from time to time took more than a look at the old 
man's liquor cabinet.)

At least one group is already collecting signatures in Arkansas to 
get a medical marijuana initiative on the ballot come fall. They're 
showing some respect for the well-established rules. They're 
following the game plan. Just as folks in states like Colorado and 
Washington state did. First things first and all that. Only till 
medical marijuana gets its unsteady foot in the door do its 
promoters/pushers start talking full legalization:

Well, medical marijuana is already available. People are already 
smoking the stuff. Let's just decriminalize the marijuana plant and move on.

But now a group in Arkansas has gone for the whole nine yards. All at 
once. Or at least the whole dime bag.

These people don't know how the game is played. Or maybe they're just 
being honest with themselves and the rest of us. And know that the 
objective all along has been full legalization of pot. So why dance 
around it by telling Gentle Voter that medical marijuana is a 
perfectly reasonable, and the last, step? They deserve credit for 
candor in a debate that hasn't always been a candid one.

Some of us prefer the more direct route. That way, at least our 
intelligence isn't being insulted.

And please don't pooh-pooh the chances of either medical or just 
plain marijuana becoming legal in Arkansas.

Remember that in 2012 a medical marijuana initiative was barely 
defeated in this state, 52 to 48 percent. Those of us who are 
concerned about what the drug could do to our communities, treatment 
centers, hospitals, highways and schools-not to mention our kids-need 
to stay vigilant. And vote.

Better yet, when approached by somebody wielding a clipboard and 
asking for your signature to put one of these awful ideas on the 
ballot, take some old anti-drug advice from the long-ago 1980s: Just say no.
- ---
MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom