A Marijuana Bureaucracy? No!

       I used to think the initiative process was a good thing.  We were all led to believe that democracy was the ideal form of government.  I have since come to agree with the founders, that pure democracy leads to tyranny.   How often have we been duped into voting for something because it sounded good, only to discover after the fact that the proposition was written in such a way as to mislead.  

       I remember an initiative years ago that purported to protect the rights of hunters.  It actually tried to eliminate trapping.  Granted, we are often duped by legislators, too.  However, we can point the finger of blame and oust them in the next election.    

     The marijuana initiative is a case in point. According to the ARDP, the Colorado experiment tells us that teen usage is up 40 per cent there as compared to 2 per cent country wide, that its use alters the how brain works causing memory loss, lack of focus, and interfering with problem solving skills.  Furthermore, if the drug is used regularly before the brain is fully developed at about age 21, the damage is irreversible.

   Those of us who lean libertarian might say, “Yes!  Freedom to choose!"  But what the initiative puts in place is another huge bureaucracy, a monopolistic enterprise. The act limits the number of dispensaries to 10 per cent of the number of Series 6 liquor licenses offered in any area, and those medical marijuana dispensaries already established will be grandfathered in. 

     One of the direst aspects of the initiative is that it takes away the right of the employer to fire an employee who comes to work stoned.  He can act only after the employee engages in an act resulting in negligence, often too late to protect other employees or the business itself. 

     We simply should oppose any move to create another bureaucracy.  If we’ve learned anything over the past couple of generations is that bureaucracies are as tyrannical as kings, more so.  They get so entrenched they're impossible to disrupt.  A king can be deposed.  Bureaucracies are ravenous, ineffective blobs that seep into every corner of a once free society sapping it of its strength and ingenuity.