Speaking of Measure 3, two things are blatantly obvious— a majority of North Dakotans are easily swayed by fear campaigns and some folks have no interest in personal freedom. It just boggles my mind how many people boiled their arguments down to the measure being “poorly written”. Seriously? This was especially troubling coming from limited government folks who call themselves conservatives. Yes, these same people who talk out of one side of their mouth about freedom and limited government played ventriloquist out of the other by saying there wasn’t enough regulations in the measure. Who cares about the fact that proponents of the measure repeatedly explained that this was intentional so that the State Legislature could do their job by writing in other provisions during the upcoming session. Included in these arguments, from the opposition, was the fact that there was no taxing mechanism beyond our existing state sales tax. Yep, apparently some “conservatives” like their taxes a bit more than they let on.
Furthermore, have any of these people ever observed floor debate during a State Legislative Session? If they think that initiated measures are the only pieces of proposed law that are “poorly written”, they’d be mistaken. It’s often admitted by legislators themselves — on the House and Senate floors — that certain bills are “poorly written”. And those bills come from Legislative Council! Yet, they are often either modified in committee or passed and modified later. Essentially the exact same thing could have been done with Measure 3— if it needed to be done at all. Which leads me to believe that some folks were either ignorant of the measure and/or process or just can’t help but impose their values upon others.
Then there’s the fact that the real losers here are those who have medical conditions that can benefit from the use of marijuana or its byproducts. They’re still waiting on medical marijuana to become a reality in the state— after it being passed two years ago. Oh, and never mind that they may have issues finding healthcare networks in the state that have doctors who will recommend the stuff. Not to mention the
limited amount of dispensaries that will be available.
All that was accomplished by defeating Measure 3 was continuing an unnecessary War on Marijuana and delaying the inevitable. I guarantee you that in the years ahead we will see legalized recreational marijuana in North Dakota.
