The 2017 “Cannabinoid Research Law” which TRUCE described as both unneeded and badly crafted when it was introduced has done far less promised.
This feature length front page article puts the law and some involved under the spotlight, and unsurprisingly from where we sit, it simply doesn’t stand up to scrutiny.
There’s a lot here. One takeaway is that 2018’s bills – also written by Rep. Brad Daw – are woven out of the same cloth of over-hype about claimed concerns with science and compassion – and – should they be passed, will in our opinion under-deliver just as badly.
HB195 and HB197 should be decisively rejected. And Rep. Daw’s peers should quit taking his claims to be a “cautious reformer” at face value. He never has been – and without a “on the road to Damascus conversion” – will never be a reformer who has patient’s best interests at heart in our opinion.
To make matters worse, there are signs of the taint of cronyism here, that is, concerns about the way the law has been rolled out with little oversight by actual state employees – resulting in a situation in which well-connected associates of the legislator stand to benefit commercially.
In the article, Christine Stenquist of TRUCE notes the “vendor bill” aspects of the law which have helped advance the interests of Daw associate, former Congressman Chris Cannon, in the only really active project under the law.
Also defending Rep. Daw is former Utah County GOP Party Secretary Jeremy Roberts, the founder of Medical Cannabis Payment Solutions, a “proprietary merchant processing system [for the] the state-legalized cannabis market.”
We certainly see signs of hypocrisy among those who’ve opposed cannabis medicine now gearing up to profit from its inevitable growth – at least enough to benefit some businesses – if few patients.
In short, the politics of opposing medical cannabis has gotten us to a pass where “something is rotten in the state of Utah,” and despite some of the quotees in this article loudly crying foul (“outrage” in one case, and “patently ridiculous” in another) about having unpleasant facts pointed out, these problems all fall on those who wrote, championed this law – and on those who are now involved in this inadequate, irrelevant, not-up-to-scientific snuff, curiously managed boondoggle, particularly in the form of the Endo C corporation and related entities.
Meanwhile, Rep. Daw is quoted about just how involved he remains in personally working on how the law is being carried out. But he’s a legislator – not a program administrator, and doesn’t belong within ten yards of doing many of the things he freely discusses doing here.
Again, all of this just sounds, well, not right.
We urge you to read and share this important story!
#MMJ #ResearchBill #HB195 #H197 #HB130 #VendorBill #TRUCE
See full article – Forward thinking or blowing smoke? Sides deeply at odds over cannabis research bill one year later
