A Bubble Off Plumb

Happy birthday, T.B.

T.B. Ferguson, that is. His birthday is March 17, also St. Patrick’s Day. If you are feeling festive, stop by the Watonga Library that afternoon for cake and punch. It may even be green punch.

But it isn’t about T.B. or the house I wish to write today.

It’s about government, good government. Ol’ T.B. was all about being honest and showing integrity in all he did. That was the main reason he was tapped for territorial governor. He and the residents of what was then the Oklahoma Territory were faced with deciding where they wanted their land to go. On to statehood or to be absorbed by another state or states? And how were the Natives to be represented?

We are at a similar crossroads in the Sooner State right now.

Where do we want our state to go? Into the pot –no pun intended—with the others who allow recreational marijuana, or to remain as we are, still feeling our way with the challenges created by medical marijuana?

I had a close relative who worked for a district attorney’s office in Colorado when that state threw open the doors to legalized weed. It was chaos. Many arrests were made because of drivers under the influence but there was no way to quantify exactly what impaired meant. That was just the beginning of the problems, too. There were issues to be dealt with that no one had even considered before the vote.

I’m sure things have improved some over there, but there are still dispensaries on every street corner, and the Colorado Springs Gazette some years ago issued some sobering numbers.

According to that publication, there is more marijuana in schools, with drug violations up by 45 %, citing a study by Education News Colorado. School suspensions for drugs increased as well.

Perhaps our state could take a step back and instead phase in decriminalization, which isn’t the same as legalization. The first phase might be freeing those in prison on marijuana convictions. The next phase could be setting out ways to keep the state from being overrun with pot farms, more dispensaries than it can support and a good hard look at the needed laws and support to keep the legally produced product from winding up on the black market and fueling crime, organized and otherwise.

Anyone who doesn’t believe there are already multiple issues with illegal goings-on in the marijuana industry is living under a rock or still believes in the Easter bunny.

I’m not saying the state should never legalize recreational weed, although that would be my choice personally. I AM saying it should be slow-walked, highly regulated and done properly, with the necessary protections and laws in place to keep Oklahoma from turning into another Colorado. And other than the great views, I don’t think anyone wants that.