At least for now, Idaho will retain its status as a place where voluntary brain cell destruction is limited to booze and football. With a bill just signed by Governor Little, possessing as little as an ounce of marijuana is punishable by a fine of no less than $300.
Last year, when Nampa State Representative Bruce Skaug introduced a bill to fine smokers $420 for marijuana possession, the nation’s $33 billion pot industry scoffed, “There go those Idaho right-wingers, again.” They assumed the measure was a tongue-in-cheek joke and continued their decade-long investment in redefining “conservative” in Idaho.
That included pouring hundreds of thousands into local statehouse races. Using euphemistic names like “Make Liberty Win,” and “Young Americans for Liberty,” they filled mailboxes with slick, full-color postcards making outlandish claims of “secret liberalism.”
Tellingly, none of those postcards went to the constituents of progressive democrats, as these legislators were already likely to support drug liberalization.
No, the attacks focused on fiercely independent conservatives who refused to let a cannabis industry front dictate their vote. Top targets were Republican leaders in both the Idaho Senate and House.
Senate Pro Tem Chuck Winder was targeted, successfully. House Speaker Mike Moyle was targeted, not successfully. That was the cannabis industry’s colossal mistake. “Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.” Too many conservative legislators would not now be fooled twice.
That is why the cannabis industry is losing big this year. The $300 minimum fine was just the beginning. Legislation is also pending to limit and expose out-of-state money in Idaho politics.
There is talk of resurrecting last year’s bill to block marijuana advertising in Idaho. And a constitutional amendment has cleared committee to take addictive drug status out of the hands of federal bureaucrats. With that amendment, even if President Gavin Newsom deregulates drugs (as he promises), Idaho could still say “no.”
As a minor consolation, the cannabis industry swears it is not out to turn Idaho kids all into refer addicts. Their main interest is the lucrative Oregon and Washington drug markets which currently cannot be accessed across international borders or through ocean-going ports – because marijuana continues to be illegal federally.
So they started merely trying to get high-THC “hemp” to travel through Idaho without inspection. They recruited then-Representative Dorothy Moon to carry that legislation. When the Idaho Senate said “yes” to industrial hemp, but added tight THC limits and inspection authority, Moon threw a fit and boycotted the Senate bill. It’s obvious where her loyalties lie.
Big Cannabis is aware that a clock is ticking on their political “acceptance” attempts. It has been just over a decade since Colorado legalized marijuana, but demographic studies of that action are already appearing. And none of the news is good for the pot lobby.
Even Joe Biden’s Food and Drug Administration found conclusive evidence that marijuana harms the brain’s process for learning and mapping new knowledge. Chronic marijuana addiction is now a diagnosed disorder afflicting one in seven marijuana users. Youth who become pot addicts show a tenfold increased chance of psychological and mental trauma.
This puts Idaho in an enviable position. While other states attempt to roll back or more aggressively regulate the pot now prevalent, Idaho can remain focused on the future.
This gives inspiring credence to Idaho’s current youth-focused anti-drug education program, using the slogan “Idaho--the Unaltered State.” The premise of this message is that Idaho does not need drug-induced highs to capture the imagination and energy of youth.
In a state where granite mountain peaks, beautiful pine-encircled meadows and stunning high desert lava formations are only a few minutes away, we have no reason to send our youth to brain-damaging chemistry for their “Rocky Mountain High.”
An “un-addicted” state is truly a free state, in the spirit of what America was founded to be. Congratulations to the Idaho legislature for stepping up to the Idaho Constitution’s commitment to clear thinking and sober mentality.
It is among our greatest blessings: to enjoy life in an “Unaltered State.”
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