Oregon Looks to Restrict Marijuana After Illegal Grow Operations Skyrocket

Marijuana

News outlets report that lawmakers in Oregon are considering legislation that would increase the penalties for illegal marijuana production.

Oregon was among the first states to legalize marijuana. At the time, many believed legalization would eliminate the black market and reduce drug crimes. Instead the opposite happened.

Oregon has been inundated by industrial scale marijuana cultivation sites operated illegally by organized crime and drug cartels.

Some of these marijuana operations are tied to labor trafficking and violent crime.

Authorities in Oregon reportedly have seized 105 tons of illicit marijuana this year alone.

Oregon isn’t the only state that has had problems as a result of marijuana legalization. California created a legal framework for growing and selling marijuana in order to weaken drug cartels’ power in the state, but instead their illegal marijuana farms have grown.

It’s worth pointing out that if Arkansas had passed Issue 4 last month, our marijuana laws arguably would be more lax than Oregon’s and California’s in many ways.

Contrary to popular belief, legalization does not decrease drug-related crime, and it does not alleviate drug abuse. If anything, it seems to make those problems worse.

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President Biden Signs So-Called “Respect for Marriage” Act Into Law

LGBT,

On Tuesday President Biden signed the so-called federal “Respect for Marriage” Act into law.

The law does more than simply recognize same-sex marriage.

It puts faith-based adoption and foster care agencies who do not believe in same-sex marriage at greater risk.

The law also creates a private right of action that will have a chilling effect on the free exercise of religion nationwide.

This is a bad law that activists will weaponize against people of faith who believe marriage is supposed to be the union of one man and one woman.

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Federal Judge Says Satanic Temple’s Lawsuit Over Pro-Abortion Billboards Rejected in Arkansas Can Proceed

Abortion, , , ,

Last week U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks chose not to dismiss a lawsuit by The Satanic Temple over a set of pro-abortion billboards that the atheist organization wanted to place near pregnancy resource centers in Fayetteville, Springdale, and Little Rock.

In September of 2020 Lamar Media Corporation rejected four designs for billboards that falsely claimed The Satanic Temple’s “religious abortion ritual averts many state restrictions” on abortion.

One of the proposed billboards claimed pregnancy complications are the sixth most common cause of death among women between the ages of 20 and 34, concluding that “abortions save lives.”

Arkansas’s pro-life laws do not contain exceptions for any “religious abortion ritual,” and courts have not recognized a religious right to abortion.

As a result, Lamar reportedly rejected the billboard designs for being “misleading and offensive.”

Last February the organization filed a federal lawsuit against Lamar in Arkansas.

Among other things, the lawsuit argues that “[the Satanic Temple] holds the view that some abortion restrictions substantially interfere with its religious beliefs. Particularly, abortion restrictions . . . interfere with [the group’s tenets regarding] bodily autonomy and . . . [are] not grounded in science.”

According to court documents, The Satanic Temple also alleges that rejecting the billboards is a form of religious discrimination.

Lamar’s attorneys asked U.S. District Judge Timothy Brooks to dismiss the lawsuit, arguing that the Western District of Arkansas is not the proper venue for the court case and that the Satanic Temple has not suffered enough damages to warrant the lawsuit. However, last week Judge Brooks decided not to dismiss the case.

It’s worth pointing out that the Satanic Temple is an atheist organization with a history of stirring up controversy in Arkansas.

The group has opposed Arkansas’ monument honoring the Ten Commandments and is part of a lawsuit to have the monument removed from the capitol grounds.

In August of 2018 the Satanic Temple held a small protest in front of the State Capitol, and parked a flatbed trailer holding a 7½-foot statue of baphomet — a satanic figure — in front of the Capitol Building.

The Satanic Temple had previously threatened to put the baphomet monument on the capitol grounds itself. However, nothing ever came of the threat, because monuments require legislative approval.

The Satanic Temple has unsuccessfully tried to persuade federal courts to recognize abortion as a religious ritual. So far courts have refused to do so.

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