Arkansas State Police Seize More Than 400 Pounds of Illicit Marijuana From Out of State in Single Traffic Stop

Marijuana

Arkansas State Police intercepted over 400 pounds of marijuana during a routine traffic stop in Conway County, according to an official press release.

A state trooper stopped a rental truck on I-40. Officers discovered the truck contained 21 boxes filled with vacuum-sealed marijuana packages totaling 434 pounds, alongside $1,460 in cash.

The press released indicated the marijuana originated from out of state.

This bust is part of a larger trend, with more 900 pounds of illegal marijuana confiscated on I-40 in just the last few weeks.

Stories like these serve as a reminder that marijuana’s legalization in other states has actually fueled the black market and the drug cartels rather than weakening them.

For example, California’s Unified Cannabis Enforcement Taskforce seized more than $312 million worth of illegal marijuana in 2023.

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.

Oklahoma authorities describe illicit marijuana as a problem that “plagues” their state.

The list goes on.

These reports come as a proposed marijuana amendment is vying for the 2024 ballot in Arkansas — raising serious questions about what could happen in Arkansas if the state goes the same route as California, Oregon, and others.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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Commercial Surrogacy and Modern-Day Slavery: Guest Column

Surrogacy

According to Britain’s The Independent, calls to an anti-slavery hotline grew from just under 10,000 in 2022 to nearly 12,000 last year.  Whether the increase in calls reflects an actual increase of slavery in the U.K. or an increase in awareness of the hotline, it’s a reminder that an ancient evil is still very much part of the modern world. 

Today, slavery can take the form of things like organ harvesting, or even surrogacy-based slavery, when women are warehoused, financially pressured, or otherwise coerced into providing children for paying Western customers. 

This booming market, child advocate Katy Faust says, “is the real #HandmaidsTale,” with customers and “providers” willing to go to unconscionable lengths to secure the “product.” With so much money to be made and little to no legal restrictions, women and children are dehumanized and made commodities.  

Make no mistake, this is one of the great human rights crises of our day. 

Copyright 2024 by the Colson Center for Christian Worldview. Reprinted from BreakPoint.org with permission.

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TikTok Sues to Block Federal Ban

Social Media,

Social media giant TikTok filed a federal lawsuit this week challenging a new law that would ban the app or force its Chinese parent-company to sell the social media platform.

With an estimated one billion users worldwide and 150 million in the U.S., TikTok is considered by some to be the most popular social media platform in the world — especially among teens and young adults.

The company has struggled to protect private user data from entities in China, and the platform has faced criticism for letting its algorithm serve users what some call a steady “diet of darkness” online.

As U.S. Congressman Bruce Westerman wrote in March,

Although TikTok executives claim that it does not share any data collected by the app, there are several Chinese laws in place that provide CCP [Chinese Communist Party] officials access to all user data collected by Chinese-owned tech companies, like TikTok. This means the CCP has access to sensitive data, like the location of every TikTok user worldwide, including the over 210 million Americans who have downloaded the app.

Likewise, Arkansas Attorney General Tim Griffin has voiced concerns over the fact that TikTok is subject to Chinese laws that “mandate secret cooperation with intelligence activities of the People’s Republic of China.”

In April, President Biden signed a bipartisan piece of legislation requiring TikTok’s Chinese parent-company, ByteDance, to divest itself of the platform by January 19, 2025. If ByteDance fails to sell TikTok, the law would ban TikTok in the United States.

TikTok’s federal lawsuit claims the law violates the U.S. Constitution and asks a federal court to block the law.

As we have said repeatedly, there is mounting evidence that — by design — social media platforms like TikTok may deliberately push objectionable content to kids and put users’ personal information at risk. With that in mind, it’s good to see policymakers taking action to rein in these tech giants.

Articles appearing on this website are written with the aid of Family Council’s researchers and writers.

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