Panel Authorizes Five Marijuana Farms in Arkansas

Marijuana

Yesterday the state’s Medical Marijuana Commission awarded five licenses to grow marijuana in Arkansas following months of controversy and legal battles.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette reports that licenses were issued to:

  • Natural State Medicinals Cultivation of Jefferson County
  • BOLD Team of Woodruff County
  • Natural State Wellness Enterprises of Jackson County
  • Osage Creek Cultivation of Carroll County
  • Delta Medical Cannabis Company of Jackson County

Marijuana is a blight on the community. In other states, it has caused and contributed to countless deaths and injuries. Contrary to popular belief, marijuana is far from harmless.

The Arkansas Constitution lets cities and counties vote to prohibit marijuana farms and stores by circulating petitions to place the issue on the ballot.

If you want to learn more about how your county can prohibit marijuana farms and stores, contact our office at (501) 375-7000.

Photo by My 420 Tours [CC BY-SA 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0)], from Wikimedia Commons.

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State Lottery Paid Scholarships Eighteen Cents On the Dollar in FY18: Report

Arkansas Lottery

Yesterday the Arkansas Lottery released its financial report for the month of June.

June marks the end of Fiscal Year 2018 for the Lottery. According to the report, the Lottery took in nearly $37.7 million last month, but paid out less than $13.4 million for scholarships.

However, more than half the money the Lottery paid to scholarships actually came from the Lottery’s pool of unclaimed prize money. If this unclaimed prize money had not been available, $6.3 million — less than 17% of its revenue — would have been all that Arkansas’ college students would have received in June.

Altogether, the Arkansas Lottery’s gross revenue for Fiscal Year 2018 was the highest in its history. But only 18.4 cents of every dollar the Lottery made in FY18 went to scholarships. The rest went to salaries, overhead, marketing, prizes, contract fees, and other expenses.

For perspective, the typical lottery pays at least 30% of its revenue to education.

Since Day One, the Arkansas Lottery has been a major failure. It has rolled out more gambling more quickly than any other lottery we know, and the funding it allocates for education is among the worst in the nation.

Below is a breakdown of Lottery revenue for Fiscal Year 2018.

Month Gross Lottery Revenue Paid to Scholarships % Gross Revenue
July $36,885,396.81 $6,661,762.99 18.1%
August 49,320,459.23 8,912,741.54 18.1%
September 36,405,731.14 6,755,333.93 18.6%
October 39,802,740.53 5,667,305.74 14.2%
November 36,186,107.78 6,691,228.00 18.5%
December 44,716,219.32 6,583,355.77 14.7%
January, 2018 44,063,056.11 8,230,861.00 18.7%
February 39,389,927.57 5,947,647.50 15.1%
March 53,523,320.61 7,945,570.02 14.8%
April 42,064,194.78 7,192,997.10 17.1%
May 40,447,182.69 8,037,624.80 19.9%
June 37,685,874.97 13,364,612.64 35.5%
Total $500,490,211.54 $91,991,041.03 18.4%

Photo Credit: Roman Oleinik [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0) or GFDL (http://www.gnu.org/copyleft/fdl.html)], from Wikimedia Commons

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Christians Face “Pure Genocide” in Nigeria

Christian Persecution

Our friends at the Colson Center for Christian Worldview released a commentary today highlighting the intense persecution Christians face in Nigeria and calling on America to condemn the atrocities committed against thousands of innocent civilians in that country.

John Stonestreet writes,

By most estimates, the population of Nigeria is almost evenly divided between Muslims and Christians. That religious split largely follows geographic lines: The northern part of the country is predominantly Muslim, the eastern and southern parts of the country heavily Christian. The middle, sometimes called the “Middle Belt,” is ethnically and religiously diverse.

Not surprisingly, what makes Nigeria so dangerous for Christians originates in the Islamic north. There, Christians have been on the receiving end of a campaign Open Doors calls “religious cleansing,” that is, an attempt “to eradicate Christianity” from the region. . . .

In a statement released in late June, Christian leaders claimed that “over 6,000 persons—mostly children, women and the aged—have been maimed and killed in night raids by armed Fulani herdsmen.”

The Fulani are an ethnic group who are overwhelmingly Muslim, and their raids are not always at night.  . . .

The language used by Christian leaders in Nigeria in their statement to describe what is happening, “pure genocide,” is hard to disagree with. As was the call, directed toward the national government to “stop this senseless … blood shedding… and avoid a state of complete anarchy where the people are forced to defend themselves.” . . .

So, what can we do about this? First, we must pray, continually, for our brothers and sisters there. Second, we have to encourage the White House to continue pressing Nigeria about what’s happening in its Middle Belt, as it did during an April meeting with the Nigerian president.

You can read Stonestreet’s entire commentary here.

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