Land Bid May Bring Indian Gaming to Central Arkansas

Gambling, ,

The Quapaw Tribe of Oklahoma has applied with the U.S. Department of Interior’s Bureau of Indian Affairs to have a 160-acre plot of land near the Little Rock Port Authority placed in a trust by the United States for tribal use, according to various news sources.

The Quapaw Tribe has owned the land for about two years. Its application with the Bureau of Indian Affairs would change the designation of the land and significantly affect local regulation and control of the property.

The federal government recognizes multiple types of tribal lands. Typically, these lands are held in “trust” by the federal government. Indian reservations are one example of this federal “trust” system: The federal government, technically, owns the lands, but they are designated for tribal use.

The laws and regulations are a little difficult to navigate, but under federal law, tribes may conduct gambling operations on many of these tribal lands held in trust by the federal government.

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Governor Hutchinson Signs Pro-Life Bill

Abortion

We have just learned that last Friday Governor Hutchinson signed House Bill 1394 by Rep. Charlene Fite.

This good, pro-life bill requires drug-induced abortions be performed in accordance with FDA protocols.

Right now drug regimens like RU-486 are not being done according to the methods approved by the FDA. This means drug-induced abortions are performed later in pregnancy than the FDA protocols allow; evidence also suggests failing to follow FDA protocols carries serious health risks for women undergoing drug-induced abortions.

H.B. 1394 ensures abortion-providers adhere to the FDA protocols. It will also help curtail the expansion of drug-induced abortion in Arkansas and potentially will save the lives of unborn children.

You may call the governor’s office to thank Gov. Hutchinson for signing this bill at (501) 682-2345.

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Number of Deaths Caused by Marijuana Much More than 0

Marijuana

From time-to-time proponents of marijuana legalization throw out some fuzzy statistics claiming no one has ever died from marijuana.

Case-in-point, earlier this month a group in Arkansas advocating major changes in our state’s marijuana laws tweeted the following:

“No one has ever died from cannabis.” Let’s investigate this claim.

Unpacking the Statistics on Alcohol and Marijuana

In the tweet above, Arkansans for Compassionate Care is apparently citing a statistic from the Center for Disease Control on the number of deaths from alcohol every year (88,000, on average). If we read how the CDC arrived at that figure, we see it was by calculating the number of alcohol-related accidents and health problems.

In other words, it isn’t simply that 88,000 people die from blood alcohol poisoning (which some might describe as an “alcohol overdose”) each year. Alcohol is contributing to the deaths of about 88,000 people each year in the form of heart and liver problems, car crashes, and so on.

These are what the CDC calls “alcohol attributable deaths” (you can see a full list of them here). They are deaths cause by something that was a direct effect of alcohol use.

So let’s take a look at marijuana-attributable deaths. Has marijuana really never killed anyone, as so many of its proponents claim?

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