Judge Rules Against State on Marijuana Farms

Marijuana

In February the Medical Marijuana Commission announced five companies authorized to grow marijuana in Arkansas. However, this week a judge said the process commissioners followed to pick those companies did not comply with the law.

The Arkansas Democrat-Gazette writes,

In a 28-page decision, Judge Wendell Griffen issued a preliminary injunction barring the Arkansas Medical Marijuana Commission from issuing five cannabis-growing licenses. The injunction is a continuance of a temporary restraining order Griffen issued a week ago, just hours before the commission planned to formally award the licenses to five companies.

Wednesday’s order, however, went a step further, declaring the commission’s rankings of the 95 growing license applications “null and void.”

The Medical Marijuana Commission reviewed and ranked applications to grow marijuana; the five highest-ranked applicants received cultivation licenses.

In his decision, Judge Griffen wrote that the process defied due process and the rule of law.

You can read more about this story here.

Photo By Cannabis Training University (Own work) [CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)], via Wikimedia Commons.

READ MORE

Task Force to Look at Changes to Tax Exemptions

Taxes

This week the Tax Reform and Relief Legislative Task Force met in Little Rock to discuss sales tax policies in Arkansas. The task force is reviewing possible changes to the state’s tax structure — including changes to tax exemptions in Arkansas.

In December consultants for the state singled-out sales tax exemptions for nonprofit hospitals, nursing homes, and churches, saying these exemptions cost the state millions of dollars in revenue and ought to be reworked.

At its meetings this week, the task force reportedly indicated it will examine possible changes to these and other sales tax exemptions.

Charities and churches contribute at least $378 billion to the U.S. economy each year — and possibly much more than that, according to some estimates.

Many charities operate on budgets that are so tight they likely would have to shut their doors if they were taxed at the same rate as for-profit corporations. Our state needs to think twice before increasing the tax burden churches and charities carry.

READ MORE

WA Legalizes Commercial Surrogacy

Life, ,

The State of Washington recently moved to legalize commercial surrogacy, allowing people to pay women to bear children for them.

Previously, surrogates could be reimbursed for their medical bills and related expenses, but they could not be hired or paid to be surrogate mothers.

John Stonestreet at the Colson Center for Christian Worldview writes,

Women can now rent out their wombs in Washington State.

Sponsors of the bill insisted that the goal of the legislation is to reduce the suffering of infertile couples. But its real-world result will be to further commodify human life and exploit desperate women.

American law on this subject is difficult to pin down. A few states, like Washington, explicitly permit surrogacy. Some just look the other way; and then others, like New York, explicitly prohibit it.

This ambiguity is not the case around the world.

A 2015 European Union Parliament resolution condemned paid surrogacy, because it “undermines the human dignity of the woman since her body and its reproductive functions are used as a commodity.” It called the practice exploitative, violence against women, and “a matter of urgency in human rights.”

And you know what? In this case, the EU is 100 percent correct.

Family Council opposes commercial surrogacy, in part, because we believe it amounts to buying and selling babies. That’s why we supported Rep. Greg Leding’s 2017 bill prohibiting commercial surrogacy in Arkansas; unfortunately the bill never came up for a vote before the legislature adjourned.

READ MORE