State pot vote all about politics
Legislature works to nullify local ordinance
When it comes to drug addiction and abuse in Tennessee, we all know that marijuana is not the problem. Only Indiana has more meth production labs.
Only Alabama prescribes more opioids per capita.
Only nine states have a higher rate of drug overdose deaths.
“Opioid abuse has a stranglehold on Tennessee,” USA Today NetworkTennessee reported in a special statewide investigation we published in Sunday’s editions.
So why is our state legislature working so hard to override minor marijuana decriminalization ordinances in Memphis and Nashville?
Last week, the state House voted to nullify those local laws. This week, the state Senate is expected to do the same.
This is not about pot. It’s about the blunt force of politics and power.
Nashville councilman Dave Rosenberg summed it up best, telling The Tennessean:
“The majority in the Tennessee House abandoned the principles of limited government and local control and ignored the will of the people of Nashville, instead yielding to the archaic Nixon-era hysteria of a small group of legislators who live outside of Nashville.”
ENEMIES FOREIGN AND DOMESTIC: Speaking of political hysteria, last week I chided the legislature for trying to force local police to detain undocumented immigrants.
One unhappy reader responded with this email: “I expect to see a column next week about the two illegal immigrants who raped a girl at Rockville (Md.) High School.”
The emailer was referring to the alleged rape of a 14-year-old girl earlier this month by two classmates who are undocumented immigrants.
He didn’t ask about the hundred of rapes reported in Memphis every year, the tens of thousands reported each year across the country, or the millions reported each year across the world.
Why would he expect this particular vile crime to be more newsworthy than all the others? The answer, of course, is politics. Maryland’s Montgomery County reported 250 sex-related “serious incidents” in its 200-plus schools last year, according to the district and The Washington Post.
None incited public outrage, or threats to burn the school or “shoot” the alleged perpetrators, or demands to oust the superintendent.
This one did because the alleged perpetrators were undocumented immigrants — America’s current bogeymen.
The Trump budget proposes to spend billions on securing our borders from these bogeymen.
At the same time, it suggests deep cuts in programs that provide shelter, counseling and legal aid for sexual assault victims within our borders.
Numerous government and academic studies have shown that undocumented immigrants in America are less likely to commit violent crimes than the rest of us.
In this case, the problem isn’t undocumented foreigners. The problem is domestic violence and rape.
DEARLY DEPARTED: The last time I spoke to the Rev. Coleman Crawford Jr. he was celebrating his 50th anniversary as pastor of Grace Missionary Baptist Church.
“I guess I’m going to let the Lord retire me,” he told me in 2013.
He did. Coleman, who had been the pastor of a church in North Memphis or North Mississippi since 1958, died March 17. He was 85.
You can retire from a job, not a calling. Ordained ministry was clearly Crawford’s calling.
The North Carolina native served two congregations simultaneously for more than 30 years. The other was Fredonia Baptist Church in Coldwater, Mississippi.
Among the many ministries he inspired was Coleman Crawford Estates, 50 units of affordable housing for the aged and disabled in Hernando.
The complex doesn’t just bear his name and witness.
“Everyone is a steward of God’s creation,” he told me in 2013. “God owns everything. We’re not owners; we’re just managers.”