2/5/17

Martinez, NM Dems likely headed toward deal on cannabis, death penalty

Former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson lives in Taos. He has said he buys cannabis in Trinidad, Colorado.
Adults over 21 would be able to legally buy, possess and smoke marijuana under a bill that survived its first hearing Saturday in the state House of Representatives. The Consumer and Public Affairs Committee voted 3-1 to advance the bill without a recommendation. Sponsored by Rep. Bill McCamley, D-Mesilla Park, House Bill 89 moves ahead to the House Judiciary Committee. His proposal would tax and regulate recreational marijuana, as is done in eight other states, including neighboring Colorado. It would earmark 40 percent of taxes from cannabis sales for education and designate other proceeds to government programs. [Steve Terrell, Santa Fe New Mexican]
South Dakota has the most draconian cannabis laws in the US: the law enforcement industry can even force catheters into urethras and penises to test possession by ingestion.

Thanks to meth South Dakota's law enforcement industry enjoyed a 22 percent increase in drug arrests last year, the Republicans are out of cash to house inmates and civil forfeiture just isn't paying the bills.
Rep. Monica Youngblood has introduced House Bill 72 that would reinstate the death penalty in New Mexico. The historical trend is against the vengeance-seeking death penalty, but in the United States, the issue does emerge when we have an especially heinous crime like the sexual assault and murder of Victoria Martens. [op/ed, Santa Fe New Mexican]
In South Dakota capital punishment is a spectator sport costing taxpayers millions every year. Instead of spending a lifetime in Hell the state drags death row inmates through torture then finally liberates them by lethal injection.

The state is second in addiction to gambling and teachers' salaries are 51st in the nation. Wage slavery is the state's biggest claim to fame and South Dakota dairies are wreaking habitat havoc. Infrastructure is crumbling and the state's bureaucracy is overbearing and unwieldy. Ag groups want federally subsidized crop insurance and the right to pollute. Corruption and graft are commonplace.

Pollution from industrial agriculture has made waterways poisonous, the state has no modern statute addressing financial assurances for pipeline leaks. Trophy fishing for threatened species is a tourist activity. East River, South Dakota is a dead zone and likely a new repository for nuclear waste.

Racism is endemic and white immigrants have been accepted while displacing and disgracing American Indians. South Dakota wrongly puts thousands in nursing homes. Mass incarceration fuels the white foster home industry: a pet project of the governor's wife.

In South Dakota 302 children are confined per 100,000 kids; that's the highest number in the United States according to Pew.

Habitat destruction, lapses in ethics, crime spikes, increased incarceration rates, more people infected with sexually transmitted diseases, the failure of prisons, human trafficking: all mark the terms of Republican governors in South Dakota.

South Dakota is a sanctuary state for white collar crime while Santa Fe is a sanctuary for immigrants.

Prediction: Republican NM Gov. Martinez will sign a cannabis bill if Democrats support capital punishment for Victoria Martens' killers.

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