The New York Times today talks about a problem with the growing availability of legal marijuana — inconsistency of the product. What’s needed is the research might and efficiencies of corporate agriculture.

In spite of marijuana’s significant popularity, there is still an element of roulette when it comes to smoking a legal joint or eating a legal brownie. Federal law does not require companies to test for and disclose levels of the drug’s active ingredients, like tetrahydrocannabinol. (Federal law does not hold that pot is legal, after all.) Many dispensaries and producers fail to test for potency, contaminants or mold. And different states have different disclosure laws with different levels of efficacy. As such, a gram of “AK-47” bought in an Oakland dispensary might affect you differently than a gram of the same purchased in Colorado. (As Cooper pointed out: “What is AK-47 supposed to be, anyway?”)

I read this and i see opportunity for the Land of Opportunity.

What say the University of Arkansas expand its ag school horizons from blackberries and catfish to Ozark Mountain sensimilla. What say the Arkansas Farm Bureau put its muscle into making Arkansas — a wizard with beans and rice, among others — the nation’s leading marijuana producer. A whopping excise tax might provide some tax relief elsewhere, for millionaires surely.

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Of course, it would help if marijuana was legal in some form in Arkansas. At last report, only one campaign was still standing to reach the ballot in the fall, a drive for medical marijuana. It comes with only a small exception for hardship grow-your-own, so a little legislative muscle will be necessary.

Grant Tennille, instead of searching Slavic regions with the governor for people to make more guns in Arkansas, should get the AEDC on the marijuana bandwagon. Make love, not war. Parks and Tourism could market some agrotourism angles, too. Talk about a farm-to-table dinner!

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On a more serious note:

Arkansans for Compassionate Care continues it’s marijuana petition campaign.

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