As the summer kicks off, Keister 2016 is planning to schedule some Q&A sessions through social media, get their fundraising underway, and determine which states they will be focusing on next in gaining candidate access.
As you can imagine, we were pretty excited when we were first notified about Tom appearing in the article, and even more so when we saw the finished product. Tom also found the comparison of Twitter accounts between himself and Lincoln Chaffee amusing, as he had worked a political polling project involving Chaffee's senate reelection bid through a previous job
As the summer kicks off, Keister 2016 is planning to schedule some Q&A sessions through social media, get their fundraising underway, and determine which states they will be focusing on next in gaining candidate access.
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It has been twenty-four days since we launched the USMjParty-Indiana, and so far, so good, I would like to think. So far, I am using the 90 day probationary period to establish our online presence a bit more, through growing the Facebook group and page and by increasing the visibility of this page. Also been taking the time to meet the other state chairpersons and members across Facebook. My plan for the month of October is to continue building our online presence, focusing primarily on Indiana, and begin developing a schedule to contact the state legislature. While my momentum has been hampered a bit lately by a recent wrist injury requiring surgery, the recovery stage has been going well, and I expect to be back near 100% by the beginning of next year, when the Legislative session starts in Indianapolis. Thomas Keister is the co-founder and Reporting Chapter Administrator of the United States Marijuana Party of Indiana.
You know, I kinda figured the first asinine local bust I would have covered via this forum would have at least involved some pot. No such luck, but local authorities here in southern Indiana, acting on a tip, have made a big stride in combating illegally harvested or obtained ginseng. Ginseng. I hear you, and I agree. Goddamnit so much
According to local media and reported by Police State USA, 25 were arrested as the state government intensified their efforts to completely keep a thumb on yet another plant. Yet another harmless plant. Besides the energy drink nonsense in the convenience stores or supplements in your grandma's favorite aisle at the pharmacy, ginseng is actually a big business item in the black market, able to fetch between $500-$1,000 a pound. The plant is highly popular for its medicinal properties, which include stress relief, immunity support, and blood sugar control. The black market popularity and profit margin has inevitably led to people stealing or illegally harvesting the plant, which inevitably led to Indiana going batshit crazy in its regulation. I could swear we are talking about marijuana here, but trust me, this is a story about a ginseng bust. Indiana does not, apparently, fuck around when it comes to ginseng regulation, regulating how and when it can be grown, when it can be harvested, its sale, the conditions under which it can be sold, and the licensing under which an individual can sell it, and even when it is permissible to even possess ginseng. Indiana Code 14-31-3, which covers ginseng regulation and enforcement, has maximum penalties between 180 days to 1 year for violations of the law, which are Class A or B misdemeanors. As big an uphill battle as legalization is in Indiana, it puts a lot into perspective when you realize just how much government wants to regulate, and how badly they want to make you think you need the regulation. More interesting to me is the idea that the Dept. of Natural Resources was the lead on this, reinforcing a point that I have made for years, about how it should be DNR personnel looking for pot plants in forests, rather than gassing up a helicopter and taking to the air. Just because they are getting the military's hand-me-downs (or worse yet, flat buying eight Apache attack helicopters like Brevard County, Florida recently did), they really shouldn't be spending this much time dreaming up excuses to play soldier. Coming into the writing of this piece, I was completely unaware that there was even such a thing as a ginseng black market, nor that Indiana regulated ginseng in much the same fashion that New York City legislates lemonade stands. Neither of these items, upon learning them, surprised me much. When our federal legislature was first laid out, it was for the purpose of meeting to take care of the nation's business, which was not going to be so much as to require a lot of extra time on the clock unless the shit was hitting the butter churn. People had businesses to run. Naturally, over time it became the kind of process where it became a four or five month full-time job, if that. Seriously. Indiana has a legislature that meets 61 days over a three month span in odd-numbered years, and 30 days over ten weeks during even-numbered years. Somehow, through that grueling schedule, they find time to maintain their other careers making far more than the $22k and change they make for all that high-stakes political poker. You know, the kind involving fucking ginseng. Don't even get me started on making $22k for a month or two a year of policy work. -T.K. |
AMP BlogNews, analysis, opinion, & info relating to marijuana policy, decriminalization, and legalization on a primarily statewide level in Indiana, although national points of interest will be covered. Archives
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