Highlighting free market fuzziness for GOP when marijuana involved
This Florida newspaper commentary by John Romano, headlined “Doesn’t medical marijuana deserve a free market too?,” effectively shines a light on the notable fact that the affinity of some Republican leaders for less government regulation and more marketplace freedom often wanes when the commodity at issue is marijuana. Here is a portion of the commentary:
Around here, free market is the answer. And it doesn’t even require an actual question.
Education gap? Let the business community fix it. Health insurance? Keep the government out of it. Minimum wage? Leave it up to the job creators. Yes, free market competition will always be the solution in Tallahassee.
Except when it comes to medical marijuana. Apparently, that’s an industry in serious need of a government-sponsored cartel.
When first venturing into the marijuana business a couple of years ago, the state handpicked a small group of well-connected nurseries in a highly suspect procurement process. Now that a constitutional amendment has marijuana on the precipice of becoming a billion-dollar industry, the state is considering a plan to reward that same group of nurseries with a huge head start in the marketplace. And that contradicts everything our state leaders normally preach.
Think I’m exaggerating? State Sen. Rob Bradley, R-Fleming Island, recently introduced legislation to repeal the state’s “certificate of need” programs for hospitals. The program allows the state to regulate where hospitals open, ostensibly to make sure private facilities do not cater to an affluent population and ignore the poor. Bradley calls it a “cumbersome process” used to “block expansion” and “restrict competition.” He says eliminating the program will create jobs and drive down prices.
And yet Bradley is also the sponsor of a bill that restricts the number of nurseries allowed to produce medical marijuana, which critics say will create price gouging and limit available product. In effect, it would create the same problems Bradley says hamper the hospital industry….
Personally, I’m waiting for House Speaker Richard Corcoran to get involved. This is a man who does not believe in compromising his principles. He’s so committed to free market ideals in education that he called teachers “evil” for pushing back against the privatization of public schools. He once said he would go to war to fight Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion.
Not long ago, Corcoran laid out his political principles in a forceful speech: “No economic system has done more to benefit mankind than the free enterprise system … but when judges or legislatures or local governments continually rewrite the rules or attempt to pick winners and losers, that is when markets fail. We need to reverse the damage that has been done, untangle the red tape and tear down all these barriers to entry.”
Glad to hear it, Mr. Speaker. Looking forward to you joining the fight.