Is Governor Asa Hutchinson OK with medical marijuana? Sure sounds like he’s getting there.

In a meeting with reporters in his office Jan. 4, Hutchinson was asked to react to that day’s big announcement by U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions. Sessions had said the Department of Justice will take less of a hands-off approach to marijuana, which is still illegal nationally, than it did under President Obama. Local federal prosecutors will decide who gets charged.

Hutchinson said Arkansas will be watching to see what the Justice Department does next.

“There needs to be a difference of view between medical marijuana and recreational use of marijuana,” he said. He said Sessions “should” follow the lead of President Trump, who “has recognized medical marijuana as an appropriate exception to federal enforcement policy, but he has not said the same thing about recreational use. I do not want Arkansas to become a recreational use state. People passed medical marijuana. They did not adopt recreational use, and I do not believe they would.” Continue reading →

By Steve Brawner

© 2018 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

Christmas is over, so it’s too late to make a wish list. But now arrives the new year, a time of hope and renewal. So here are my hopes for some of Arkansas’ leading public figures.

– Gov. Asa Hutchinson and the Legislature. I hope the upcoming fiscal session, which starts in February, is brief and boring, as it’s generally supposed to be.

– U.S. Rep. Rick Crawford. I hope eastern Arkansas’ congressman sees success with his continuing efforts to open up Cuban markets to Arkansas products. Doing so also opens up that country to democratic and free market ideas.

– U.S. Rep. Bruce Westerman. I hope the Senate passes his Resilient Federal Forests Act. The California wildfires have demonstrated that current federal policies are not protecting our forests. Westerman, Congress’ only forester, has tried for several years to pass a fix. The House approved the bill Nov. 1. Continue reading →

By Steve Brawner

© 2017 by Steve Brawner Communications, Inc.

This is the part of the calendar when I list my “Arkansans of the Year.” As always, take it with a grain of salt.

Any list of mine will be heavy into politics and policy, which interest me and provide my living. It would be more accurate to call it “Arkansans of the Year (whom I know about, am interested in, and are what journalists consider ‘newsmakers’).”

Besides, who’s to say what’s important? Journalists mostly focus on the earthly and the temporal rather than the eternal, which runs on a different set of deadlines. What creates headlines this year can be a historical footnote after 20. Important moments happen every day in this state with now 3 million people, but they go unreported. The teachers imparting knowledge in the classroom, the soldiers and firefighters in harm’s way, the cops on the beat – those people matter, a lot. They just don’t make the news very often.

Finally, like Time magazine’s Person of the Year, this list recognizes impact, for good or not so good, rather than achievement or nobility. It’s a newspaper column, not an honor.

So let’s get to it. Continue reading →