My wife recently brought home one of those cans of cannabis-infused seltzer. A friend had given it to her, and she was amazed it was available over the counter at a convenience store.
So was I. That’s why I wasn’t all that surprised when Gov. Mike Parson tried last month to issue emergency regulations to stop their sale. The governor, a Republican, was less concerned with the seltzer, and more with cannabis-infused candy products that have packaging that mimics popular candies. Like me, the governor has children and grandchildren. He was concerned for their safety.
“We have seen a 600% increase in the number of children 5 and under experiencing cannabis poisoning that resulted in ER visits or hospitalizations since 2018,†Parson said in a post on the social media site X. “As a parent and grandparent, this is unacceptable, and we will be taking enforcement action.â€
People are also reading…
It sounded like a reasonable move, though the governor found his plan blocked by Secretary of State Jay Ashcroft, a fellow Republican who has a role in the state’s rule-making process. Parson called Ashcroft’s action “r±ð³Ù°ù¾±²ú³Ü³Ù¾±´Ç²Ô†because the governor supported Lt. Gov. Mike Kehoe in the recent Republican primary to replace him. Ashcroft finished third in the race.
Maybe that’s what it was. Far be it from me to know either man’s motivation.
But what struck me was Parson’s willingness to stick his neck out to protect children, and to take unilateral action to do so. These days, anytime President Joe Biden issues an executive order on anything, he gets sued by Republican attorneys general, including Missouri’s Andrew Bailey, who was appointed to his job by Parson. Current orthodoxy in the Republican Party tends to be opposed to government regulation of nearly any kind. So, it was during the COVID pandemic, when Parson and his fellow Republicans actually worked to weaken the state’s ability to protect the health and welfare of its citizens, including children.
Protecting children tends to be one of those areas where Democrats and Republicans, at least in the recent past, could sometimes find common ground. In Missouri and elsewhere, lawmakers of both parties have worked together, for instance, to pass traffic laws that protect children by requiring seat belts and cracking down on drunk driving. In 2016, Parson, then a state senator, voted for an anti-cyberbullying bill that became law. The bill passed unanimously in the Republican-controlled Senate and was signed by Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat.
But Parson’s concern about kids having access to cannabis products that are deceptively marketed got me thinking about a more serious harm to children.
“Now do guns,†I wrote back to the governor on social media last week.
Now do guns.
— Tony Messenger (@tonymess)
Since 2020, the leading cause of death among children, including in Missouri, has been gun violence. Consuming cannabis products is nowhere near the top of the list. It used to be traffic accidents were the leading cause of death among children, but lawmakers, caring about protecting children, passed laws to make the roads safer.
In Missouri, at least, those same lawmakers, at least the Republicans, will do nothing about gun violence, Parson included. More than 1,300 people a year die from gun violence in Missouri, the 8th highest such rate in the country, according to the nonprofit . On average, more than 131 of those deaths are of children. So far this year, 15 children in the ºüÀêÊÓƵ metropolitan area have died because of gun violence. The latest was a 4-year-old girl killed Monday night in an accidental shooting.
Make no mistake, deaths among children due to gun violence is a significantly worse public health crisis than pot-infused candy. It’s not even close. So where is Parson’s executive order? Where’s the Legislature? Where’s the action to protect children?
Instead of doing something, anything, to protect children from gun violence, Parson and his fellow Republicans spend their time passing things like the deceitfully named Second Amendment Preservation Act, which sought to nullify all federal gun laws in Missouri and put members of law enforcement at risk of massive civil fines if they participated in their enforcement, such as through the federal and state drug task forces that work to keep children safe in the state.
Luckily for us, the Eighth Circuit Court of Appeals recently upheld a federal judge’s ruling that tossed the law as the unconstitutional and dangerous waste of time that it was. The action by the court should reinforce recent U.S. Supreme Court rulings in gun cases. In a case out of Texas, the court ruled earlier this summer that prohibitions against gun ownership by people convicted of domestic violence are constitutional. And in July, the court allowed to stand.
Yes, the very conservative Supreme Court, with its 6-3 Republican majority, said twice this year that lawmakers can protect citizens by limiting gun violence without violating the Second Amendment. This is a pretty big deal.
And it raises a question I’d love to see Parson answer: Why is it “unacceptable†for children to be injured by one legal product but acceptable for them to die in droves at the hands of another?