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Nanny-state legislators

In George Eliot’s masterpiece “Middlemarch,” a dying old man adds a codicil to his will that she, Eliot, calls “the dead hand.” Edward Casaubon’s will prohibits his wife Dorothea from remarrying Casaubon’s cousin Will Ladislaw, upon penalty of being made penniless and homeless.

In the words of Eliot scholar David Clifford, “It has a sinister ring to it. The notion that the dead can manipulate the living by means of the law is a distinctly chilling one.” Fast forward to 2021, where the Idaho Legislature is attempting to create a dead hand in our state constitution such that marijuana and its by-products can never be made legal, even long after these small-minded legislators are gone from the earth.

Never mind all the boasting about Idaho being freedom-loving, never mind the enormous lost tax revenue. Never mind that alternatives to medical marijuana are by all measures vastly more dangerous: opioids, alcohol, suicide. Never mind veterans living with chronic pain. And never mind the rest of us who work hard, try to be good neighbors, and simply want to be left alone.

Big Government nanny-state paternalism notwithstanding, has anyone checked for campaign contributions from liquor and pharmaceutical lobbies?

Chris Norden

Moscow



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