Here’s an e-mail from the office of the president of the University of Central Arkansas,Tom Courtway:

On October 3, 2016 at 6:30 pm, Senator Jason Rapert will host Arkansas Surgeon General, Dr. Greg Bledsoe and Dr. Nate Smith, Director of the Arkansas Department of Health for a public forum on the proposed medical marijuana ballot initiatives.

The forum will be held in McCastlain ballroom. Dr. Bledsoe and Dr. Smith will make presentations and then open up the forum for questions from the audience.

Faculty, staff, students and the community are welcome to attend.

Does anybody else detect that something is missing from this “forum.” All three of the announced speakers are declared foes of medical marijuana proposals on the November ballot.

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I’m reminded of the high-minded response Courtway gave me when I began inquiring about the ideologically oriented Arkansas Center for Economic Research that is lodged on the UCA campus thanks to a private donor Courtway refuses to identify. It’s trotted out by politicians to support anti-tax and anti-regulation agendas.

I expect there are other faculty members in the College of Business who may agree with ACRE’s research and views, just as there are probably those who do not. But, that is what academic research and discussion is designed to do – explore new ideas and discuss them, and there will be some with which we agree and some with which we may disagree. 

Problem is, the economics outfit tends to discuss things from one point of view. Kind of like this “forum” on medical marijuana.

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