From the Watchdog perspective, the issue of medical marijuana is not our concern. Our concern is the flagrant disregard for the Will of the People.

In November 2016, the voters of North Dakota shocked every professional political analyst of North Dakota, including myself, by passing Measure #5 to allow medical marijuana in the state - and doing so by a margin of 63.7% to 36.3% - almost a 2 to 1 margin.

And they did it by spending $0.

Measure #5 is the definition of a grassroots victory.

There was no fancy or misleading advertising.

No famous actors to pull at the heart strings of the public.

Just a pure "by the people, of the people" effort and victory.

Everyone who voted on Measure #5 knew they were enabling medical marijuana. That was their intent. That was the will of the people.

Now, a joint effort (no pun intended) of Republican and Democratic Leadership via Senate Bill 2344 seeks to re-write the language and intent that the voting public supported overwhelmingly.

From the Watchdog perspective, the issue of medical marijuana is not our concern. Our concern is the flagrant disregard for the Will of the People.

The people of North Dakota fully understood the downsides to this policy, and voted for it anyways.

The role of the legislature should be to fine-tune and tweak the law as passed by the people to make it easier to implement, and less vulnerable to attacks by the Federal Government.

Not re-write it.

Again, our concern is not the policy of medical marijuana - but how the legislature treats the issue after the public demands changes to the law on any issue.

To tell the Senate Human Services Committee to PROTECT THE WILL OF THE PEOPLE on Senate Bill 2344 copy and paste the following emails into your email program and send them a personalized message directly:

jlee@nd.gov, olarsen@nd.gov, hcanderson@nd.gov, dclemens@nd.gov, jheckaman@nd.gov, ckreun@nd.gov, mpiepkorn@nd.gov