What I Know About Arkansas Issue 6 So Far
Arkansas issue six is a far more conservative and restrictive measure proposing medicinal marijuana than Arkansas issue 7 was before it was removed from the ballot after voting had already commenced. If you ask anyone who has looked at issue six beyond face value, you will see that the initiative is shrouded with the mysterious glow of government and corporate corruption. Interestingly, it doesn’t take long, once you start looking for a money trail, to see how deep the rabbit hole goes.
As of October, top donors to issue six were made of two businesses; Bevans Family LP and Broadleaf PSG LLC. Who are these people? Why would two companies care about a medicinal marijuana initiative that they would dump almost a million dollars behind it?
I began with The Bevans Family, I was equally interested what exactly a limited partnership had to do with a family as I was about their involvement with issue 6. I went to the Arkansas Secretary of state website sos.arkansas.gov and found record of the Bevans Family LP. Interestingly, there were names of the Partnership’s officers. James Shipman, James Shipman Jr, and Kimberly Polk(missing from this page was the fact that she was a Shipman as well.
It only took one simple google search to find out who the Polks are. The Polk family owns Lake Liquor in Maumelle Arkansas.(http://lakeliquorar.com/). Lake Liquor is a full service Liquor store, offering everything from whisky and beer to tobacco products. It has been long suspected that marijuana legalization has liquor store owners in panic as their bottom line is threatened by an alternative substance to alcohol. Lake liquor is not your average liquor store, they occupy an enormous building as well as having a class B wholesale liquor licence for distribution to restaurants and other wholesale buyers. Originally started in 1966 Lake Liquor was started by Ray and Geneva Bevans; the Bevans family.
Ok, The Bevans Family LP was weird enough. Let us look into Broadleaf LLC. Broadleaf was quite a bit harder to dig up information on, but with the power of the internet, all things are possible.
Broadleaf LLC is an investment corporation financially backed by Texarkana executive Cheney Pruett. Cheney Pruett is the owner of several businesses and is chief executive at DMP investments, and CashMax of all places.
Attorney David Couch does not agree with patients who are too far away from a dispensary being allowed to grow their own. David Couch, who was the primary sponsor of the initiative, turned in an additional 35,000 signatures on August 19. Far after issue seven petitions were allowed to collect. A total of $588,166.35 was spent to collect the 84,859 valid signatures required to put this measure on the ballot. Why was this measure so important to Couch? Couch had is payday loan / investment partner to foot the bill, while issue seven signatures were collected by volunteers. Big money wins every time.
I will continue this journey at a later date, I will say that thanks to issue six, the Arkansas Supreme Court and a small law firm in Little Rock, thousands of early voters in Arkansas who voted yes on issue seven, have their votes essentially thrown away. The people of Arkansas are not in control. I will leave with this, David Couch knows nothing about Arkansas.
Not a red state? Really, tell me more about how stupid you are…
Next time… the attorneys, The Governor, and the Supreme court.
Read the conclusion here.
