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Commentary

Will Maryland’s marijuana legalization leave Black people behind?

When Maryland voters overwhelmingly chose to legalize recreational marijuana last November, we hoped this might help put an end to the five-decades-long declaration of a war on drugs. Any breathing person now knows the so-called war targeted Black people and the poor. We’re keenly aware of this, having spent the bulk of our legal careers in and out of crowded courts, jails and swelling prisons. More black males could be found under some arm of the criminal justice system than could be found in any other institution, university or corporation in this state.

Visitation fire won’t stop important downtown project

Anyone who cares about the future of downtown Frederick had to heave a huge sigh of relief when reading the front page of Monday’s News-Post. Jim O’Hare — the developer of a planned residential building and boutique hotel on the site of the old Visitation Academy — quickly assured the community that the fire that damaged the historic building over the weekend would not affect his project.

 

Time for Maryland kids to get on the electric school bus

Every day, more than 650,000 children in Maryland ride to school on a school bus powered by diesel fuel. Approximately one in 10 of these children suffer from asthma — a leading cause of school absenteeism — and this asthma rate is higher among minority groups. Studies have shown that a child riding inside of a diesel school bus may be exposed to as much as 15 times the level of toxic diesel exhaust as someone riding in a car.

Black and silver solar panels
Maryland needs a better strategy on solar power

If Maryland is going to go big for solar energy — which it should — it’s going to have to figure out where to put the many thousands of acres of solar panel arrays needed to meet the state’s solar goals. The open spaces of the Eastern Shore or Southern or Western Maryland shouldn’t be the automatic fallback and the state shouldn’t have to give up vast acres of productive farming lands in the process, especially when so many other options like commercial rooftops, highway medians, parking lots and brownfields should be considered first (”U.S. renewable electricity surpassed coal in 2022,” March 28).

Read More: Baltimore Sun
Can a dysfunctional Congress rescue Social Security and Medicare from disaster?

For all of this week’s focus on Donald Trump’s legal travails — and the breathless commentary and speculation surrounding it from all quarters — there was significantly less ink spilled on what looms as a far more consequential development, at least in the long-term and for average Americans contemplating a secure retirement. The annual evaluation of the financial condition of Social Security and Medicare, released last Friday, outlined how both remain in deep financial trouble with the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance Trust Fund hurtling toward depletion in 2033, which is one year earlier than expected.

Read More: Baltimore Sun
Labor union calls for worker protections in final cannabis bill

Last week, while hundreds of workers gathered outside the Maryland State House, Maryland legislators quietly completed a legislative betrayal that abandons Maryland workers in favor of corporate CEOs. The Senate Finance Committee voted 5-3 against workers’ interests by eliminating labor peace agreements as a condition of licensure in the emerging cannabis industry in Maryland.

Maryland could pass two big tenant protections in this General Assembly session

The Maryland General Assembly will wrap up April 10, meaning that potential state laws have one week to get passed. But two bills with important tenant protections stand a strong chance of becoming law and would do a lot of good to make lives better for renters in Montgomery County and the rest of Maryland. HB691, the Tenant Safety Act, passed the House by a decisive margin and reforms the rent escrow process. Rent escrow is where tenants pay their rent into a court controlled fund, rather than to a landlord, to legally withhold rent due to failure to make appropriate repairs to a building.

Maryland State house with city in Annapolis
As Maryland’s legislative session nears an end, a few final words on the cannabis bills

Maryland is becoming un-investable. The Maryland Senate’s recent markup of the adult-use cannabis bill is yet another example (“Cannabis legalization plan passes Maryland Senate committee; amended bill heads toward final steps,” March 27). If enacted per the Senate amendments, the currently successful medical cannabis program will become economically unstable, halt both in and out-of-state investment, and hurt the diverse community of owners and operators in place today.

Read More: Baltimore Sun
County Council took right steps to help surviving spouses of disabled military veterans

Our country has a long tradition, dating at least back more than 150 years to the Civil War, of trying to take care of our veterans. Sometimes we do better, and sometimes we fall short, but generally, we try. The goal was first enunciated by the greatest articulator of the American ideal, President Abraham Lincoln, in his second inaugural address on March 4, 1865, with these memorable phrases: “With malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in to bind up the nation’s wounds, to care for him who shall have borne the battle and for his widow and his orphan — to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace among ourselves and with all nations.”

Montgomery County’s rising tide benefits all businesses

I read with keen interest the MoCo 360 article on Feb. 27 spotlighting the role of the Black dollar and Black-owned businesses in Montgomery County, highlighting the work of the Montgomery County Economic Development Corp. (MCEDC). Gov. Wes Moore (D) campaigned on initiatives related to increased minority business, then revealed in his first budget funding that will support the pillars to create a more competitive and equitable economy.

Read More: MOCO360

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