Tuesday, March 7, 2023
Volume 120, Issue 18
VISTA The
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Tuesday, Feb. 22, 2022
“OUR WORDS, YOUR VOICE.”
Volume 119, Issue 19
Oklahoma votes on recreational cannabis Stakes are high on state question as reform reaches the ballot March 7 Georgia Jones Contributing Writer
Oklahomans are voting on SQ 820, the referendum to determine if recreational cannabis will be legalized. If passed, Oklahoma would join 22 other states in legalizing recreational use for persons 21 or older. The Oklahoma Tax Commission would collect a 15% excise tax on recreational use sales, and could bring massive funding for the state. Additionally, up to 30% of the revenue would go directly to public school programs to address substance abuse and improve student retention. The opposition group, Protect our Kids: No SQ 820, claims that the bill will increase marijuana usage in children. “Being villainized for trying to help people is never a good feeling,” said Jamie, a local dispensary owner. “People act like we drive around, passing out drugs to children, when we’re helping adults and seniors with body pain, severe anxiety, depression, insomnia, migraines, all kinds of pain. Some of my more common patients are veterans with extreme trauma from active duty. The relief people get
Marijuana plants are pictured at a growing facility in Oklahoma City, Feb. 26, 2020. (ASSOCIATED PRESS/SUE OGROCKI)
is what makes the job worth it. We pay our employees well and provide full benefits. It’s just like any other medical position – with a stigma.” When SQ 788 made medical cannabis legal in 2018, it won with 57% of the vote. This year, backers
of the campaign hope that younger voters will finally turn out. In Oklahoma’s midterm elections in November 2022, 76% of voters 30 and younger did not vote, a large enough margin to push SQ 820 towards enactment.
Considering younger voters are a key demographic that would benefit the most from the bill passing, proponents are hoping the recreational, medical and economic benefits will be enough to bring them to the polls. “Beyond what it would do for my personal business, passing the bill would help the state immensely,” Jamie added. “They’ve done the research in other states, from as far as New York to just next door in New Mexico – taxing medicinal marijuana could bring huge funding to Oklahoma. Not only could people access relief without struggle, but we could have better schools, better parks. It would simply benefit Oklahomans. Fear-mongering people out of relief for their pain is selfish, in my opinion. If you don’t like marijuana, don’t use it. It’s pretty simple.” SQ 820 is the first state question to be presented to voters outside a primary or general election since September 2005. It was intended to be on the midterm ballot from November, but Gov. Kevin Stitt chose March 7 after the state Supreme Court said there ‘wasn’t enough time’ to process the initiative petition.
Death of OKC bombing responder prompts new investigation
Terry Yeakey’s death following his heroism in the aftermath of the Oklahoma Ciity Bombing is the subject of a new investigation by CNN. (OKLAHOMA CITY POLICE DEPARTMENT/PROVIDED)
Quinn Daugherty Reporter
A CNN investigation into the death of an Oklahoma City bombing first responder has breathed new life into theories surrounding the largest act of domestic terror committed in the United States. Terry Yeakey was an Oklahoma Police Officer and military veteran who rescued three people from the Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995. A year later, Yeakey was to receive the medal of valor for his actions, but a day before the ceremony, he was found dead. “He apparently tried to cut his wrists and ultimately shot himself in a nearby field in El Reno, about 40 miles west of Oklahoma City, Capt. Bill Citty said. Yeakey had been having some personal problems involving a past marriage, but the bombing also
weighed heavily on him, Citty said. Yeakey carried four or five people to safety after the blast,” a 1996 report from the L.A. Times describes circumstances of Yeakey’s death. A recent investigation from CNN writer Thomas Lake reveals those closest to Yeakey believe he was murdered. According to the investigation, some of his former colleagues in the police force, his sister, and his ex-wife, Tonia, all suggest he was murdered, some even insisting he was murdered for “knowing too much” about the true nature of the Oklahoma City bombing. “On the day of the bombing, Tonia said she got a phone call. It was someone at Presbyterian Hospital, telling her Terry was there,” Lake wrote in the CNN piece. “His back was injured when he fell while carrying Randy Ledger, and now Terry needed some-
one to pick him up. Tonia picked him up from the hospital. In the car, she says, he started to cry. “Tonia, it’s not what they’re saying it is,” he told her. “They’re not telling the truth. They’re lying about what’s going on down there.” Conspiracy theories surrounding the 1995 bombing were largely quelled after an 18-month investigation in 1998, during which a state grand jury heard 117 witnesses, finally determining that “absolutely no one else was involved in the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building”. Despite the grand jury’s ruling, reports of a mysterious “John Doe No. 2” in the van with McVeigh, or of federal employees having prior knowledge of the attack, cast a shadow over the 1998 grand jury’s determination. A year after the bombings, Yeakey was dead. According to CNN’s investigation, no autopsy was performed on Yeakey. “If the prevailing narrative is correct, Yeakey cut his own wrists, arms and neck with razor blades, bled heavily in his car, and then
walked or ran about half a mile into either a field or a grove of trees, where he shot himself to death. There was no suicide note,” Lake summarizes the medical examiner’s report and police narrative. Tonia Yeakey recalled her ex-husband suggesting the pair re-marry “in the event that something happens to him”, according to the CNN investigation. After Yeakey’s death Tonia said things would go missing in her home, including a VCR, and when Yeakey’s family went to his apartment after his death, his sister Lashon told CNN, “You could tell…somebody had been in there, like, looking for something.” Despite his death occurring in El Reno, OKCPD handled the investigation, a rare but not unheard-of subversion of jurisdiction. Yeakey’s death is still officially labeled a suicide and there exists no concrete evidence that he was murdered, but the CNN investigation raises a series of undeniable questions—inquiries that, until now, were dismissed as frivolous conspiracies.
“On the day of the bombing, Tonia said she got a phone call. It was someone at Presbyterian Hospital, telling her Terry was there.” -- Thomas Lake, CNN
In this May 5, 1995 file photo, a large group of search and rescue crew attends a memorial service in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. The blast killed 168 people _ including 19 children _ injured hundreds more and caused hundreds of millions of dollars in damage to structures and vehicles in the downtown area. (ASSOCIATED PRESS/BILL WAUGH)