Background checks! a necessity in an era of complacency.

The recent spate of bumbling’s within the application process for a state marijuana license is appalling. It should give many of us that supported Governor Patrick pause. 

It seems to me, that it is only “elementary” to quote the famous sleuth that proper background checks should be secured up front on such applications.    

I mean Casino applicants had rigorous background checks in order to secure an opportunity to complete an application.  It would seem that Medical marijuana should rise to that level as well.  Well evidently not.

It appears that the issue now is whether the applicants should qualify for the license after having been designated for issuance. A somewhat dubious practice I would submit.

Now that horse is out of the barn, the state has found that applicants may have exaggerated in their application or even outright lied.      

Hey look, maybe it is my own proclivity, having served as the top cop in Massachusetts Welfare fraud for almost a decade, to advocate a front end review of any application for a state license.  It was a practice that fraud investigators used to keep applicants honest in my field.  Fairly practical if one thinks of the reasoning behind it.    

After all Medical marijuana was passed in 2012 by initiative, and it is the Commonwealth’s obligation to ensure the voters of these cities and towns are guaranteed a program that is above reproach and is singularly pristine in its implementation.  

A recent article Which comes first?  By Globe columnist, Shirley Leung, 26 February 2014, suggests differently.  Ms. Leung submits the background investigations are woefully compromised and questions what Health and Human Services Secretary John Polanowicz might be smoking.  It seems, the good Secretary doesn’t find anything amiss with vetting the applicants after the fact.

Has the Patrick administration miscalculated the public’s distaste for political nepotism, as in the case of the former congressman and district attorney Bill Delahunt’s assemblage, which received the go ahead on three licenses? 

All I know is that an issue as important as this doesn’t need the inference of possible manipulation within the process. 

Governor lets appoint a qualified investigative individual or individuals to administer the background investigation over the dispensation medical marijuana.  A drug that is still illegal in the United States. One that the arrested drug king, Joquin ‘El Chapo’ Guzman and his associates still profit by.  The residents of the Commonwealth deserve no less.