The bootlickers' amendment: Idaho lawmakers want you to give up rights

This November, Idahoans will have the opportunity to vote on an amendment that is nothing more or less than willing forfeiture of their rights. It is an insult masquerading as an amendment. House Joint Resolution 4, passed in 2025, asks for Idaho citizens to forfeit in perpetuity all rights to vote directly on drug policy in the state. It would give the Republican-dominated Legislature the exclusive power to write such policy, disallowing all direct votes through initiative. It is an amendment for a people who are weak-willed and servile, an amendment for a people who want the government to make their decisions for them. This is not about whether you believe medical or recreational cannabis should be legalized or decriminalized — or even subject to higher criminal penalties. This is about whether you're the type of person who, when someone puts a boot on your neck, shoves them off or licks the boot. This is about whether you are a citizen who believes in self-government or a subject who dutifully takes orders from your betters. Because what this amendment proposes is not to keep marijuana illegal or to change the penalties associated with possession or distribution. It's about whether you ought to have the power to make those decisions, or whether that power ought to be invested solely in politicians. It is telling that those pushing the amendment will never make the case for the amendment itself. 'The reason that people push (legalization) — the marijuana lobby, whomever — is because there's money to be made,' sponsoring Sen. C. Scott Grow, R-Eagle, said in a recent interview with Local News 8 in Idaho Falls. That is both absolutely true and completely irrelevant. Cannabis has become a big business across the nation, and it lobbies just like any other. And just like big tobacco or any other business lobby, it has its own profits at heart, not the interests of the general public. This is a reasonable argument to consider if a legalization initiative ever winds up on your ballot. (An effort to place an initiative to legalize medical cannabis on the ballot this year did not collect enough qualified signatures.) But Grow doesn't want you to vote against an initiative, and he isn't making the case for a bill to enhance marijuana penalties. He wants you to vote for the bootlickers' amendment. He wants you to give up your right to vote on the matter at all and to take that right from all future generations of Idahoans. More precisely, he wants you to strip yourself of that right and hand it over to him. He wants you to make yourself a vassal. Lawmakers are not a better class of people. They do not have a better understanding of what is good for Idaho than everyday Idahoans do. They are not smarter or more qualified than you. They are just more partisan. And the language of the amendment has the potential to impact far more than just cannabis policy. It gives the Legislature exclusive domain over 'marijuana, narcotics, or other psychoactive substances.' All psychiatric medications are psychoactive substances. Caffeine is a psychoactive substance. Some people argue sugar is a psychoactive substance. You want to give up your right to have any say about whether you can take medicines your doctor prescribes or drink coffee, tea or soda? The language is so vague and open to interpretation that you'll have to wait to hear from the courts exactly what rights you've agreed to give up. The bootlickers' amendment contravenes the most important words in the Idaho Constitution: 'All political power is inherent in the people. Government is instituted for their equal protection and benefit, and they have the right to alter, reform or abolish the same whenever they may deem it necessary.' Might as well rephrase it: 'All political power is inherent in the politicians. Government may grant the people a little leeway, when it thinks they can be trusted with it.' Bryan Clark is an opinion writer with the Idaho Statesman.