RETIRED educator Ambrose Bennett said he is grateful to the Saipan and Northern Islands Legislative Delegation’s Judiciary and Governmental Operations Committee even though it declined to confirm his nomination to the CNMI Cannabis Commission.
The committee cited section 107 (c)(3) of Public Law 20-66, which stated that “no person shall be appointed [to the commission] who has been convicted of a crime, excepting traffic offenses, in any jurisdiction of the United States, the Commonwealth or any foreign country carrying a maximum sentence of more than six months, or any crime or offense involving moral turpitude unless a full pardon has been granted.”
According to the committee, “It appears that Mr. Bennett was convicted in the State of Tennessee…of possession with the intent to sell a controlled substance, phencyclidine, Schedule III of the Tennessee Drug Control Act, and was sentenced to confinement for not less than five and one-half nor more than eight years.”
Bennett, whose nomination will expire on July 26, said in an email interview that he understands why the delegation’s panel “chose to take the safer path given the political protest that was mounted against me by political hacks seeking revenge for my op-ed attacks on the GOP or Republican Party.”
Independents and Democrats hold the leadership positions in the Senate, the House of Representatives and the Saipan delegation.
“I must first reiterate my thanks to the JGO for their consideration to appoint me and for not allowing the issue to get to the floor when they knew that my record would come into play making the nomination activity look like a circus,” Bennett said.
“I know it must have been hard especially for some of them who knew I was the person the CNMI and the cannabis industry needed the most,” he added.
He said the law does allow for a person with a record to be appointed after three years, which is why he and Gov. Arnold I. Palacios assumed that Bennett could be appointed to the cannabis commission.
“There is a conflict with the cannabis law because by 1 CMC 2901 law I can be appointed to any position in government,” Bennett said.
He said, “It also needs to be known that the cannabis industry was really my vision and plan.”
The bill that became the cannabis legalization law was introduced by then-Rep. Joseph P. Deleon Guerrero and was signed by then-Gov. Ralph DLG Torres in September 2018.
Bennett said he had to “beg” one of the bill’s proponents, former Sen. Sixto Igisomar, to legalize the recreational use of cannabis and not just its medical use.
“Once they saw the community was in support of legalization, Torres and Igisomar wanted all the credit and they did all they could to keep me shut out,” Bennett said. “At the core of the problem with the cannabis industry is they are trying to carry out an altered vision and plan of Ambrose M. Bennett without my input or help,” he added.
He said, “Whenever an economist, engineer or architect designs something they keep them involved in the actual implementation or construction. But the complete opposite of this wisdom and even protocol happened with our cannabis industry, thus we have a dysfunctional industry costing hundreds of thousands a year [or] more to run than it’s bringing in — this is what the CNMI got from Torres and Igisomar’s discriminating and poli-tricking.”
Variety was unable to get a comment from the two former officials.
