My host this weekend sadly lost a whole lot of valuable stuff in the basement after the incredibly heavy rains in Chicago Friday night, including his wifi, so I’m just getting caught up.
The big news: V.A. Easing Rules for Users of Medical Marijuana
The Department of Veterans Affairs will formally allow patients treated at its hospitals and clinics to use medical marijuana in states where it is legal, a policy clarification that veterans have sought for several years.
For a federal agency to actually recognize medical marijuana, even in this limited way, is pretty amazing.
Cannabis Commerce. After discussing the recent RAND study on the uncertainties of a narrow range of the effects of legalizing cannabis in California, it is interesting to check out Cannabis Commerce in the U.S.A.. Author Lory Kohn, who describes himself as someone who “bypassed Economics 101 for obscure liberal arts courses like Love And The Secular Spirit,” got interested enough in the economics of cannabis legalization to interview economists at length and attempt to put together a layman’s guide to the economics.
I haven’t read it all, yet, but from what I’ve checked out, it certainly seems useful.
An update regarding the shooting of Trevon Cole in Las Vegas. It appears that there were some errors in the affidavit prepared by the officer who shot and killed Cole.
Las Vegas police say they thought Trevon Cole was a hard-core drug dealer with a long record of arrests in Texas and California when they broke down his apartment door and pointed a gun at his head last month.
They were wrong. […]
Investigators might have confused him with another Trevon Cole — one with a different middle name who is seven years older, at least three inches shorter and 100 pounds lighter, records show. That Trevon Cole has several marijuana-related arrests in Houston, all misdemeanors.
Shoddy police work? Probably. But would even some additional marijuana-related misdemeanors actually justify breaking down someone’s apartment door and pointing a gun at his head?
No. There’s no excuse for the action to begin with.
Remembering 1972. Kate Woods writes Proposition 19: We’ve Been Here Before, a really nice piece remembering the devastating vote on the first Proposition 19, almost 40 years ago, and some increased optimism about the current one.
The always excellent Dan Gardner explains the drug war for the idiots who failed to learn the lesson of “Colombianization”: We have been ‘winning’ the war on drugs for 90 years
A very odd “Pro vs. Con” by Larry Lechuga at the 420 Times: Pro vs. Con: To Legalize Or Not?. He gathers quotes from advocates and opponents of legalization on the following questions:
- Will legalizing marijuana lead to widespread and excessive use of the drug?
- Will legalizing marijuana lead to huge social costs in terms of hospital visits, traffic safety, etc.?
- Will the legalization of marijuana lead to increased crime rates?
- One of the leading arguments in favor of legalizing marijuana is that it would generate a significant amount of tax revenue for cash-strapped California. Is this a good source of income?
Really? Those are the only questions? Not one on prohibition?
The BBC is on the cutting edge of investigative journalism and has discovered something earth-shattering: Some people enjoy taking drugs. (I couldn’t get the video to load so I don’t know the content of the story, but the headline is priceless).
Mark Kleiman condescends to consider voting for Proposition 19, but only if he’s sure it’ll lose. Apparently there’s no length he won’t go to let his disdain for legalizers triumph over the facts.
Like it or not, in November California voters are either going to vindicate the dishonest strategy of Prop. 19′s backers – falsely promising to help resolve California’s fiscal crisis as bait for legalization – or ratify the nonsense still being preached on the other side. Since we’re currently spending loads of public money to peddle Skip Miller’s nonsense to tens of millions of schoolchildren with tax dollars, and since prohibition is currently the law of the land, I think I will give rebuking the drug warriors priority over rebuking the legalizers: assuming the polls still show the proposition losing. Having the damned thing actually pass is not a risk worth running.
Here is a new slant from ABC’s 20/20 on children and drugs: medical marijuana is successfully used to control symptoms of obsessive compulsive disorder and autism in children.
http://abcnews.go.com/2020/MindMoodNews/marijuana-alternative-treatment-children-ocd-autism/story?id=11227283
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Heres something you dont read everyday…humm..whats happening?
My Link
A bunch of good links here. I just don’t get Kleiman — it’s not about “drug warriors vs. legalizers” in a contest to see who is most annoying. It’s a pretty basic, straight-forward choice between maintaining a massively harmful prohibition or going in a different direction. And his petty “protest vote” rationale is weak, to say the least.
Your point about the 420times piece is spot-on. This is a choice between legalization and prohibition; “legalization” does not exist in a vacuum. No matter what side people choose, they should bear the burden of a logical defense of their choice. The debate is often framed in a way that allows drug warriors to simply point out logical “problems” with legalization instead of making any effort to defend prohibition.
What I can’t understand is why Mark is so hell-bent on allowing the cartels to stay in control of said drugs. It’s like he’s doing all he can to be the “PR Buddy” for them.
Mark doesn’t understand that sometimes you just have to try something different, without any attached guarantees as to it’s outcome. Aside from that, Mark’s position is to just sit (on his thumb, probably) and wait for Utopia to show itself.
As we said in Nam, you can sit and do nothing and die. Or, you can try something and only possibly die. My Battalion Commander used to say, “There’s always one more thing you can do.” That concept got us out of more engagements than it caused casualties on our side.
So, Mark, we’re moving. You can sit here if you wish. Whinning time is over.
Is it me or have any of you noticed that whether printed or video, news/story producers always seem to go for the pixs with cannabis “leaves” instead of the cherished “buds?” They still think it’s the leaves we’re after. Talk about being behind times with “up to the minute” reporting!
EZ – I have noticed that – I think it might be due to the taboo stigma associated with the pot leaf symbol, almost like a pirate flag. I think the double standard is glaring – picture the perception of the public of someone wearing a baseball cap with a beer brand vs. a that of a simple leaf. Ive got a beach towel that has a mug of beer and the word “Beer” on it, and there is no social stigma for my 10 year old to use it, but whoa, if that was a pot leaf, I would be “a bad parent”.
Yeah I’ve noticed the prominence of “leaf” images in video and pictures for pot stories as well. It’s a distinctive and almost iconic image at this point, and is what comes to mind when most non-smokers think of “marijuana”.
It’s really good to see that the VA is allowing our injured heroes the option of medical marijuana. There are MANY reports of injured vets and other Americans being able to reduce their use of narcotic pain killers and other dangerous drugs simply by using the natural remedy, marijuana. Thank you, VA, for a job well done!
California citizens can register to vote at
h t t p s : / / w w w .sos.ca.gov/nvrc/fedform/ Just fill out the form and mail it in!
Other states: Google your state name and the phrase “voter registration†to find out how to register in your state!
Recently I’ve seen a picture of a pot leaf with a bud positioned where the stem splits into leaflets and have been wondering where that came from. But I think it’s easy enough to see that a pot leaf is immediately and easily understandable that it will persist in being used by both prohibitionists and cannabis consumers alike.