Good Discussion Of Marijuana On CNBC

(Via Radley Balko.)

It's great to see this issue being treated seriously in the mainstream media.

So, all of you prohibitionists, are the experts who advocate for legalization in this CNBC segment just a bunch of pot heads trying to justify their vice?

Obama Is A Paradigmatic Political Hack

The president clearly knows better than this:



All that the marijuana question's popularity says about the people who voted for it is that they actually know how to think clearly and independently about drug policy. This is in contrast to Obama who, though he has to be aware that the prohibition of marijuana is even sillier than the prohibition of alcohol, is still willing to parrot the conventional wisdom to maintain the support of the ignorant. And that's not change I can believe in.

So welcome to my long list of political hacks, Mr. President. You're just the latest addition to a long and ignoble list.

Obama, Medical Marijuana, And Liberaltarianism

From Reason:

Today Attorney General Eric Holder gave the clearest indication so far that the Justice Department plans to respect state laws that permit the medical use of marijuana:

The policy is to go after those people who violate both federal and state law....Given the limited resources that we have, our focus will be on people, organizations that are growing, cultivating substantial amounts of marijuana and doing so in a way that's inconsistent with federal and state law.

As medical marijuana activists noted, that still leaves unresolved the issue of what will happen to pending cases against people who provide cannabis to patients in states such as California. Thomas O'Brien, the U.S. attorney in Los Angeles, has gone back and forth on that question. Charlie Lynch, who ran a medical marijuana dispensary in San Luis Obispo, is scheduled to be sentenced on Monday and could spend decades in federal prison.

It's telling that there's been no significant backlash against Obama's move to respect states' rights with respect to medical marijuana. I think this is evidence of the workability of a liberaltarian alliance. When the interests of liberals and libertarians overlap, it can be difficult for conservatives to offer an effective response.

But what's happening in this case could just be a result of there not being any good argument to be offered against allowing states to decide their own medical marijuana policy.

Update:

Just when I thought it looked like no major politicians were silly enough to speak out against Obama's change in DEA policy, the Republican senator from my own state steps up to the plate--from the Associated Press (via Slog):

Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley says the Obama administration's change in policy toward medical marijuana is a bad idea.

...

Grassley says the new policy outlined by Attorney General Eric Holder Wednesday is counterproductive because marijuana leads to use of harder drugs.

Oh, Chuck, just when you were wooing me back with your suggestion that AIG executives ought to consider seppuku, you have to go and say something completely ridiculous. Well, that's the GOP way, I guess.

Glenn Beck Is (Still) A Fucking Idiot

(Via Reason.)

Legalize, regulate, tax. It really is just that simple.

Here's a great video debunking Beck's unfounded "marijuana tears up your lungs" claim. It was put out by the Marijuana Policy Project, which is the organization that Beck's gracious interlocutor started:



Check out more clips like this one at the Marijuana Policy Project's YouTube channel.

Support For Marijuana Legalization Is Growing

Polling analyst extraordinaire Nate Silver writes (via DoseNation):

We all know that Michael Phelps was on something. But perhaps he was also onto something. Three recent polls show that Americans are more sympathetic to the idea of legalizing marijuana than ever before.

The first poll, conducted last week by Rasmussen Reports, has 40 percent of Americans in support of legalizing the drug and 46 percent opposed. The second, conducted in January by CBS News, has 41 percent in favor of legalization and 52 percent against. And a third poll, conducted by Zogby on behalf of the marijuana-rights advocacy group NORML, has 44 percent of Americans in support of legalized pot and 52 percent opposed.



Continue reading.

Update:

Matthew Yglesias offers some entertaining comparisons:

Inspired by this Chris Bowers post, here’s a chart I made comparing public support for legalizing marijuana to the approval ratings for Rush Limbaugh and various Republican Party leaders that I found on PollingReport:

The Final Word On The Phelps Fiasco

...(at least on this blog) goes to Radley Balko, who's provided wonderfully, bitingly sarcastic commentary throughout the news cycle this event dominated:

Michael Phelps Apologizes ... to China

His message to Chinese youngsters: “Do the right thing.”

Which I guess means submit to the state’s authority, even when the law you’ve broken is an immoral one, and the means the state has used to enforce it are wholly disproportionate to the alleged crime.

So let’s stop with the rabble rousing. No more questioning the legitimacy of bad laws. No more questioning the state’s power, or it’s willingness to flex its authority when it gets embarrassed by its citizenry. No more staring down tanks, whether they belong to Deng Xiaoping ... or Sheriff Leon Lott.

And, in case you don't feel sufficiently motivated to click Balko's links, here's the picture of Deng's tanks:



And here's Lott's:



That's right, the good Sheriff Lott actually procured an armored personnel carrier for his department--and that was even before his jurisdiction was overrun with such nefarious characters as pot-smoking swimmers. Balko actually wrote about this madness months ago:

The Richland County, South Carolina Sheriff's Department (that's them above) just obtained an armored personnel carrier, complete with a belt-fed, .50-cal turreted machine gun. Sheriff Leon Lott has charmingly named the vehicle "The Peacemaker," and insists that using a caliber of ammunition that even the U.S. military is reluctant to use against human targets (it's generally reserved for use against armored vehicles) will "save lives."

...

Like most of these military toys obtained by local police departments, the Peacemaker will inevitably be used on drug and gambling raids—that is, to enforce laws against consensual activities. Or, as we're now seeing in Minnesota, perhaps on raids against leftist political activists.

Oh, authoritarianism. The human propensity to violently dominate others would be hilarious if it weren't so tragic. And terrifying. Because when it comes down to it, we are just an overgrown tribe of super-empowered chimps.

What Michael Phelps Actually Should Have Said

"I have two things to say at the press conference I've called today. First, to the general public, whether I smoked marijuana at a party is none of your business. Second, to the governmental authorities, I assert my Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination and thus have nothing to say to any of you about the photograph in question. Have a nice day, everyone. I'll see you all in 2012."

Push Back Against Marijuana Prohibitionism Continues

One of Andrew Sullivan's readers writes:

I am a twenty-six year old law school graduate who is currently pursuing a masters in political science. I smoke up to three times a week, depending on my schedule. Am I an unproductive member of society? Should I be apprehended to face criminal charges because I enjoy sitting on my couch, lighting a joint, and watching The Wire? According to the puritanical laws governing marijuana, and the false rhetoric espoused by those cognitively inflexible enough to see marijuana as somehow worse than tobacco, I am a criminal. I believe the laws currently in place reflect the views of a society inordinately afraid of the truth.

But what do I know? I smoke weed.

And here's Sullivan himself on the ongoing absurd theater surrounding Phelps' marijuana use:

America's drug war insanity deepens. What I love about the harrumphing is its total incoherence. The argument, so far as I can tell, is: a) marijuana destroys people, renders them incapable of productive and worthwhile lives; b) yes, the new president and the greatest Olympic swimmer of all time have smoked pot; c) but that means we have to punish them all the more!

Because they disprove the lies required to sustain the Prohibition. The more the myths of the anti-cannabis brigade are exposed, the more they have to be enforced. For my original pro-Phelps splutter, see here.

But perhaps the best response to this brouhaha thus far comes from Radley Balko who has authored a brilliant post titled "What Michael Phelps Should Have Said."

My take on what we can learn about the mainstream media from their reaction to the Phelps photograph can be found here.

Update:

Slog is appropriately blunt regarding the possible criminal charges against Phelps:

What a bunch of fucking jerks. I hope they totally embarrass themselves with a lack of evidence.

Update II:

At the UI Advocates for Liberty blog, Jeff Yager also comments on the prospect of Phelps facing prosecution for the bong rip heard round the world:

Wow. I really hope they charge him and let this complete insanity of marijuana prohibition be brought into the limelight. Nobody cared half this much when the guy got a DUI a few years ago. You know, something that actually might have put others in danger? But take a hit on a bong at a college party? CRUCIFY HIM!!!! Yeah, that's logical.

Update III:

Balko discusses the prosecutor's discretion in the Phelps case.

Mainstream Reporting On Drug War's Collateral Damage

The Washington Post reports on something Radley Balko has been writing about for quite some time:

It was past 7 p.m., but late sun still streamed through the large kitchen window as Georgia stood at the stove stirring her simmering tomato-artichoke sauce. Georgia turned, catching a glimpse of something out the window that sent a jolt of fear through her. Hooded, armed men, dressed in black, were fanning across the back yard. Still more men, crouching low, moved around the side of the house. Georgia's mind raced to make sense of the strange tableau. Was someone playing an elaborate practical joke?

One of the men spotted Georgia gaping out the window. He lifted his high-powered assault rifle and pointed it directly at her, she recalled. Georgia -- still clutching her wooden spoon -- threw both hands up in the air and screamed. "Cheye, I think it's SWAT!"

Cheye was sitting on the edge of his bed in his boxers. He was just about to put on his black dress socks, when he heard Georgia scream something that made absolutely no sense. He looked out a bedroom window to see armed, masked men running. He was still wondering if they were home invaders when he heard his front door shatter.

In the kitchen, Georgia spun to face the sound of the splintering door. Men in black burst through the front door and into the living room.

Read the whole thing.

Stop the madness. End the drug war. Now.

And just in case anyone thinks this is an isolated incident, I strongly recommend following Radley Balko's site, the Agitator, on which he exposes that the drug war, like all wars, is hell.

Update:

Another reason police need to be more careful about how they use SWAT teams--the Associated Press reports:

Doug Bates and his wife, Stacey, were in bed around 10 p.m., their 2-year-old daughters asleep in a nearby room. Suddenly they were shaken awake by the wail of police sirens and the rumble of a helicopter above their suburban Southern California home. A criminal must be on the loose, they thought.

Doug Bates got up to lock the doors and grabbed a knife. A beam from a flashlight hit him. He peeked into the backyard. A swarm of police, assault rifles drawn, ordered him out of the house. Bates emerged, frightened and with the knife in his hand, as his wife frantically dialed 911. They were handcuffed and ordered to the ground while officers stormed the house.

The scene of mayhem and carnage the officers expected was nowhere to be found. Neither the Bateses nor the officers knew that they were pawns in a dangerous game being played 1,200 miles away by a teenager bent on terrifying a random family of strangers.

They were victims of a new kind of telephone fraud that exploits a weakness in the way the 911 system handles calls from Internet-based phone services. The attacks — called "swatting" because armed police SWAT teams usually respond — are virtually unstoppable, and an Associated Press investigation found that budget-strapped 911 centers are essentially defenseless without an overhaul of their computer systems.

Continue reading.

Update II:

Yet more reasons that the drug war is a horrific disaster: John Robb continues to write about how it facilitates the funding of guerrilla groups that are chipping away at the nation-state system, DoseNation notes that these groups are increasingly infiltrating the United States, and Slog reports on unemployed people for whom getting involved in the illegal drug business is the best economic opportunity.

Legalize, regulate, tax. Three simple words. A very straightforward solution.

Phelps Scandal Exposes Government Shills

The Times reports:

Drug claim could spell disaster for Michael Phelps

The world was spellbound for a magical seven days at the Beijing Games as Michael Phelps became the greatest Olympian in history, but today his career could lie in ruins after being pictured allegedly taking drugs.

America woke up to discover that their Olympic hero, whose face smiles from packets of cornflakes on millions of breakfast tables this morning, stands accused of smoking cannabis. Athletes caught using the drug, a banned substance under rules set out by the World Anti-Doping Agency, could face a ban of up to two years.

Who the hell cares?

If anything, smoking pot probably decreases his lung capacity and thus makes him a slower swimmer. So why is this relevant to his competitive sport of choice?

People (often rightly) take note of and (often wrongly) make make a big deal out of counter-cultural bias inherent in alternative media. But stories like this one show that the allegedly neutral mainstream media has a bizarre drive to toe the prohibitionist government line. And worse than that, these deranged anti-marijuana mainstream sources go as far as to present nonsensical moral objections to drug use in the abstract as fact--giving the impression that everyone thinks or ought to think that marijuana use is a bad thing. It's no wonder so many people believe this propaganda when so much of the mainstream media is so happy to shill for it.

This is why I'm optimistic about the death of so many mainstream news outlets. Nothing clears dead wood better than fire. And only when the mass of inanimate clutter is removed can anything new grow in its place.

Update:


Reason.tv at Slamdance: Drug War, Colombia-Style:



It's scandalous that the mainstream media care more about chiding famous athletes for smoking pot than reporting on the horrific violence that the drug war inflicts on innocent Colombians.

Update II:

Slog parses the wording of Phelps' apology:

"I engaged in behaviour which was regrettable and demonstrated bad judgment," Phelps said in a statement to the Associated Press. "I'm 23 years old and despite the successes I've had in the pool, I acted in a youthful and inappropriate way, not in a manner people have come to expect from me. "For this, I am sorry. I promise my fans and the public it will not happen again."

But what does "it" refer to? Smoking pot? Allowing himself to be photographed while smoking pot? Allowing himself to be photographed while smoking pot out of a skank-ass bong? Allowing himself to be forced by finances into making an apology for something he's going to keep doing on a regular basis? Well played, Mr. Phelps.

Marijuana Inc.

(Via DoseNation.)

Hey, speaking of a "green stimulus" and "green jobs," why not try legalizing, regulating, and taxing marijuana? If our society were more rational, there wouldn't even be a debate about this. It's really just common sense--but, tragically, as the saying goes, common sense isn't all that common.

Smokie Treats Of Another Kind

The Boston Globe reports:

Massachusetts officially decriminalized possession of small amounts of marijuana yesterday, but many police departments across the state were essentially ignoring the voter-passed law, saying they would not even bother to ticket people they see smoking marijuana.

"We're just basically not enforcing it right now," said Mark R. Laverdure, chief of police in Clinton, a Central Massachusetts town of about 8,000 residents, who said the law was so poorly written that it cannot be enforced. "You'll probably have a lot of officers that, unless there's a caller complaining about it, won't even bother with it. They probably handled a lot of it informally before and probably more so now."

Andrew J. Sluckis Jr., chief of police in Auburn, said his 39 officers would not be issuing $100 citations for possession of an ounce or less of marijuana, as required under the ballot initiative known as Question 2.

"If the Legislature enacts some changes, we'll be happy to do it in the future, but as it stands now we're not going to be issuing civil citations," he said. If an officer spots someone smoking marijuana, he said, "We will confiscate it and the person will be sent on their way."

I'm completely at a loss as to why this is a problem. In fact, I have an idea for making things easier for the poor, confused police: Don't even bother confiscating the marijuana. Just leave people the hell alone and go do something useful like trying to track down murders and rapists. Sheesh.

Marijuana Gets Safer; Peyote Already OK

Wired reports:

Modern agriculture hasn't just made beef cows beefier and corn cornier, it's also made pot more potty.

The potency of marijuana, measured by the presence of its (psycho)active ingredient, THC, has tripled since 1987, according to the latest figures from the Department of Justice's National Drug Intelligence Center.

Anyone who finds this news to be alarming clearly doesn't know much about marijuana users. People are likely to simply smoke a smaller quantity of plant matter if its THC content is higher. This makes marijuana less of a public health concern by decreasing the damage the average smoker causes to his or her lungs.

In other drug-related news, Medpage Today reports (via DoseNation):

There seem to be no mental or behavioral problems associated with long-term use of the hallucinogenic substance peyote (mescaline), at least among Native Americans.

That's the conclusion of researchers at the McLean Hospital here and Harvard Medical School, who found that among the Navajo who take peyote legally as part of their religion, long-term drug users did just as well as non-users on standard neuropsychological tests. On some measures, they did even better.

The study, led by John H. Halpern, M.D., of the McLean Hospital, was partly funded by the National Institute for Drug Abuse. It was published in the November issue of Biological Psychiatry.

So now we'll no doubt see a serious reevaluation of federal anti-peyote policy, right? Oh wait, that would assume that the drug war has any foundation in science or reason. And anyone willing to make that assumption must already be under the influence of some pretty strong drugs.

The Blunt Truth

(Via DoseNation.)

Clearly, Only Unemployed Losers Smoke Pot

(Via Radley Balko.)

So when will our government give up its idiotic propaganda campaign? Probably not any time soon, but that would be change I could believe in.

Reefer Madness

Reason's Jacob Sullum reports on the utterly insane number of marijuana arrests going on in the US:

According to FBI figures released today, about 873,000 people were arrested on marijuana charges in the United States last year, 5 percent more than in 2006 and a new record. This is the fifth year in a row that marijuana arrests, which are up 167 percent since 1990, have increased. In 2007 marijuana arrests accounted for nearly half of the 1.8 million drug arrests; as usual, the vast majority of the pot busts, about 775,000, were for simple possession.

Over the weekend in Iowa City the police busted three people for marijuana possession. Just imagine what those dangerous pot-heads might have done if they hadn't been apprehended, just imagine!

Frankly, I wish tailgating involved far less drinking and a lot more marijuana smoking. I guarantee it would be a safer, quieter, and generally more pleasant experience for everyone in the community. Bill Hicks made the case as no one else can (the whole video is great, but the most relevant part starts at 5:10):



In a more rational world the UI would be running a "Drink Less Alcohol, Smoke More Pot" campaign aimed at tailgating students.