Month: October 2010

Maia Szalavitz asks whether Prop 19's passage would increase cannabis use:

One thing the [International Centre for Science in Drug Policy (ICSDP)] report makes clear is that current U.S. drug policy has no effect on marijuana prices or use. While spending on federal drug law enforcement has increased 1,200% and marijuana arrests have risen 150% since 1981, the rate of marijuana use nationwide has bounced around, with no relationship to these efforts. … 

One study did find that rates of marijuana use among Dutch youth increased when "coffee shops" — cafes where selling and smoking of marijuana are permitted — were proliferating and being widely marketed. But, overall, even those elevated rates of use were no higher than U.S. rates under marijuana prohibition. "It wasn't the decriminalization, it was commercialization that could have caused this," says Kilmer.

David Bell notes that"the theme of 'America’s decline' had in fact been a constant in American culture and politics since at least the late 1950s." Drum expands on that thought:

[W]hat's remarkable, really, is how little America has declined. We are perpetually astounded that our military might doesn't guarantee us instant victory anywhere we go and that other countries are routinely able to make trouble for us, but that says more about our national psyche than about our actual global influence or military power. If anything, our ability to project power may be greater today than it's ever been, and it's certainly greater relative to other countries than it was 50 years ago. Economically, our share of GDP fell surprisingly little in the postwar era, from 28% to about 22%, and has stayed very nearly flat since 1980. And political idiocy aside, our ability to lead the world in a rebound from a world historical financial crash has actually been pretty impressive.

Yglesias pines for relative American decline.

Fred Kaplan asks, in Dorothy Parker fashion: how will they tell?

Slate is asking. Kerry Howley opposes a narrow answer:

I have at times in my life been called "feminist," and not always kindly. There is a look people get, a tightening of the mouth and slight rise in the eyebrows—ah, yes, you people. It's the look of someone who thinks he knows precisely what he is dealing with. Why it would be in feminism's interest to prove him right, I have no idea.

Says Katie Roiphie:

I am wary of the kind of feminism that views itself as an exclusive club, that provides at the door a checklist of beliefs and requires of all members a mind-numbing blandness and sameness. I admit I write this as someone who herself would not be allowed into the club for the occasional rogue view, but I am suspicious of a movement that wants to dictate a checklist of ideology, that wants to project into the world a party line of acceptable beliefs. Instead, to be vibrant and strong and relevant, feminism should include people with disparate and conflicting views; it should have room for Mary Wollstonecraft, and Emma Goldman, and Camille Paglia, and Christina Hoff Sommers. It should have room for those who are, for instance, pro- and anti-choice. Once we start itemizing: She is allowed, she is not allowed—admittedly a schoolyard instinct women seem to love and don't ever really outgrow—we have to ask who gets to choose? Who will make that list, and where will it end?

Lots more here. Can someone who can't ever spell misogyny be one? Or someone with testicles? There's not a man on the list of contributors.

Beinart predicts another four years – on the lines of FDR and Reagan, who also inherited sucky economies but were able to turn them in the right direction (if not better than when they began) by re-election time:

Republicans won’t get very far by harping on the deficit. In 1984, you may remember, a presidential candidate told voters to ignore the nation’s nascent economic recovery and focus instead of the country’s swelling debt. His name was Walter Mondale.

A reader writes:

Andrew, have you looked at the draft rules for New Jersey's medical marijuana program? They put an onerous burden on a patient to get approved for a permit in the first place, and then slap them with a $200 permit fee.  If the person is too sick or infirmed to get to a dispensary (and since there are only planned to be four in the state, this could involve hours of travel), they can designate a caregiver to make their purchase for them — after they too have paid a $200 fee.  A good vaporizer (recommended delivery method) can easily costs another $200 or more.

This means that if a doctor believes his or her patient would benefit from medical cannabis, the patient has to commit to spending hours and hundreds of dollars just to try it out. 

The rules would arbitrarily limit the number of growers in the state to two, and they could grow no more than three strains each, reducing the opportunities for growers to offer specialized strains that target specific medical problems.  The product could only be sold as dried buds, lozenges, or as a topical ointment; cannabis would not be available in cakes, brownies, or other edible forms.  Must patients promise not to enjoy the product too?

Wondering how this is going to play for Chris Christie.  He evidently wants to show Arnold and the other GOP governors what a good law-and-order figure he is, but there's something in these rules to annoy or anger just about every constituency.  Clearly the libertarian element in the GOP should be disappointed by all of the meddling, bureaucratic, and anti-market elements in this program.

Valerie Jarrett will be the Human Rights Campaign's Guest Speaker at their super-fabulous gala dinner this weekend. She will doubtless explain why after two years with majorities in both Houses, 75 percent public support and a president who claims to be a "fierce advocate" for gay equality, gay servicemembers face an indefinite future of persecution by this commander-in-chief.