Author: Andrew Sullivan

Vanity Fair And Hitch’s Tumor

If one wondered whether Conde Nast and Graydon Carter had any limits to what they might turn into "buzz", wonder no longer:

We thought you’d be interested in reading Christopher Hitchens’s latest column, “Tumortown,” which appears in the new issue of Vanity Fair. Hitchens writes about the extraordinary amount of advice he’s received since being diagnosed with cancer—everything from macrobiotic diets to recommendations that he open his chakras. One correspondent from a leading university even suggests cryogenic freezing and when Hitchens fails to respond sends a follow-up suggesting that he freeze “at least” his brain “so that its cortex could be appreciated by posterity.”

The column, of course, is pure Hitch. I.e. wonderful.

The Cannabis Closet: A Child Psychiatrist’s Fears

A reader writes:

I think pot should be legalized. I am for Prop 19. I just think that the push to make this happen draws people into minimizing the risks associated with smoking marijuana – particularly for adolescents.

The downside to Prop 19 is that it is going to create and increase some public health problems, particularly among teenagers and among the broader mentally ill population. I get that the measure would keep weed illegal for those under 21 and impose heavy penalties on anyone who facilitated kids getting weed. But let's not kid ourselves; more kids will have more access to weed, and this is a problem for which we need to prepare. You will forgive me, I hope, for being a bit skeptical about seeing a concomitant increase in funding for substance use treatment programs or mental health in general.

As someone who is finishing my training as a child and adolescent psychiatrist and as someone who used to smoke a fair bit in college and medical school, I really do see both sides of this.

On the one hand, I have kids tell me that MJ can truly salve their anxiety and even, occasionally, treat their ADHD. Some of them can even use it appropriately for this or just straight social purposes. It sure as hell helped me relax and connect with people in ways that were otherwise hard to do when I was a teenager.

But then weed didn't cure my anxiety. Therapy did (yes, I get that this doesn't work for everyone). Still, I have yet to see a kid show up stoned saying, "Let's do some therapy and figure this shit out." In my work I see kids whose depression or anxiety keeps getting worse as they smoke more and more. I see kids who have had their first psychotic break while smoking marijuana and are never quite the same afterwards. Onset of psychosis or other major mental illness left aside, I most often see kids who are determined to use weed (and alchohol, and a bunch of other stuff) to avoid whatever rage or sadness or both that they are sitting on.

I've attached a few papers. You can no doubt find contrary studies with a Google Scholar search. The weight of the evidence though, is that cannabis use – particularly frequent use at vulnerable periods like adolescence (which, neuro-developmentally speaking, often runs well past 21) – is pretty consistently associated with worse outcomes over time. It isn't necessarily the cause, and the rates aren't dramatic, but they are real. When we increase weed's availability then we increase the frequency of these outcomes, and that means that there is a social and a human cost. As I said above, I agree that in the end these specific costs are worth what we save in other areas. I do think it behooves us, however, to think about how to tend to these issues.

Democracy Comes To Washington

The Onion reports:

Citing a desire to gain influence in Washington, the American people confirmed Friday that they have hired high-powered D.C. lobbyist Jack Weldon of the firm Patton Boggs to help advance their agenda in Congress. Known among Beltway insiders for his ability to sway public policy on behalf of massive corporations such as Johnson & Johnson, Monsanto, and AT&T, Weldon, 53, is expected to use his vast network of political connections to give his new client a voice in the legislative process.

Weldon is reportedly charging the American people $795 an hour.

Cheap at the price

The Ugly Jobs Report

Felix Salmon swallows hard:

The U.S. does not have the luxury of waiting indefinitely for job growth to resume. Already we’re at the absolute limit: any longer, and most of the unemployed will be long-term unemployed and, to a first approximation, unemployable. This country simply can’t afford an unemployable underclass of the long-term unemployed — not morally, not economically, and not fiscally, either.

Watching The Senate

Nate Silver gives his latest:

Republican odds of taking over the Senate on Nov. 2 have now improved to 24 percent — up from 22 percent last week and 15 percent three weeks ago, according to the FiveThirtyEight forecast model.

I was arguing last night with someone about Harry Reid. Sharron Angle is a nutcase, obviously. But if I were a Nevadan and had the vote (nearly there), I really don't think I could vote for Harry Reid.

He is everything I hate about Democrats: incapable of making an argument, a face so weak it changes depending on the way the wind is blowing, a voice so sad you think he's a funeral director, a man whose appareance on television has never evinced any reaction from me but "where's the remote?" I just couldn't pull the lever for the guy. Sorry. So I won't be surprised if the nutjob wins. And a tiny part of me will feel a pulse of intense pleasure to see him go down.

A Mid-Life Crisis Lapse

So yesterday, after a week of traveling, blogging and thinking rather intensely about the laws of war, and before I had to write a column on Iraq, I decided to take a break and go to, well I won't name the establishment, but it's a place which caters to the grooming needs of men. I needed a haircut (we baldies do need to mantain order and Aaron isn't around with the buzzer) and a beard trim. But I also saw that they had on their list of possible treatments what they called a "grey-blending."

Now I was quite proud of myself for having finally gotten over the "I'm turning into Santa – where's the Just For Men? phase" of the mid-ok-late 40s bear, but "grey-blending" sounded, well, pretty mellow and not drastic and, like a sober alcoholic, I thought a little snifter couldn't do any harm. And, after all, these people are pros. They're not going to put the JFM on, get a phone-call, forget and turn around and realize they've just turned me into Moqtada al-Sadr.

So I lay back and had this lady put on the "grey-blender". I said, "It's 40 percent grey, could you make it 20 percent grey?" I'd rather look like Santa than Billy Mays (may God rest his soul). I thought the white goopy stuff she was brushing on might be a little de trop, but figured she knew what she was doing. I also thought a twenty-minute wait, with the seat lying down with the shit on was a little long, but figured she knew what she was doing. And then, when she finally finished washing out the stuff (you can't just rinse out the beard while pivoted with your head below your feet for fear of being waterboarded), the seat rose up and I looked in the mirror. The face looking back to me looked like a less subtle version of this:

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My 20 percent grey-blend looked like I was some guy playing a bit part in Fiddler on the Roof in high-school with a paint-brush stuck on my face. I actually have more beardage than Bluto at this point, so it was a bit of a shock. I asked them what I could do. The only answer, apparently, was to bleach it down. So then I had a bunch of basically clorox on my face for five minutes; washed it out; then another five minutes, until the pitch boot-black no-gray, nothing-but-pitch-black had become a little less intense. They didn't charge me. And insisted that the color they had used was "dark blond".

And this morning, I woke up and have what can only be called a ginger mop attached to my face. I think this is basically what happens when you try and resist the aging process one iota. Just don't. I've learned my lesson. Never. Again. Especially by a professional. So if on TV next week, I look like some bald cross between Zach Galifianikis and a leprechaun, have a good laugh.

You warned me. I wavered. And next time, remember that "Grey-blending" is the enhanced rejuvenation technique known previously as boot-blacking.

(Correction: in my first draft, I wrote Willie Mays, not Billy Mays, a brain fart. Willie Mays is alive and well, I still know nothing about sports, and I'm terribly sorry for the premature obit. And in my second draft I got it wrong again. That beard dye must be like vagisil.)