mrclay.rg

Cannabis criminalization helps law enforcement (perform unconstitutional searches)

Opponents of cannabis decriminalization often state we should keep it criminalized in order to help law enforcement catch bad guys, and indeed it serves as an important tool for justifying searches on individuals and premises. After all, these searches may turn up more harmful criminal activities or individuals with warrants. LEO’s will often admit that in

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Bad Analogies Lead to Bad Policies

I was forwarded an e-mail that made a terrible analogy (my emphasis): Here’s another way to look at the Debt Ceiling: … You come home from work and find …  your home has sewage all the way up to your ceilings. Sewage would make a home immediately uninhabitable and actively damage the value of the

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For the 4-20 folks

Another year it still deserves saying… It’s long been clear the risks and harms of cannabis use are mild, and with that knowledge it should sicken us that people are regularly pulled into our criminal justice system because of cannabis use, sales, production, or political speech (see the example made of Marc Emery). Shame on

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Obama’s ONDCP still can’t be trusted

The Office of National Drug Control Policy under Bush, led by John Walters, was notorious for flat-out lies and evidence bending, especially regarding cannabis (it was a holy culture war for Ashcroft as well), but under Obama the office has mostly put focus on prescription drug abuse and “drugged driving”. With 2012 bringing a host

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Where the murder of a thousand children is a sign of success

Only in the drug war. “It may seem contradictory, but the unfortunate level of violence is a sign of success in the fight against drugs,” — DEA head Michele Leonhart From 2009: “There will be more violence, more blood, and, yes, things will get worse before they get better. That’s the nature of the battle,” — U.S.

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Honduras Might Try Charter Cities

From the Charter Cities blog: The government in Honduras is convinced that a charter city could be the safe playing field, with new rules, where Hondurans of all backgrounds can come together and put their skills to work with the financial resources, expertise, and technology available in the rest of the world. I first read

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Kristof on Haiti & Trade

I can’t agree more. Ultimately what Haiti most needs isn’t so much aid, but trade. Aid accounts for half of Haiti’s economy, and remittances for another quarter — and that’s a path to nowhere. The United States has approved trade preferences that have already created 6,000 jobs in the garment sector in Haiti, and several

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Bring Back TSA Classic

At this point very few would expect that you should be able to carry metal items undetected onto a plane, so I don’t have too big a problem with metal detectors at airports. However, society has a general expectation that the image of one’s naked body is private, so we should certainly consider the new

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“Buy American”

When economies are struggling, protectionism seems well-intentioned: By “buying American” we can go back that golden fantasy age when everything was American-made and everyone had a decent-paying job and could afford the latest luxuries. I have some examples that I hope can convince you that freer trade benefits everyone. It’s not completely intuitive; we commonly

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Reasons to Extend Unemployment Benefits

From the left, Ezra Klein: the Bush tax cuts certainly majorly increased the deficit [CBO], and it’s unfair for the GOP to demand that the unemployment extension be deficit-neutral. Further, if tax cuts don’t need to be paid for because they generate so much taxable economic activity that they pay for themselves, then neither do

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