Skip to main content

Up in Smoke

By



For those who thought William Bennett had retired to the Cayman Islands, he's back and as surly as ever, castigating Americans for their renewed fascination with pot.  The former drug czar has come out with a book, co-authored by Robert A. White, telling us of all the overlooked dangers of cannabis.  Going to Pot is not likely to become a bestseller, but I'm sure it will be referenced by Baba O'Reilly and others on Fox News, who have likewise spoken out strongly against the legalization of marijuana.  This review by Jacob Sullum is all you will probably want to read of the book, as it sounds loaded with the kind of specious data one has come to expect from right wing conservatives.

The funny thing is that William and Robert find themselves outside the Libertarian strain of their own political party, which also calls for the legalization of pot.  Ron Paul crossed party lines back in 2011, co-authorizing a bill with Barney Frank that would have allowed states to introduce their own legislation regarding marijuana.  Turns out states didn't need a new amendment to the Constitution to do so, which of course is what infuriates Bennett the most.

It is hard to really understand this crusade of Bennett, other than he felt he was being missed and needed to reassert himself on a familiar topic.  As Drug Czar under George H.W. Bush, he was a big advocate of zero tolerance when it came to any kind of drug. This meant you could have your car or boat or house confiscated if caught with even the smallest amount of an illegal substance. Fortunately, this policy was eventually declared unconstitutional.    However, he left a horrible legacy that is still being felt today with the huge number of incarcerations for drug-related crimes, most of which are for simple possession.

Even if states can't bring themselves to legalize pot, many have decriminalized pot, and recently Bill DeBlasio decided to curb arrests of small-scale marijuana possession in New York City, much to the chagrin of the police commissioner, who vowed to continue making arrests, if for no other reason than spite.  That seems the only reason for Bill Bennett to write a book like this as well, as research continually points toward the decriminalization of marijuana, with the new Surgeon General admitting marijuana "can be helpful," although he still cautioned against its use.

There are much greater things to worry about, like our ever-eroding individual rights in many states, than there is about pot, but sadly Bill still doesn't get it.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Dylan in America

By
Whoever it was in 1969 who named the very first Bob Dylan bootleg album “Great White Wonder” may have had a mischievous streak. There are any number of ways you can interpret the title — most boringly, the cover was blank, like the Beatles’ “White Album” — but I like to see a sly allusion to “Moby-Dick.” In the seven years since the release of his first commercial record, Dylan had become the white whale of 20th-century popular song, a wild, unconquerable and often baffling force of musical nature who drove fans and critics Ahab-mad in their efforts to spear him, lash him to the hull and render him merely comprehensible. --- Bruce Handy, NYTimes ____________________________________________ I figured we can start fresh with Bob Dylan.  Couldn't resist this photo of him striking a Woody Guthrie pose.  Looks like only yesterday.  Here is a link to the comments building up to this reading group.
182 comments
Read more

The Triangle Shirtwaist Factory Fire

By
  Welcome to this month's reading group selection.  David Von Drehle mentions The Melting Pot , a play by Israel Zangwill, that premiered on Broadway in 1908.  At that time theater was accessible to a broad section of the public, not the exclusive domain it has become over the decades.  Zangwill carried a hopeful message that America was a place where old hatreds and prejudices were pointless, and that in this new country immigrants would find a more open society.  I suppose the reference was more an ironic one for Von Drehle, as he notes the racial and ethnic hatreds were on display everywhere, and at best Zangwill's play helped persons forget for a moment how deep these divides ran.  Nevertheless, "the melting pot" made its way into the American lexicon, even if New York could best be describing as a boiling cauldron in the early twentieth century. Triangle: The Fire That Changed America takes a broad view of events that led up the notorious fire, noting the gro
228 comments
Read more

Team of Rivals Reading Group

By
''Team of Rivals" is also an America ''coming-of-age" saga. Lincoln, Seward, Chase et al. are sketched as being part of a ''restless generation," born when Founding Fathers occupied the White House and the Louisiana Purchase netted nearly 530 million new acres to be explored. The Western Expansion motto of this burgeoning generation, in fact, was cleverly captured in two lines of Stephen Vincent Benet's verse: ''The stream uncrossed, the promise still untried / The metal sleeping in the mountainside." None of the protagonists in ''Team of Rivals" hailed from the Deep South or Great Plains. _______________________________ From a review by Douglas Brinkley, 2005
293 comments
Read more