Mark Kleiman

The impulse of Republican politicians such as Jeb Bush to try rescue the party from the barbarians now running it is understandable. I might even find it laudable if the goals of the quasi-civilized Republicans were less thoroughly plutocratic. And Bush is surely right to stress that the GOP’s catastrophic 2012 performance among Asian-Americans is […]

Yes, having pot sold by money-hungry corporate marketers might be better than having it sold by money-hungry illegal entrepreneurs: more reliable product, less violence, fewer people behind bars, some tax revenue. Or it might be worse, depending on how successful the marketers turned out to be at manufacturing more of the out-of-control users who generate […]

Even a blind monkey, it is said, finds a banana every once in a while. I was reminded of that bit of wisdom some time ago when Left Blogistan was enjoying itself celebrating the nasty marginalia Ayn Rand wrote in her copy of C.S. Lewis’s Abolition of Man. The joke, of course, is that both […]

It was inevitable that the legalization of cannabis would attract a certain number of insensate greedheads to the industry. And I suppose it was also inevitable that some of them would be terminally stupid and self-destructive. That’s one explanation of today’s announcement by former Microsoft employee Jamen Shively that he plans to create a national […]

At a briefing yesterday on cannabis policy, I made my usual argument that (in rough numbers) 80% of the users of almost any drug use it moderately, take no harm from it, and do no harm to others, but that the other 20%, who use more than is good for them, account for 80% of […]

Today was the first of a series of five weekly interviews on cannabis policy with Brian Lehrer of WNYC (New York public radio). We discussed the demographics of heavy smoking and other topics. Audio at the jump. Lehrer did a better job than I did, but on the other hand it was 10:40 in New […]

Frank Gaffney says it. David Horowitz agrees. Michelle Malkin chimes in. Right. So you already know it’s a lie. But what if there’s some truth hidden there? No, of course Grover Norquist wasn’t trying to convert the country to Islam or infiltrate terrorists into the government. All he’s interested in is getting rich by helping […]

Imagine – just hypothetically – that a state decided to open a legal (at the state level) commercial market in cannabis, with some of the users intending to use the substance to treat some medical condition and others using it for other purposes. Such a market would have an advantage over purely illicit markets that […]