U.S. Rep. Dean Phillips (DFL-Edina) seems to be relishing the national attention that comes with his months of hemming and hawing about a long-shot potential challenge of Joe Biden for the Democratic presidential nomination. To be clear, Phillips is far from the best Democrat in the nation to serve as an alternative to Joe Biden. In fact, Phillips is not even close to being the best presidential candidate in little old Minnesota.
Phillips is fine. The former CEO of Phillips Distributing, his step-father’s inherited business, is thoughtful and decent, if also sometimes dull and self-righteous, as centrist politicicans tend to be. His bipartisan instincts have made him a good fit to represent the purple-ish 3rd congressional district, which is anchored by Minnesota’s most affluent western suburbs.
However, it’s time for Phillips to come out of the TV studios and return to representing his district. As Rep. Annie Kuster (D-NH) said in today’s Star Tribune:
There’s no path. There’s no outcry. Personally, I think it’s a vanity project by Mr. Phillips, and I think it could do serious damage by emboldening the Trump Republicans.”
To be clear, the most talented politician in Minnesota isn’t Phillips. It’s DFL Senator Amy Klobuchar, and it’s not even close. Reports about Klobuchar’s erratic behind-the-scenes behavior are concerning when it comes to the world’s most pressure-packed job. Still, no Minnesota politician is better than Klobuchar at doing what presidential candidates must do well – sell progressive ideas and positions in both wholesale and retail settings to a wide variety of audiences. Whether on big or small stages, Klobuchar consistently comes across as warm, sincere, tough, bright, thoughtful, prepared, nimble, and persuasive. As such, Minnesota’s senior senator would be a much more compelling presidential candidate than Phillips.
While Klobuchar is Minnesota’s most skilled politician, DFL Governor Tim Walz ranks second. At the same time, Walz has more marketable policy accomplishments than Kloubachar or any other Minnesota pol.
In a purple state with a slim one-vote DFL advantage in the state Senate, Walz can boast on national stages that he signed many state laws that national Democrats want to see on a national level, such as legislation creating a family and medical leave system, securing abortion rights, legalizing marijuana, expanding child care access, creating new gun violence protections, making voting more accessible, providing free school lunches for all, investing much more in public education, building a public option for health insurance, and requiring disclosure for dark money donors.
All the while, the Minnesota economy has outpaced a relatively strong national economy, with a lower rate of inflation and unemployment than the nation as a whole.
Walz’s long list of significant policy accomplishments would be popular among the national Democrats he would need to win over in a primary challenge against Biden. Importantly, it also would be popular among the swing voters a Democratic nominee will need to win over in a 2024 presidential general election. Politically speaking, Walz is well poised to make a “we will do for America what we did for Minnesota” pitch to Democrats clutching their pearls about Biden’s electoral viability.
State Capitol insiders are quick to point out that Walz’s myriad policy wins had more to do with House Speaker Melissa Hortman, Senate Majority Leader Kari Dziedzic, and a number of very capable DFLers chairing key committees. But that kind of inside baseball would largely be ignored by national pundits and reporters if Walz ran for President. Walz vocally supported those progressive changes and signed them into law. Therefore, it would be fair for him to tout them in early Democratic primary states.
But Klobuchar and Walz aren’t going to be in those states, not as candidates anyway. They have enough political sense to understand that they’re never going to defeat an accomplished, albeit ancient, incumbent, and that trying to do so at this late hour would irreparably ruin their reputation with the leaders and activists they need in order to be effective.
Phillips, for all his strengths, appears incapable of understanding that part.
This is an awkward time for Minnesota’s brand-new marijuana legalization law. Currently, it’s legal to use marijuana, grow marijuana plants at home, and keep up to two pounds of it. At the same time, it’s illegal to buy or sell it.
However, it is still legal to buy and sell hemp-derived products, which, by the way, have the same intoxicating impact on a user as marijuana-derived products.
It all makes perfect sense, right?
Actually, it does. Or at least it will. Minnesota is wisely taking time to get its regulatory framework built before it starts letting stores sell cannabis, but the new framework will eventually make good sense.
Mostly.
Most components of the law are logical. Beyond the fact that I worry state politicians may have taxed marijuana products at too high of a rate to allow legal products to put the black market out of business, Minnesota Public Radio recently revealed a particularly wacky provision in the weed law:
A pending update limits use of both hemp-derived THC products and marijuana to adults age 21 and older, but it says establishments can’t serve someone both alcohol and THC products during the same visit.
Under the new law, if the bar knows that a customer has had a marijuana-based beverage within five hours, they’re not allowed to sell them an alcoholic drink, and vice versa. To manage this legal mandate, some bars say they will have THC drink customers wear wristbands or get ink stamps.
To be clear, Minnesota’s bars can still sell you multiple shots of alcohol in a row. Or they can sell multiple THC drinks in a row. That kind of dangerous selling is legal.
However, bars can’t legally sell you one beer and one THC seltzer in a single sitting or they run afoul of the law.
This makes no sense. Total speculation here, but I can imagine this provision being inserted to win over the vote of a holdout state legislator who had an uninformed hunch that mixing alcohol and THC might be super-duper intoxicating as if the two drinks were the intoxicant equivalent of coke and Mentos.
Obviously, the THC impact on bar customers will be somewhat different than the alcohol impact. After all, the impacts of different kinds of alcoholic drinks — beer, wine, straight shots, and mixed drinks — vary a bit in their intoxicating impact too. Therefore, mixing THC and alcoholic drinks will create a somewhat new sensation for people to learn to manage.
But the impact of mixing drinks that are derived from different plants – grapes, hops, potatoes, grains, juniper, cannabis, sugar cane, agave — isn’t different enough to warrant strict segregation of usage. It puts a regulatory burden on bars and the state that delivers little to no public benefit. This ill-conceived provision should be eliminated the next time the Minnesota Legislature adjusts this law.
Governor Tim Walz and Minnesota DFL state legislators are getting glowing national attention for passing an array of progressive changes in recent months. NBC News recently reported:
Nearly four months into the legislative session, Democrats in the state have already tackled protecting abortion rights, legalizing recreational marijuana and restricting gun access — and they have signaled their plans to take on issues like expanding paid family leave and providing legal refuge to trans youths whose access to gender-affirming and other medical care has been restricted elsewhere.
“When you’re looking at what’s possible with a trifecta, look at Minnesota,” said Daniel Squadron, the executive director of The States Project, a left-leaning group that works to build Democratic majorities in state legislatures.
In fact, the Legislature passed more bills in its first 11 weeks of the current session than in the same time frame of every session since 2010, according to an analysis by The States Project.
To me, the lesson is clear: When voters in gridlocked purple states elect Democrats, Democrats deliver on changes that are popular with a majority of voters. However, Republicans who have blocked these same politics for decades see it differently. They’re crying “overreach.” And crying. And crying. And crying.
What’s “overreach?” Republicans claim “overreach” every time something passes the Legislature that they and their ultra-conservative primary election base oppose. A more reasonable definition is passing something that a majority of all Minnesotans oppose, If DFLers are doing that, it would reasonable to conclude that they have gone beyond the electoral mandate they were given in November 2022.
By that definition, DFLers aren’t overreaching. For instance, survey data show that 67% of Minnesotans oppose abortion bans, and therefore presumably support DFL efforts to keep abortion legal in Minnesota in the post-Dobbs decision era. Likewise, gun violence prevention reforms are extremely popular with Minnesotans – 64% back red flag laws and 76% want universal background checks. Sixty percent of Minnesotans support legalizing marijuana for adults. Sixty-two percent support making school lunches free. Fifty-nine percent say everyone should receive a ballot in the mail.
I can’t find Minnesota-specific survey data on all of the other changes DFLers are making, but national polls give us a pretty good clue about where probably Minnesotans stand. Given how overwhelming the size of the majorities found in the following national surveys, there’s no reason to believe that Minnesotans are on the opposite side of these issues: More school funding (69% of Americans support), a public option for health insurance (68% of Americans support), disclosing dark money donors to political campaigns (75% of Americans support), child care assistance for families (80% of Americans support), and paid family and medical leave (80% of Americans support).
Granted, Minnesotans may be a few points different than national respondents on those issues. But it’s just not credible to believe that there isn’t majority support among Minnesotans on those issues.
The only issue where there might be a wee bit of overreach is on the restoration of the vote for felons. While national polls find 69% support for restoring the vote for felons who have completed all of their full sentence requirements, including parole, that support might be a little weaker for restoring the vote before parole is completed, which is what DFLers passed. A survey of Minnesotans conducted by the South Carolina-based Meeting Streets Insights for the conservative Minnesota-based group Center for the American Experiment found only 36% support on this question:
“Currently in Minnesota, convicted felons lose their right to vote until their entire sentence is complete, including prison time and probation. Would you support or oppose restoring the right to vote for convicted felons before they serve their full sentence?”
I don’t suspect that restoration of the vote for felons is a top priority issue for the swing voters who decide close elections. Moreover, the strong 69% support found in surveys for restoring the vote after parole indicates that if DFLers are perceived to be “overreaching,” it likely will be viewed by swing voters as a relatively minor one. Republicans probably will try to characterize this as “a power grab to stuff ballot boxes with votes of convicted criminals” in the 2024 general election campaigns. But they won’t have much luck with that issue, beyond the voters who were already supporting them based on other issues.
I understand that the loyal opposition has to say something as DFLers hold giddy bill-signing celebration after celebration on popular issues. But survey data indicate that Republicans’ “overreach” mantra is, well, overreach.
In 1910, writer Jack Johnson nicknamed white boxer James Jeffries the “Great white hope” as Jeffries prepared to fight the black fighter Jack Johnson. Apparently, Mr. Jeffries represented something that many fans found discomforting about Mr. Johnson.
Similarly in 2023, Republican elites are desperately searching for a Great Non-Trump Hope, sometimes quietly referred to as “Trump with a brain, “Trump without the crazy,” or “Trump without the chaos.” Most Republicans have settled on the charismatically challenged Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, fresh off his landslide reelection win over Democrat Charlie Crist.
At this point, a lot of Republican voters outside of Florida don’t know much about DeSantis. They know he’s not as undisciplined as Trump, and that he has handily won recent elections at a time when Trump has been regularly rejected by general election voters.
But beyond presenting himself as a stable winner, DeSantis is pushing a set of extremist policies that appeal to anti-“woke” Republicans. That may make sense as a primary election strategy, but how about as a general election strategy? How popular will DeSantis’s Republican-friendly platform be with the all-important swing voters in battleground states?
These numbers are jaw-dropping. If DeSantis wants to run ads promoting his stands on these issues, Democrats should offer to pay for them.
An overwhelmingly unpopular policy agenda isn’t even DeSantis’s biggest challenge. His more limiting political leg iron is that he can’t begin to match the Trump bombast and charisma that seems to be the primary driver of Trump’s enduring popularity with Republicans. That will become much more apparent as the primary campaign season heats up, once DeSantis and Trump start appearing on the same stage together. The man the former President belittles as “Tiny D” will shrink in that setting.
In other words, the problem with the pursuit of “Trump without the crazy” is that a majority of Republican primary voters adore “the crazy.”
DeSantis won’t look nearly as attractive facing general election voters in the spring of 2024 as he looked to Republican primary voters in the winter of 2023. And if Trump somehow loses the Republican endorsement, he will continue attacking DeSantis long after the primaries are over. All the while, DeSantis’s “anti-woke” policy agenda will further sully him with general election swing voters, particularly suburban women, people of color, and young people.
All of which is to say, it ain’t easy being DeSanctimonius.
Elections in a purple state can give you whiplash.
After red wave elections, we’re led by Republicans like Tim Pawlenty who push for low taxes, poor services, and culture wars.
After blue wave elections, we’re led by DFLers like Tim Walz who push for higher taxes, better services, and cultural tolerance.
After elections with more mixed results, legislative stalemates cause us to keep the prevailing status quo frozen in place.
That makes every election cycle extremely consequential.
The South Dakota Vision for Minnesota
In 2022, a decidedly purple Minnesota – at the time, it was the only state in the nation with one chamber of the state Legislature controlled by Democrats and the other controlled by Republicans – held a particularly high-stakes election.
If Minnesota voters had elected ultra-conservative former physician gubernatorial candidate Scott Jensen and a Republican Legislature dominated by far-right Trumpers, Minnesota would have become a conservative promised land, much like its neighbor to the west, South Dakota.
During the campaign, Jensen and other Republicans proposed a race-to-the-bottom on taxes, including eliminating the state income tax, which would have led to dramatically worse services. Republican spinmeisters prefer to say “smaller government,” but the reality is that it would have meant much worse services. The anti-vaxxer Doc Jensen also pledged a South Dakota-like war on public health and culture war initiatives to force conservatives’ thinking on gays, guns, God, and gynecology on all Minnesotans.
In other words, think Kristi Noem, with a stethoscope prop.
The Scandinavia Vision for Minnesota
Fortunately, 192,408 more Minnesotans voted for incumbent Governor Tim Walz than Jensen. More surprisingly, since it was predicted to be a historically horrible year for Democrats, Minnesotans also elected narrow DFL majorities in the state House and Senate. The all-important Senate majority is especially razor-thin at 34-33.
Walz and the DFL-controlled Legislatures are armed with a $17.5
billion budget surplus and are offering a vision that is more like a social democratic-led
Scandinavian country in the 1970s than South Dakota in the 2020s:
Paid family and medical leave;
An enormous funding increase for public schools;
A targeted child tax credit to dramatically reduce childhood poverty;
Down payment assistance for first-time home buyers, homelessness prevention, affordable housing, and rent vouchers;
A huge package to save the beleaguered childcare sector and make child care free for poor families and more affordable for middle-class families;
Large subsidies for weatherization, electric vehicle infrastructure, and solar energy expansion to combat climate change;
A range of gun violence prevention reforms, such as universal background checks, red flag laws to prevent people who could be perceived as a threat to themselves or others from getting guns, raising the legal age for obtaining military-style rifles to 21, and banning high-capacity magazines;
Enfranchising felons who have served their time; and
A capital gains tax hike for the wealthiest Minnesotans.
The list goes on. Overall, think Bernie Sanders, with a Fargo accent.
This is the most dramatic swing of state policy in my lifetime, and perhaps in the history of the state. And if somebody you may have never heard of, Judy Seeberger (DFL-Afton), had received just 322 fewer votes in her state Senate race, most of those changes would never have been possible. Without Seeberger’s handful of votes in the eastern suburbs of the Twin Cities metropolitan area, Minnesota would still be stuck in limbo between the South Dakota vision and the Scandinavia vision. 322 votes.
These days, there is a chorus of opining about the hellscape Minnesota will become when marijuana soon is legalized. Impaired driving! Health problems! Underage use! It’s starting to sound like a 2023 remake of the classic propaganda film “Reefer Madness.”
Though the concerns are exaggerated, they are valid. Yes, driving while stoned is dangerous and will increase. Yes, legalized marijuana products will fall into the hands of minors and that can be dangerous. Yes, marijuana use can be unhealthy, particularly for younger, developing brains.
At the same time, similar issues have long existed with already legal alcohol, and are often much worse than we’re seeing in the many states with legalized marijuana.
Impaired Driving. In 2017, 24,862 Minnesotans were arrested for driving while impaired. Most of those were abusing alcohol.
Underage Use. In 2011, a national found that 39 percent of high schoolers drank alcohol in the last 30 days, 22 percent binge drank, and 8 percent drove after drinking alcohol.
Health Problems. According to the Minnesota Department of Health, in 2020 alcohol contributed to 35,889 inpatient hospitalizations and 43,217 emergency room visits. Between 2015 and 2019, 2,151 alcohol-related deaths happened.
Despite these alarming alcohol-related statistics, I don’t know of a single supporter of marijuana prohibition who wants alcohol prohibition reinstated.
Many folks delivering red-faced warnings about the dangers of the devil weed have themselves used alcohol before it was legally permissible, made their health worse by drinking alcohol, and/or driven while impaired by alcohol use. Raise a glass to hypocrisy!
While marijuana use is vilified, particularly by older Minnesotans, about 59 percent of Minnesotans heedlessly use demonstrably dangerous and addictive alcohol products. And mainstream culture romanticizes and celebrates them.
As I’ve written here in the past, some of the marijuana tax revenue should be used to mitigate the impacts of expanded marijuana use, such as a public education campaign to warn people about the legitimate concerns about underage marijuana use, marijuana use for people with certain conditions, and driving while high on marijuana.
Those kinds of measures, not prohibition, are how we attempt to limit the downsides of alcohol use, and those measures, not prohibition, are how we should limit the downsides of marijuana abuse.
We are a free country that allows people to take risks. The risks associated with marijuana are not insignificant, but they pale compared to the risks alcohol users routinely take. That being the case, marijuana pearl-clutchers should shift from pushing to perpetuate the disastrous marijuana prohibition experiment to advocating for reasonable efforts to mitigate the harms of marijuana use.
For years, Minnesota legislators from both political parties with puritanical and law-and-order instincts have fought hard to preserve the prohibition of marijuana, a plant that is much less addictive and lethal than already legalized alcohol.
But marijuana prohibition in Minnesota is now effectively over, kinda sorta. The Star Tribune explains one of the most surprising and senseless moves the Minnesota Legislature has made in my lifetime:
“A new state law took effect July 1 that allows Minnesotans 21 and older to buy certain edibles and beverages containing small amounts of THC, the ingredient in marijuana that produces the high associated with the drug.
The new law allows the sale and purchase of edibles — such as gummies, hard candy or chocolates — and beverages that contain up to 5 milligrams of tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) per serving and 50 milligrams per package, and no more than 0.3% THC by weight. Products containing THC, as well as those containing cannabidiol (CBD), must be clearly labeled and can only be sold to those 21 and older. Edibles must be in child-proof and tamper-evident packages and carry the label “Keep this product out of reach of children.” Serving sizes must also be clearly defined.
THC products sold in Minnesota must be derived from legally-certified hemp containing no more than 0.3% THC by weight, according to the law. Marijuana flower and all THC-containing products derived from it remain illegal in Minnesota for recreational use.
The law places no limit on how many CBD and THC products can be purchased and does not regulate who can sell them.”
This shocking development is at the same time encouraging and frustrating. Legislators have lots of high-minded (sorry, couldn’t resist) explanations about how they were merely trying to keep Minnesotans safe from low-THC hemp with new regulations. But regardless of actual intent, the Legislature has legalized intoxicating THC products. That’s great for those who partake and don’t want to go to jail, but bad for those who care about sensible public policy.
The Legislature, wanting to show their constituents that they’re being prudent with “low and slow” dosing, essentially created the THC equivalent of 3.2 beer, or beer with no more than 3.2 percent alcohol by weight. Anyone who came of age in the 3.2 era knows that past generations of Americans did street research and discovered a clever workaround for that law: Consume more weak product, and get as wasted as your heart desires.
Similarly, there is a fighting chance that today’s Minnesotans will make a similar discovery about the Legislature’s new half-baked model. Obviously, Minnesota’s relatively low-THC gummies can get you every bit as high as the higher-THC gummies available in states where marijuana is fully legalized. More bites begets more buzz.
Equally stupid, the Minnesota Legislature is also requiring that companies produce the THC-containing gummies in the least efficient, most expensive way possible. In Minnesota, companies are required to make THC-containing gummies out of relatively low-THC hemp plants, instead of high-THC marijuana/cannabis plants.
This is like requiring that companies produce sugar from tomatoes rather than sugar beets. It’s feasible, because tomatoes have a relatively small amount of sugar in them, but why do it that way? The massive inefficiency of this hemp requirement ultimately causes huge additional growing and processing costs to be passed on to inflation-weary Minnesota consumers, for no good reason.
But that’s not all. Because legislative hemp regulators quietly snuck into the back door of THC edible legalization without wanting to wake sleeping prohibitionists, they didn’t include any taxation provisions in the new law. As a result, hundreds of millions of dollars in THC product taxes will not be collected to fund badly needed public services, such as education, early learning, or environmental protections. That’s a huge missed opportunity.
Worst of all, the Legislature didn’t expunge the criminal records of Minnesotans whose lives are being needlessly harmed because of past marijuana-related convictions. As of July 1, 2022, Minnesotans can now legally get high as the IDS Tower at the same time their fellow Minnesotans — disproportionately people of color, because of shameful racial bias in Minnesota’s law enforcement and judicial systems — continue to be harshly punished for having consumed the very same chemical. That’s layering an outrageous new injustice on top of the outrageous old injustice.
To summarize, Minnesota’s THC edible legalization framework offers a good buzz, but no consumer cost-containment, public improvements, tax relief, or justice. We can now “get stupid,” but we will never get as stupid as this regulatory framework.
Despite all of those flaws, THC edibles are now finally being enjoyed by Minnesotans of all political stripes. Because of that, this product will quickly get more normalized in Minnesota society. As a result, bringing back prohibition, as some Republicans propose, will be more unpopular than ever.
Ultimately, that normalization should pave the way for the future passage of a more thoughtful, comprehensive legalization framework, presuming a wave of extreme marijuana prohibitionists aren’t swept into office in the 2022 midterm elections. That could happen because of voter frustration over crime and inflation, but it won’t be because of this issue. Minnesotans support marijuana legalization by a 14-point margin.
The Minnesota Legislature will probably eventually get to a sane legalization framework that produces lower consumer prices, better funded government services, and justice for thousands. Winston Churchill famously said that “The United States can always be relied upon to do the right thing — having first exhausted all possible alternatives.” Unfortunately, marijuanaphobic Minnesota is currently in the process of exhausting a particularly ludicrous alternative on its path to the right thing.
In the wake of the George Floyd murder, I’m appreciative that the Minnesota Legislature finally is about to pass some police reforms. But I’m also pretty underwhelmed.
Based on reports I’ve heard, it seems heavy on mandates and light on investments in changing the face of law enforcement. The compromise package that will soon pass includes things such as requiring officers to intervene in cases of abuse, banning choke holds and “warrior training,” and having a better statewide database on abuse cases.
That’s all good stuff, as far as it goes. The problem is, it doesn’t go very far. The New York Times summarizes the debate and the unfinished business:
“Ultimately, legislators could not reach a deal that reconciled the Democrats’ calls for far-reaching changes to police oversight with Republican leaders who supported a shorter list of “common-sense police reforms” that included banning chokeholds in most situations and requiring officers to stop their colleagues from using unreasonable force.
Democrats said the plan passed by the Republican-led Senate consisted of tepid half-steps that were already in place in most law-enforcement agencies and did not rise to the moment’s calls for dramatic action. Republicans balked at the proposals passed by the Democrat-controlled House to restore voting rights to tens of thousands of felons and put the state’s attorney general, Keith Ellison, a Democrat, in charge of prosecuting police killings.
Republican leaders later said they had agreed to alter arbitration proceedings when officers are accused of misconduct, but Democrats said it was not enough.
All week, state legislators held emotional hearings on proposals to increase oversight of how the police use force and are disciplined; change the process for firing officers; and explore alternatives to policing, such as sending social workers to respond when people in mental distress need help.”
What About Ending Marijuana Prohibition?
I was disappointed that putting the marijuana prohibition question on the ballot wasn’t part of this session focused on preventing future police abuses. After all, the ACLU has documented that marijuana prohibition is a root cause of much racial profiling and police abuse:
A Black person in Minnesota is 5.4 times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession than a white person. Minnesota ranks 8th for largest racial disparities in marijuana possession arrests. In 2018, marijuana possession arrests accounted for 35% of all drug arrests here.
Although the overwhelming majority of Minnesota counties have racial disparities, Goodhue, Olmstead, St. Louis, Ramsey and Carver Counties have the worst records, ranging from Black people being 7.07 times more likely to face arrest than whites in Carver County to 11.19 times more likely in Goodhue County.
It’s clear what we need to do. Let’s take marijuana enforcement off of police officer’s plates, because marijuana is much less dangerous and addictive than legal alcohol, and it’s leading to much police abuse.
I understand this would have been a very tough sell with Senate Republican leadership, but this topic should have at least been part of the discussion. Legislators should have seized this educable moment to further build already strong public support for legalizing marijuana. (KSTP 2018 survey: 61% support marijuana legalization, including 54% of Republicans)
Reforms That Require Substantial Investment
Also missing from the list of reforms are any proposals to professionalize policing that costs more than a nominal amount of money. Spending money is something that both sides avoid, because neither side wants to take the political hit for proposing offsetting spending cuts and/or tax increases.
For instance, how about paying for a rigorous De-escalation and Racial Justice Re-Training Academy, to give every Minnesota law enforcement officer in the state extensive training about how to do their job more respectfully, lawfully, safely, and effectively. How about requiring all officers to subsequently pass a training proficiency test to prove they did more than doze and wise-crack their way through the training?
To keep this re-training top-of-mind and up-to-date, how about also funding biennial supplemental training courses, such as we require for other professions with life-and-death powers (e.g. Continuing Medical Education (CME) credits for medical professionals)?
How about a Police Professionalization Fund to establish financial incentives for local governments that hire college-educated officers and/or officers from under-represented communities?
How about a Hometown Officer Fund to pay for moving expenses for officers who move their home into the neighborhoods they are serving?
(Note, a couple of these good ideas came from Wry World Messrs. Lambert and Austin.)
Think about it. More officers who are college educated people of color whose family lives in the community they serve and have extensive and regular training about how to be a different kind of public servant. All of that coupled with the changes in the current bill would go a long ways toward changing the toxic culture in many law enforcement departments.
But all of those things cost money. The State should be funding them because many unenlightened and/or financially strapped local governments are unlikely to do these things on their own without financial help.
But apparently legislators from both parties still aren’t willing to put their money where their mouths are. So unfortunately there’s much more police reform work to do in the 2021 session.
Minnesota public health authorities are close to concluding that the leading culprit in the rash of serious cannabis vaping injuries is an additive called vitamin E acetate, which apparently is used by elicit street producers to thicken and dilute the THC in illegally produced vaping cartridges. The Star Tribune reports:
“The state’s findings were circulated nationally on Tuesday by the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which has monitored the outbreak nationally and has reported 2,290 cases of vaping-associated lung injuries this year and 47 related deaths.
‘We now have evidence of vitamin E acetate in the lungs of Minnesotans and in illicit THC products from Minnesota during the outbreak,’ said Jan Malcolm, state health commissioner. ‘We have more work ahead, but every bit of evidence gets us closer to a resolution.'”
Assuming that Vitamin E is in fact the culprit, the obvious solution is to regulate the product to ensure that additive is no longer used. Easy, right?
Not so fast. The problem with that obvious solution is that cannabis prohibition makes it impossible to regulate the safety of these illicit street products.
If we want to regulate marijuana-based products to keep consumers safe from dangerous additives like Vitamin E acetate, pesticides, molds, and fungus, we need those products to be legal so that they can be controlled by public regulators, just as we control other legal consumer products.
A while back, Republican Senate leader Paul Gazelka looked at this dangerous situation and somehow came to the opposite conclusion.
“Opponents of legalizing marijuana in Minnesota are seizing on the recent outbreak of vaping-related illnesses and teen nicotine addiction to urge caution on the cannabis front — even as advocates of legalization ramp up their campaign ahead of next year’s legislative session.
‘I hope this slows down the rush by [Gov. Tim Walz] and House Democrats on recreational marijuana,’ said state Sen. Paul Gazelka, R-Nisswa, the majority leader. ‘If they see the correlation, that might at least slow down the process.'”
Sen. Gazelka seems like a sincere, decent guy, but that logic makes no sense. After all, if Sen. Gazelka learned that we have dangerous types of vehicles, insulation, ethanol, or stents harming consumers, would he back prohibition of vehicles, insulation, ethanol, and stents? Of course not. Instead, the sensible response would be to keep those products legal, but have public regulators monitor the products and require them to be safer. Likewise, we need to make marijuana legal, so marijuana-based products can be regulated, tested, and required to be safer.
So in addition to the social justice, fiscal, and logical reasons to end marijuana prohibition, we need to add another to the list. Public health.
Disclosure: In my public relations business, I have done work for one of two companies licensed in Minnesota to treat patients with cannabis-based medicines. However, I’m not currently doing work for that company, and that company’s legal, regulated medicines aren’t a subject of these stories. I have never helped any clients advocating the end to marijuana prohibition.
Polls show that a large and growing majority of Minnesotans support ending marijuana prohibition. So why isn’t legislation moving forward in the Minnesota Legislature?
It appears that the size of majority simply isn’t quite large enough yet to overcome a number of factors working against passage, such as:
Fear of Law Enforcement Lobbyists. The war on marijuana has kept a lot of law enforcement officials employed, so they have a self-interest in lobbying fiercely to preserve it. The political strength of law enforcement lobbyists is weaker than it has been in the past, but it is still relatively strong with some legislators.
Minnesota Meekness. The Minnesota Legislature isn’t exactly brimming with bold leadership. When it comes to passing new laws, Minnesota tends not to be the first or last state, but pretty square in the in middle. With “only” eight other states out ahead of Minnesota proving that full legalization is not the disaster predicted by prohibition supporters, it still feels “too soon” to timid Minnesota leaders.
Comfortable Status Quo. Finally, old habits just die hard. So many institutions have been waging a war on marijuana for so long that they just can’t seem to give up the fight.
So what will overcome those significant challenges? Even more public support. Deeper support is particularly needed in Greater Minnesota to persuade a few more Greater Minnesota legislators to get on the right side of history.
“Safer Than Alcohol” Campaign
How will we expand the level of majority support? By going directly to Minnesotans, particularly to Greater Minnesotans, with a thoughtful public education campaign methodically presenting the the mountain of evidence showing that illegal marijuana is safer and less addictive than already legal alcohol.
LESS DANGEROUS. When it comes to harming the user and harming others, illegal marijuana ranks as much safer than alcohol. Marijuana is not benign, and steps should be taken to limit its harm. But British psychologist David Nutt (and could there possibly be a better name for a psychologist?) bundled a number of statistics into a “Harm Index,” and found that already legal alcohol and tobacco were both much more harmful than illegal cannabis.
LESS ADDICTIVE. Contrary to the opinion of many skeptics, marijuana is also much less addictive than alcohol. Psychopharmacologist Jack E. Henningfield Ph.D., formerly of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and Dr. Neal L. Benowitz MD of the University of San Francisco ranked marijuana less than half as addictive as alcohol. Both researchers found marijuana to be roughly as addictive as ubiquitous caffeine.
Once skeptical Minnesotans have been made aware of these kinds of facts, the question that needs to be posed is essentially this: If you don’t support prohibition for coffee, alcohol or tobacco, why support prohibition for marijuana?
Right now, those facts would be extremely surprising to many Minnesotans. Billions of dollars worth of Reefer Madness– and D.A.R.E.-style propaganda, law enforcement lobbying, and war on drugs news coverage has caused too many Minnesotans to believe the myths that marijuana is somehow much more addictive and dangerous than alcohol. Changing those misconceptions must be job one.
Advertising professionals can improve on this, but the summarizing tagline of the campaign could be something as simple as:
SAFER THAN ALCOHOL End Marijuana Prohibition in Minnesota.
Tone Matters
Beyond having credible third-party proof points, the tone of this “safer than alcohol” campaign matters a lot. Unlike smoking joints on the Capitol steps and other similar self-defeating stunts, this “safer than alcohol” education campaign can’t have a whiff of headshop or hippy to it.
The off-putting counter-culture vibe of many tactics used by well-meaning proponents inadvertently drives away the disproportionately older Greater Minnesota moderates that must be persuaded so that their Greater Minnesota legislative representatives can be persuaded. The campaign needs to put a spotlight on credible third-party expert messengers delivering facts in a measured tone that is comfortable in Greater Minnesota.
Again, polls show that Minnesotans are ahead of their elected officials on this issue. But the majority needs to get just a bit bigger and more committed before enough elected officials representing Greater Minnesotans will have the courage to do the right thing and end marijuana prohibition. A thoughtful “safer than alcohol” public education campaign is a necessary next step.
Among political reporters and pundits, the fashionable take on Democratic presidential candidates is that they’re recklessly veering too far to the left, consequently putting their chances of defeating Donald Trump at risk. That critique is all the rage.
“But the Democrats are in danger of marching so far left that they go over a cliff. That’s not just my view. Mainstream reporters, who tend to be less sensitive to liberal positions that match their personal views, are openly acknowledging and debating the dramatic shift. It was even on the front page of The New York Times.”
“The Democratic debates this past week provided the clearest evidence yet that many of the leading presidential candidates are breaking with the incremental politics of the Clinton and Obama eras, and are embracing sweeping liberal policy changes on some of the most charged public issues in American life, even at the risk of political backlash. But with moderate Democrats repeatedly drowned out or on the defensive in the debates, the sprint to the left has deeply unnerved establishment Democrats, who have largely picked the party nominees in recent decades.”
“That sound you heard in Miami on Wednesday evening? El partido demócrata dando un fuerte giro a la izquierda. The screech of a Democratic Party swerving hard to the left. As the first 2020 Democratic debate wrapped here, there was a palpable sense that the 10 contenders on stage were reflecting the sentiments of the most liberal corners of the party.”
Yes, Democrats are more liberal than they have been in my lifetime. Yes, it’s possible that they could eventually go too far. But I disagree with the punditosphere that Democrats have hit that point.
Why Moving Left?
The explanation of aghast pundits has been that Democrats are supporting progressive policies for two primary reasons:
Echo Chamber Parrots. First, they argue that Democrats are more liberal because they spend too much time in self-reinforcing “echo chambers” — social media and cable news channels where like-minded ideologues radicalize each other and get isolated from opposing viewpoints. Pundits say candidates spend too little time in the habitat of “real people,” which they usually identify as Mayberry-esque Main Street cafes.
Liberal Bidding War. Also, pundits explain that Democrats are now more liberal because they’re desperately trying to out-liberal each other to court ultra-liberal primary and caucus voters.
These are both very real occupational hazards for politicians, and valid contributory factors for the shift to the left. I don’t disagree with them, but they’re not the only explanations.
Democrats Are Listening To Americans
Many reporters and pundits are missing or under-emphasizing another explanation that is at least as important,:
Listening To Americans. Democrats are moving left because they are actually listening to Americans.
Democrats are not just marching in lockstep with Rachel Maddow, Moveon.org, Daily Kos, Paul Krugman, and Bernie Sanders. They’re not just trying to one-up each other. They’re also reading the survey research.
The American Prospect recently compiled a long list of recent survey polls showing overwhelming majorities of Americans embracing a broad range of progressive attitudes and policies, excerpted below. Remember, the following is dozens of independent statistically significant surveys speaking, not the liberal American Prospect magazine speaking:
The Economy
82 percent of Americans think wealthy people have too much power and influence in Washington.
78 percent of likely voters support stronger rules and enforcement on the financial industry.
Inequality
82 percent of Americans think economic inequality is a “very big” (48 percent) or “moderately big” (34 percent) problem. Even 69 percent of Republicans share this view.
66 percent of Americans think money and wealth should be distributed more evenly.
72 percent of Americans say it is “extremely” or “very” important, and 23 percent say it is “somewhat important,” to reduce poverty.
59 percent of registered voters—and 51 percent of Republicans—favor raising the maximum amount that low-wage workers can make and still be eligible for the Earned Income Tax Credit, from $14,820 to $18,000.
Taxes
76 percent believe the wealthiest Americans should pay higher taxes.
60 percent of registered voters believe corporations pay too little in taxes.
87 percent of Americans say it is critical to preserve Social Security, even if it means increasing Social Security taxes paid by wealthy Americans.
67 percent of Americans support lifting the cap to require higher-income workers to pay Social Security taxes on all of their wages.
Minimum Wage
54 percent of registered voters favored a $15 minimum wage.
63 percent of registered voters think the minimum wage should be adjusted each year by the rate of inflation.
Workers’ Rights
74 percent of registered voters—including 71 percent of Republicans—support requiring employers to offer paid parental and medical leave.
78 percent of likely voters favor establishing a national fund that offers all workers 12 weeks of paid family and medical leave.
Health Care
60 percent of Americans believe “it is the federal government’s responsibility to make sure all Americans have healthcare coverage.”
60 percent of registered voters favor “expanding Medicare to provide health insurance to every American.”
64 percent of registered voters favor their state accepting the Obamacare plan for expanding Medicaid in their state.
Education
63 percent of registered voters—including 47 percent of Republicans—of Americans favor making four-year public colleges and universities tuition-free.
59 percent of Americans favor free early-childhood education.
Climate Change and the Environment
76 percent of voters are “very concerned” or “somewhat concerned” about climate change.
68 percent of voters think it is possible to protect the environment and protect jobs.
59 percent of voters say more needs to be done to address climate change.
Gun Safety
84 percent of Americans support requiring background checks for all gun buyers.
77 percent of gun owners support requiring background checks for all gun buyers.
Criminal Justice
60 percent of Americans believe the recent killings of black men by police are part of a broader pattern of how police treat black Americans (compared with 39 percent who believe they are isolated incidents).
Immigration
68 percent of Americans—including 48 percent of Republicans—believe the country’s openness to people from around the world “is essential to who we are as a nation.” Just 29 percent say that “if America is too open to people from all over the world, we risk losing our identity as a nation.”
65 percent of Americans—including 42 percent of Republicans—say immigrants strengthen the country “because of their hard work and talents.” Just 26 percent say immigrants are a burden “because they take our jobs, housing and health care.”
64 percent of Americans think an increasing number of people from different races, ethnic groups, and nationalities makes the country a better place to live. Only 5 percent say it makes the United States a worse place to live, and 29 percent say it makes no difference.
76 percent of registered voters—including 69 percent of Republicans—support allowing undocumented immigrants brought to the country as children (Dreamers) to stay in the country. Only 15 percent think they should be removed or deported from the country.
Abortion and Women’s Health
58 percent of Americans believe that abortion should be legal in all or most cases.
68 percent of Americans—including 54 percent of Republicans—support the requirement for private health insurance plans to cover the full cost of birth control.
Same-Sex Marriage
62 percent of Americans—including 70 percent of independents and 40 percent of Republicans—support same-sex marriage.
For people who suffered through eras when the NRA, the Catholic Church, the health insurance lobby, the Moral Majority, the National Federation of Independent Businesses, the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, Americans for Tax Reform, and trickle downers like Reagan, Gingrich and Bush dominated politics and policymaking, these findings are pretty stunning.
Make no mistake, America has changed. A solid majority of Americans now are supportive of left-leaning policies, whether or not they self-identify as “liberal.” In a representative democracy, public opinion is supposed to have a powerful impact on candidates and policymakers, and it is.
“Scaring the Independents”
“Harumph,” say the grizzled veteran pundits and reporters. Hubris-laden Democrats are going to scare away the Independent voters and be responsible for four more years of Trump.
That’s certainly a danger, and an important thing to monitor in coming months. But remember, all of those polls listed above have a representative number of Independent voters in their samples, and breakouts show that on most issues a solid majority of Independents also are backing very progressive policy positions.
In addition, when you look at how Independent voters are currently leaning, they are leaning in the Democrat’s direction by a net nine-point margin.
Obviously, these polls are just a snapshot in time, so Democrats could still lose Independent voters after they are exposed to hundreds of millions of dollars worth of attacks. However, it’s worth noting that, after watching Democrats being lambasted for embracing progressive positions in recent years, Independents are still leaning fairly decisively blue.
Expanding the Electorate
Finally, let’s not forget that it will be easier for Democratic candidates to win if they can expand the electorate. That is, Democrats need to make the overall size of their electorate larger than it has been in past presidential election by motivating and activating the parts of their coalition that have traditionally voted in relatively low numbers, such as low-income people, people of color and young people. Even just a few percentage points improvement with those groups could impact the outcome of the 2020 elections up and down the ballot.
Positions in the “mushy middle” — ACA stabilization tweaks, incremental tax reform, inflation adjustments only to the minimum wage, semi-punitive immigration law changes, Pell Grant adjustments, etc. — probably won’t particularly motivate and activate these important voters.
Bolder progressive policies — Medicare-for All, Medicare buy-in option, repealing Bush and Trump tax cuts for the wealthy to fund help for struggling families, increasing the minimum wage to $15 per hour, family medical leave benefits, bold immigration law changes, higher education loan forgiveness — might.
Short-term Needs. So even if supporting progressive policies were causing Democrats to lose amongst Independent voters — and remember, so far the data seems to indicate that they aren’t — there is an argument for Democratic candidates to take those progressive stands anyway, in order to keep young people, poor people, and people of color from sitting out election day in large numbers, or backing a left-leaning third party candidate.
Long-term Needs. Appealing to those lightly voting groups with progressive policies is also important for the long-term future of the Democratic Party, not just the 2020 election. That’s because people of color are the fastest growing portions of the population, and today’s young people obviously will be voting for many years. Making those groups into committed members of the Democratic coalition would pay long-term dividends.
More Room To Grow. Still, some maintain that voter turnout is going to be so large in 2020, due to the polarizing nature of President Trump, that the size of the electorate will be maxed out without having to motivate lightly voting groups with progressive policies.
But when you look at the dramatically lower than average turnout figures for loyal Democratic constituencies in 2018, when their turnout levels were actually very high compared to 2014, it’s clear there is still much room for growth with these groups. For instance, 36% of young people voted in 2018, compared to 53% of the total population. Again, even an increase of a point or two in some of these categories could be decisive.
Who’s Out of Touch?
So yes, Democrats have indeed moved left in recent years. That much is obvious. But given this consistent stream of survey research from a wide variety of sources, I can’t agree with those who conclude that Democratic candidates are the ones who are “out of touch” with the pulse of the American people.
Saint Paul, Minn. — Republican lawmakers in the Minnesota Senate today passed historic new legislation to make the drinking, possession or sale of alcoholic beverages a crime.
“For all who care deeply about the horrific damage that highly addictive alcoholic drinks are doing to young Minnesotans’ brains, and the carnage created by drunk driving, this is a tremendous victory,” said Senate Majority Leader Paul Purity (R-Dryville).
In the midst of Republicans’ successful effort to preserve marijuana prohibition, Purity said he and other Republicans came to the realization that they also needed to prohibit alcohol use. Alcohol was last illegal in the United States from 1920 to 1933.
“It dawned on us that alcohol is much more addictive, lethal and damaging to young brains than marijuana, so to be consistent we needed to bring back alcohol prohibition,” said Senator Warren Dimmer (R-Chaste), a key marijuana and alcohol prohibition supporter.
Opponents of alcohol prohibition tried unsuccessfully to keep alcohol legal while enacting a series of initiatives to limit the harm caused by youth alcohol abuse and drunk driving. But alcohol prohibition proponents successfully argued that such efforts would be insufficient.
Under the new alcohol prohibition law, criminal penalties will be identical to what is currently in place for marijuana offenders.
To prepare for the new law, Republicans said they will support a massive increase in state spending for what they dubbed a “war on alcohol.” Among other things, that will mean millions more in state and local funding for more police, prosecutors, and prisons to make room for the thousands of Minnesotans expected to be arrested in coming years under the new law.
However, finding sufficient funding for the new war on alcohol could prove to be a challenge. Because of the new alcohol prohibition law, the state will lose hundreds of millions of dollars in state revenue as the alcohol excise tax is eliminated. Also, hundreds of Minnesota bars will be required to close, and the resulting unemployment will cause the demand for social services to increase as income tax and sales tax revenues decrease.
“The booze heads on the fringe of society are exaggerating the implications,” said Purity. “The new law does pose challenges, but we couldn’t logically justify support for marijuana prohibition unless we also supported alcohol prohibition, We didn’t want to look like hypocritical morons.”
Jubilant law enforcement and prison officials joined Senators Purity and Dimmer at a celebratory State Capitol news conference. They praised the vote, and said they can’t wait to begin ramping up their hiring and purchasing of new military-style equipment to crack down on drinkers.
Meanwhile, a small group of deflated pro-alcohol activists drank beer on the steps of the State Capitol Building in defiance of the vote. When the law becomes effective on July 1, 2019, such activity will become a crime.
Note: Just in case you’re unbelievably gullible, this is satire, not actual news.
I’m a strong supporter of legalizing marijuana in Minnesota, and nationally. As I’ve written before, legalized marijuana “will make Minnesota a more sensible, just, fiscally sound, humane and free state.” The evidence is overwhelming.
But let’s not be naive or dishonest here. As with any vice, there are also huge problems associated with legalization that need to be alleviated. To me, the most troubling downside of legalization is harms to minors, transportation users, and seriously ill patients.
Disadvantages of Ending Marijuana Prohibition
Damaging Minors’ Brains. First, credible researchers are finding that marijuana use by minors appears to be much more damaging than it is for adults. For an example, an article in an American Psychological Association publication reports numerous alarming research findings:
Heavy marijuana use in adolescence or early adulthood has been associated with a dismal set of life outcomes including poor school performance, higher dropout rates, increased welfare dependence, greater unemployment and lower life satisfaction.
Duke University psychologist Terrie Moffitt, PhD, and colleagues… found that persistent marijuana use was linked to a decline in IQ, even after the researchers controlled for educational differences. The most persistent users…experienced a drop in neuropsychological functioning equivalent to about six IQ points (PNAS, 2012). “That’s in the same realm as what you’d see with lead exposure,” says Weiss. “It’s not a trifle.”
There are some reasons to think that adolescents may be uniquely susceptible to lasting damage from marijuana use. At least until the early or mid-20s, “the brain is still under construction,” says Staci Gruber, PhD, a neuroscientist and director of the Cognitive and Clinical Neuroimaging Core and the Marijuana Investigations for Neuroscientific Discovery (MIND) Program at McLean Hospital/Harvard Medical School…
Also immature in teens is the endocannabinoid system. As its name implies, this system comprises the physiological mechanisms that respond to THC. That system is important for cognition, neurodevelopment, stress response and emotional control, and it helps to modulate other major neurotransmitter systems, says Krista Lisdahl, PhD, director of the Brain Imaging and Neuropsychology Laboratory at the University of Wisconsin, Milwaukee.
Repeated exposure to marijuana can dial down cellular activity in the endocannabinoid system. Such interference might be a bigger problem for immature brains, says Lisdahl. “That sets the stage for why adolescents may be more sensitive to the effects of repeated marijuana exposure, from a neuroscience perspective.”
So, should we oppose legalization of marijuana? Not unless we also want to bring back alcohol prohibition, because alcohol also is extremely damaging to the brain and many other parts of the body, and alcohol leads to countless more deaths than marijuana.
Still, in the rush to legalize marijuana, these kinds of findings shouldn’t be shrugged off by legalization enthusiasts. We need to shine a light on these findings to encourage young people to delay marijuana usage until later in life, and to encourage everyone to not overdo it.
More Traffic Fatalities. Second, legalization of marijuana also will increase the number of impaired drivers, which will likely lead to more traffic injuries and fatalities. USA Today reports the expert findings from states where the drug is now legal:
The Highway Loss Data Institute study focused on collision claims between 2012 and October 2017, and compared against four control states where marijuana remains illegal: Idaho, Montana, Utah and Wyoming.
A separate study conducted by the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety focused on police-reported crashes before and after retail marijuana was allowed found Colorado, Oregon and Washington saw a 5.2 percent increase in the rate of crashes per million vehicle registrations, compared with neighboring states.
Law enforcement officials and others are using these kinds of findings as a reason to oppose legalization. That’s absurd. No one, including law enforcement officials, wants to bring back alcohol prohibition because of the staggering number of serious drunk driving problems, so we shouldn’t keep marijuana illegal because stoned driving problems are in the mix.
At the same time, we also shouldn’t deny the existence of the problem, and be passive about harm reduction.
Destroy Medical Cannabis Program For Patients. Finally, ending marijuana prohibition could inadvertently harm or destroy Minnesota’s fledgling medical cannabis program, and consequently harm the seriously ill Minnesota patients benefiting from it.
According to Minnesota Department of Health (MDH) patient surveys, many Minnesota patients are benefiting from precisely dosed, tested, and customized cannabis-based capsules, oils, tinctures, and topicals. Across a wide variety of qualifying conditions, two-thirds of patients report significant benefits, while only 10% report little to no benefit.
When it comes to chronic pain patients, the MDH surveys show that 63% of patients who had been on highly lethal, addictive opioid medications were able to reduce or eliminate their use of opioids after moving to much less addictive, lethal cannabis-based pain relief medicine.
Many seriously ill patients desperately want to hold onto those successful medicines, but worry that the post-legalization availability of cheaper, unprocessed raw marijuana plant material will put the manufacturers of their precisely dosed and formulated medicines medicine out of business.
Many Minnesotans probably won’t care too much that those manufacturers would go out of business. But the problem is, if they do go out of business, patients would suffer. That is, patients who are currently benefiting from those precisely formulated and dosed medicines would be forced to use raw plant material that they and their caregivers consider to be less safe, pure and customized form of medicine.
Mitigating the Harm
We can’t wish these problems away. Therefore, the law ending marijuana prohibition should set aside a reasonable amount — for the sake of argument, let’s say five percent to ten percent of the revenue raised from legalizing marijuana — for a Marijuana Harm Reduction Fund. The lion’s share of the revenue raised by legalizing marijuana still could be allocated however lawmakers and their constituents see fit. But a mitigation fund could be used for harm reduction projects like:
Medicine Affordability Assistance. Some type of patient-friendly sliding scale subsidy to make precisely dosed, tested and formulated cannabis-based medicines available and affordable to all Minnesota patients who, according to medical caregivers, need them.
Youth Brain Impact Public Education Campaign. A multi-media public education campaign aimed at teens, young adults and parents to raise awareness about the heightened dangers of marijuana use at an early age.
Stoned Driving Public Education Campaign. A multi-media public education campaign aimed at raising awareness about the very real dangers of driving while under the influence of marijuana.
A couple of important caveats about this fund:
Evidence-based campaigns. The content of the public education campaign should be overseen by inter-disciplinary experts to ensure campaigns don’t become Reefer Madness-like misinformation campaigns, and are instead based on the consensus of the best available scientific evidence.
Subsidy oversight. The subsidies of patients using cannabis-based medicines should be monitored to ensure physicians are verifying that patients are benefiting from the medications and the amount of patient subsidies are kept at a reasonable level.
Again, cannabis is much less addictive and deadly than already legalized alcohol. Again, marijuana prohibition has been horrific for communities. of color. Again, marijuana prohibition is very bad, and legalization is much better. Don’t get me wrong.
But that can’t be the end of the debate. Citizens like me who are advocating to end marijuana prohibition must own these problems, and do what we can to reduce the associated harm.
Disclosure: The author is a public relations consultant who helps one of Minnesota’s two manufacturers of cannabis-based medicine share patient success stories with the news media. He doesn’t lobby for that company, and the public policy opinions expressed here are his own, not the company’s.
I recently wrote to Minnesota legislators to ask them to end marijuana prohibition, as many states have recently done. The responses I’ve received have been disappointing, not because they disagreed with me, but because they were utterly vacuous.
In matters of political debate, I’m a big boy. For more than thirty years, I have worked in and around bare knuckle politics. I grew up a liberal in a deep red state (South Dakota), so I am very accustomed to losing arguments. Still I value a good substantive discussion, because that’s how attitudes change over time.
But what I got back from Minnesota legislators was birdbrained political handicapping, not substance. I sent them a note with this evidence-heavy blog post, and expected at least a somewhat substantive rebuttal to my arguments.
Instead, I got responses like this from Minnesota legislators (excerpted):
“…it is highly unlikely in the foreseeable future that the Minnesota Legislature will take such a step.
…
Numerous concerns have been expressed about the negative impact legalization would have on public safety, and the incidence of addiction.
…
Nonetheless, please know should any proposals related to marijuana come before me, I will give them the thoughtful consideration they merit.”
Blah, blah, blah. I don’t use marijuana, but reading these responses made me dumber than any drug ever could. Every response I received had a similar cavalier shrug of the shoulder, political handicapping, “some people say…” passive aggressiveness, and refusal to state a personal position or respectfully rebut mine.
In my misspent youth, I spent a few years drafting such responses for a U.S. Senator. So I’m a bit of a connoisseur of this dark art. My liberal former boss always insisted on providing his mostly conservative constituents with his evidence-based arguments. He felt he owed them that, that it was a sign of respect. I got nothing of the kind from Minnesota legislators.
Obviously, the chances of overturning marijuana prohibition under a GOP-controlled Legislature, U.S. Department of Justice, Congress and White House are nonexistent. But I took the time to contact legislators because I wanted to educate them, compare notes and move the conversation forward. I know that popular opinion on this issue is changing rapidly, and that election swings change political calculations overnight, as we saw with marriage equality. So I sincerely wanted to gain a better understanding of how Minnesota legislators were processing the issue.
If Minnesota legislators really believe that marijuana is more addictive than alcohol, show me your data. If they really believe that marijuana laws aren’t being used to disproportionately punish people of color, show me your data. If they really believe that marijuana kills more people than alcohol, or causes more health problems, show me your data.
And if you concede the accuracy of all of the data that I’ve supplied, explain the logic of continuing prohibition of marijuana, while expanding the availability of much more destructive alcohol products.
That type of disagreement I can respect. That kind of disagreement moves the democratic dialogue forward. But using “it’s not going to pass” and “some interest groups say…” deflections as a substitute for substantive debate is for pundits, not policymakers.
Saint Paul, Minn. — Republican lawmakers in the Minnesota Senate today passed historic new legislation to make the drinking, possession or sale of alcoholic beverages a crime.
Under the new alcohol prohibition law, criminal penalties will be identical to what is currently in place for marijuana offenders.
I recently wrote to Minnesota legislators to ask them to end marijuana prohibition, as many states have recently done. The responses I’ve received have been disappointing, not because they disagreed with me, but because they were utterly vacuous.