Uruguay Legalizes Pot Trade, But Who "Uses" The Most?

The attitudes toward cannabis are shifting rapidly,” says a former DEA-agent-turned-pot-growing-company-lawyer, adding that “the potential social and financial returns are enormous.” As ironic as that maybe, perhaps it is why Uruguay has just become the first nation in the world to allow its citizens to grow, buy and smoke marijuana. As Reuters reports, the pioneering government-sponsored bill establishes state regulation of the cultivation, distribution and consumption of marijuana and is aimed at wresting the business from criminals. “Our country can’t wait for international consensus on this issue,” said one politician as demand is rising globally as the following chart shows

 

DEA Agent becomes Pot-growing-firm lawyer… (via The Atlantic):

Patrick Moen is a 36-year-old former supervisor at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, where, until recently, he led a team based in Portland that fought methamphetamine and heroin traffickers. 

 

Now, he is embarking on a career change. A rather dramatic one.  The Wall Street Journal reports today in a delightful article that Moen has become the in-house lawyer at Privateer Holdings Inc., “a private-equity firm that invests solely in businesses tied to the budding legal marijuana industry.”

 

In other words, the revolving door between business and government just made an unexpected, and very druggy, turn.

 

 

“The potential social and financial returns are enormous,” Moen told the Journal said of his new business. “The attitudes toward cannabis are shifting rapidly.”

 

Indeed they are.

As Uruguay appears to show (via Reuters):

Uruguay’s Senate is expected to pass a law on Tuesday making the small South American nation the world’s first to allow its citizens to grow, buy and smoke marijuana.

 

The pioneering government-sponsored bill establishes state regulation of the cultivation, distribution and consumption of marijuana and is aimed at wresting the business from criminals.

 

Cannabis consumers would be allowed to buy a maximum of 40 grams (1.4 ounces) each month from state-regulated pharmacies as long as they are over the age of 18 and registered on a government database that will monitor their monthly purchases.

 

Uruguayans would also be allowed to grow up to six plants of marijuana in their homes a year, or as much as 480 grams (about 17 ounces). They could also set up smoking clubs of 15 to 45 members that could grow up to 99 plants per year.

 

The bill, which opinion polls show is unpopular, passed the lower chamber of Congress in July and is expected to easily pass the Senate on the strength of the ruling coalition’s majority.

 

 

“Our country can’t wait for international consensus on this issue,” Senator Roberto Conde of the governing Broad Front left-wing coalition

 

Rich countries debating legalization of pot are also watching the bill, which philanthropist George Soros has supported as an “experiment” that could provide an alternative to the failed U.S.-led policies of the long “war on drugs.”

 

 

“This development in Uruguay is of historic significance,” said Ethan Nadelmann, founder of the Drug Policy Alliance, a leading sponsor of drug policy reform partially funded by Soros through his Open Society Foundation.

 

Uruguay is presenting an innovative model for cannabis that will better protect public health and public safety than does the prohibitionist approach,” Nadelmann said.

But who is “using” the most…

 

 

So USA is #1 in something!!


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/6WabS7vqY6w/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Uruguay Legalizes Pot Trade, But Who “Uses” The Most?

The attitudes toward cannabis are shifting rapidly,” says a former DEA-agent-turned-pot-growing-company-lawyer, adding that “the potential social and financial returns are enormous.” As ironic as that maybe, perhaps it is why Uruguay has just become the first nation in the world to allow its citizens to grow, buy and smoke marijuana. As Reuters reports, the pioneering government-sponsored bill establishes state regulation of the cultivation, distribution and consumption of marijuana and is aimed at wresting the business from criminals. “Our country can’t wait for international consensus on this issue,” said one politician as demand is rising globally as the following chart shows

 

DEA Agent becomes Pot-growing-firm lawyer… (via The Atlantic):

Patrick Moen is a 36-year-old former supervisor at the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency, where, until recently, he led a team based in Portland that fought methamphetamine and heroin traffickers. 

 

Now, he is embarking on a career change. A rather dramatic one.  The Wall Street Journal reports today in a delightful article that Moen has become the in-house lawyer at Privateer Holdings Inc., “a private-equity firm that invests solely in businesses tied to the budding legal marijuana industry.”

 

In other words, the revolving door between business and government just made an unexpected, and very druggy, turn.

 

 

“The potential social and financial returns are enormous,” Moen told the Journal said of his new business. “The attitudes toward cannabis are shifting rapidly.”

 

Indeed they are.

As Uruguay appears to show (via Reuters):

Uruguay’s Senate is expected to pass a law on Tuesday making the small South American nation the world’s first to allow its citizens to grow, buy and smoke marijuana.

 

The pioneering government-sponsored bill establishes state regulation of the cultivation, distribution and consumption of marijuana and is aimed at wresting the business from criminals.

 

Cannabis consumers would be allowed to buy a maximum of 40 grams (1.4 ounces) each month from state-regulated pharmacies as long as they are over the age of 18 and registered on a government database that will monitor their monthly purchases.

 

Uruguayans would also be allowed to grow up to six plants of marijuana in their homes a year, or as much as 480 grams (about 17 ounces). They could also set up smoking clubs of 15 to 45 members that could grow up to 99 plants per year.

 

The bill, which opinion polls show is unpopular, passed the lower chamber of Congress in July and is expected to easily pass the Senate on the strength of the ruling coalition’s majority.

 

 

“Our country can’t wait for international consensus on this issue,” Senator Roberto Conde of the governing Broad Front left-wing coalition

 

Rich countries debating legalization of pot are also watching the bill, which philanthropist George Soros has supported as an “experiment” that could provide an alternative to the failed U.S.-led policies of the long “war on drugs.”

 

 

“This development in Uruguay is of historic significance,” said Ethan Nadelmann, founder of the Drug Policy Alliance, a leading sponsor of drug policy reform partially funded by Soros through his Open Society Foundation.

 

Uruguay is presenting an innovative model for cannabis that will better protect public health and public safety than does the prohibitionist approach,” Nadelmann said.

But who is “using” the most…

 

 

So USA is #1 in something!!


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/6WabS7vqY6w/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Uruguay Becomes the First Country to Legalize Marijuana

Today the Uruguayan Senate approved a
marijuana legalization bill that was passed by the House of
Representatives last July. After President José Mujica signs
the bill, Uruguay will become the first country in the world to
fully legalize cannabis. Under the bill, which Mujica championed,
the government will grow marijuana and distribute it to pharmacies,
where adults will be allowed to buy up to 40 grams (about 1.4
ounces) a month. The bill also
allows
home cultivation of up to six plants and nonprofit
distribution by cannabis clubs similar to Spain’s. Uruguay’s drug
control agency has until mid-April to write regulations for the new
system.

While Uruguay is smaller in population and land area than
Colorado and Washington, the two U.S. states that have legalized
the commercial cultivation and sale of cannabis, it is the first
nation to officially allow marijuana distribution for recreational
use. Although the Dutch government for decades has tolerated retail
sales of marijuana at so-called coffee shops, the drug remains
illegal in the Netherlands. “It’s about time that we see a country
bravely break with the failed prohibitionist model and try an
innovative, more compassionate, and smarter approach,”
says
Hannah Hetzer of the Drug Policy Alliance. “For 40 years,
marijuana prohibition has been attempted, and it simply hasn’t
worked. But rather than closing their eyes to the problem of drug
abuse and drug trafficking, Uruguay has chosen responsible
regulation of an existing reality. Let’s hope others soon follow
suit.”

from Hit & Run http://reason.com/blog/2013/12/10/uruguay-becomes-the-first-country-to-leg
via IFTTT

Guest Post: Why Our Consumer-Debt Dependent Economy Is Doomed

Submitted by Charles Hugh-Smith of OfTwoMinds blog,

If you understand the difference between the first pair of shoes and the 25th, you understand why America’s debt-dependent consumer economy is doomed.

Yesterday I explained Why We’re Stuck with a Bubble Economy:

Now that interest rates are near-zero and mortgage rates are rising from historic lows, there is no more juice to be squeezed from low rates. Asset bubbles always burst, destroying collateral and rendering borrowers and lenders alike insolvent.

Without organic demand from rising real income and new households with good-paying jobs and low levels of debt, the consumer-debt based economy stagnates. This has left the economy dependent on serial asset bubbles that create phantom collateral that can support new debt, albeit temporarily.

The other critical dynamic is the marginal utility of additional consumption in a debt-dependent consumer economy. In an economy in which 49% of all residents (156 million people out of a total population of 317 million) receive a direct transfer of cash or cash-equivalent benefit from the central government, and millions of these people also receive cash and/or benefits from state and local governments (49% of Americans Get Government Benefits), poverty is relative rather than absolute for the vast majority of Americans.

The American economy is highly dependent on consumption. Household consumption accounts for about 35% of developing economies’ activity–roughly half of America’s 70% consumption economy.

As noted yesterday, with the earned income of the lower 90% of wage earners stagnant for four decades, America has enabled consumption by leveraging income and collateral into ever-rising mountains of debt.

The problem with debt, of course, is that it accrues interest, and that paying interest reduces the amount of income left to spend on consumption.

In this way, depending on debt to finance consumption is akin to the snake eating its own tail: at some point, the cost of servicing the debt reduces the income available to be spent on additional consumption to zero. Additional consumption becomes impossible without asset bubbles to temporarily enrich the households that own assets or “helicopter drops” of interest-free cash into household checking accounts.

This is how we have reached the point that a majority of U.S. households live paycheck to paycheck, as earnings are eaten up by essential bills and debt service.

Given that the majority of Americans already enjoy a considerable array of consumer goods and services, the only way to fuel more consumption is to entice consumers into buying more of what they already own or buy a replacement for a perfectly usable good or service. Let’s illustrate the concept of marginal utility with shoes.

To those with no shoes at all (a common enough occurrence in the 1930s Great Depression), the utility of one pair of shoes is extremely high: the utility (i.e. the benefits) resulting from owning that one pair of shoes is enormous.

Now consider an aspirational-consumer (i.e. someone striving to look wealthier and more successful than they really are) of the upper-middle class: this consumer might own several dozen pairs of shoes, and his/her problem is finding space for more shoes.

The retailer attempting to persuade this consumer to buy a 25th pair of shoes must overcome the diminishing utility (i.e. marginal utility) of yet another pair of shoes. This is accomplished by offering a “deal you can’t pass up” or appealing to the always pressing need to jettison last year’s style in favor of this year’s “new thing.”

Here’s the critical point of this dynamic: to the consumer who already owns so much stuff that he has to rent a storage facility to store all the surplus goods, the utility of any additional purchase is low. In practical terms, the utility has declined to the thrill of the initial purchase and the initial wearing/use of the new item. Beyond that, it’s just another pair of shoes in the closet.

To the manufacturer/retailer/government dependent on more sales for survival, the value of the first pair of shoes sold and the 25th pair sold are the same. The manufacturer/retailer needs to sell more shoes just to stay in business, and the government living off sales and other consumption-generated taxes also needs more sales.

In an economy in which most people have the essentials of life–i.e. the first pair of shoes with the highest utility–all consumption beyond replacing a hopelessly broken essential is of marginal utility.

An additional $1 of debt adds the same burden to the household whether it is spent on the first pair of shoes or the 25th pair. Taking on debt might make sense for the first pair of shoes, or the first bicycle, but it makes increasingly less sense for each additional pair of shoes or replacement bicycle: the debt piles up but the utility derived from the purchase is increasingly marginal.

The $3,000 I could spend on a replacement bike for the perfectly serviceable bicycle I bought used 15 years ago for $150 is of marginal utility; the better-quality parts and lighter frame, etc.–all the benefits that would flow from spending $3,000 for a “better, more modern” bike are extremely marginal to me, even though I put well over 1,000 miles a year on my bike. All those improvements are too modest to matter. This is the essence of marginal utility.

If you understand the difference between the first pair of shoes and the 25th, and the increasing diversion of income to interest payments that results from debt-based consumption, then you understand why America’s debt-dependent consumer economy is doomed.


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/Eazwd_9MNbM/story01.htm Tyler Durden

BlackRock Warns "High Valuations & Low Volatility Are A Lethal Mix"

BlackRock said there is a 20% risk that world events could go badly wrong, either because the eurozone acts too late to head off deflation or because of a chain reaction as the Fed starts to wind down stimulus in earnest. As The Telegraph notes, BlackRock’s risk indicator  is almost as high as it was just before the dotcom bust. “The ratio of the two is the key. High valuations combined with low volatility can make for a lethal mix. This market gauge sounded the alarm well before the Great Financial Crisis.” Furthermore, the largest asset manager in the world warns, “troubling trends of growing inequality and weak wage growth, bring into question the sustainability of profit margins.” What is good for investors is corrosive for societies, hardly tenable equilibrium.

 

Via The Telegraph,

BlackRock, the world’s biggest investor, has warned that central banks are poised to tighten monetary policy in the Anglo-Saxon countries and China, advising clients to be ready to pull out of global stock markets at any sign of serious trouble.

 

 

The group said in its 2014 Investment Outlook that investors have “jumped on the momentum train, effectively betting yesterday’s strategy will win again tomorrow”, but vanishing liquidity could leave them trapped if the mood changes. “Beware of traffic jams: easy to get into, hard to get out of,” it said.

 

 

the global system is still in the doldrums and far from achieving sustainable recovery. “The eurozone, Japan and emerging markets are all trying to export their way out of trouble. Who is going to buy all this stuff? The maths does not work. Not everybody’s currency can fall at once,”

 

 

BlackRock’s risk indicator – measuring “enterprise value” against earnings, adjusted for volatility – is almost as high as it was just before the dotcom bust. “The ratio of the two is the key. High valuations combined with low volatility can make for a lethal mix. This market gauge sounded the alarm well before the Great Financial Crisis,” it said.

BlackRock said there is a 20pc risk that world events could go badly wrong, either because the eurozone acts too late to head off deflation or because of a chain reaction as the US Federal Reserve starts to wind down stimulus in earnest.

 

 

the eurozone is “stuck in a monetary corset”, failing to generate the nominal GDP growth of 3pc to 5pc needed for economies to outgrow their debt burdens.

 

 

BlackRock said the profit share of GDP has soared to a modern-era high of 12pc of GDP, while the workers’ share has collapsed from 66pc to 57pc in one decade. “This speaks to troubling trends of growing inequality and weak wage growth, and brings into question the sustainability of profit margins.”

There is a 25pc chance that the world navigates these reefs and achieves a “growth break-out”. Even if that happens it will not help stocks, and will be “bad for bonds”. The Goldilocks outcome for markets is another year of feeble growth, buttressed by central bank largesse that leaks into asset bubbles. What is good for investors is corrosive for societies, hardly tenable equilibrium.


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/eFGsPkgBJzM/story01.htm Tyler Durden

BlackRock Warns “High Valuations & Low Volatility Are A Lethal Mix”

BlackRock said there is a 20% risk that world events could go badly wrong, either because the eurozone acts too late to head off deflation or because of a chain reaction as the Fed starts to wind down stimulus in earnest. As The Telegraph notes, BlackRock’s risk indicator  is almost as high as it was just before the dotcom bust. “The ratio of the two is the key. High valuations combined with low volatility can make for a lethal mix. This market gauge sounded the alarm well before the Great Financial Crisis.” Furthermore, the largest asset manager in the world warns, “troubling trends of growing inequality and weak wage growth, bring into question the sustainability of profit margins.” What is good for investors is corrosive for societies, hardly tenable equilibrium.

 

Via The Telegraph,

BlackRock, the world’s biggest investor, has warned that central banks are poised to tighten monetary policy in the Anglo-Saxon countries and China, advising clients to be ready to pull out of global stock markets at any sign of serious trouble.

 

 

The group said in its 2014 Investment Outlook that investors have “jumped on the momentum train, effectively betting yesterday’s strategy will win again tomorrow”, but vanishing liquidity could leave them trapped if the mood changes. “Beware of traffic jams: easy to get into, hard to get out of,” it said.

 

 

the global system is still in the doldrums and far from achieving sustainable recovery. “The eurozone, Japan and emerging markets are all trying to export their way out of trouble. Who is going to buy all this stuff? The maths does not work. Not everybody’s currency can fall at once,”

 

 

BlackRock’s risk indicator – measuring “enterprise value” against earnings, adjusted for volatility – is almost as high as it was just before the dotcom bust. “The ratio of the two is the key. High valuations combined with low volatility can make for a lethal mix. This market gauge sounded the alarm well before the Great Financial Crisis,” it said.

BlackRock said there is a 20pc risk that world events could go badly wrong, either because the eurozone acts too late to head off deflation or because of a chain reaction as the US Federal Reserve starts to wind down stimulus in earnest.

 

 

the eurozone is “stuck in a monetary corset”, failing to generate the nominal GDP growth of 3pc to 5pc needed for economies to outgrow their debt burdens.

 

 

BlackRock said the profit share of GDP has soared to a modern-era high of 12pc of GDP, while the workers’ share has collapsed from 66pc to 57pc in one decade. “This speaks to troubling trends of growing inequality and weak wage growth, and brings into question the sustainability of profit margins.”

There is a 25pc chance that the world navigates these reefs and achieves a “growth break-out”. Even if that happens it will not help stocks, and will be “bad for bonds”. The Goldilocks outcome for markets is another year of feeble growth, buttressed by central bank largesse that leaks into asset bubbles. What is good for investors is corrosive for societies, hardly tenable equilibrium.


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/eFGsPkgBJzM/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Things That Make You Go Hmmm… Like "Nothing Being What It Seems"

Investors all over the world are confronted by markets that have been dressed up for the amusement of the crew in charge of the ship, and nobody seems to recognize what they are looking at. Sure, they look like markets, but at the same time there is an unfamiliarity that is extremely unnerving to at least a few in the gathering crowd. The majority of the mob, however, have decided that they look enough like markets to charge in blindly in the expectation that all will be as it should. Things are not as they should be. Far from it.

Everywhere one looks are signs that the markets are just monkeys dressed up in fancy costumes…

From benign inflation, housing’s recovery, improved unemployment, and sustainable profitability; Grant Williams destroys the myths of the disturbing disconnects between these “headlines” and the facts in his must-read letter…

Countries all seem far rosier when viewed through the prism of stock market performance and government bond prices than when examined realistically by means of a long, hard look at the underlying economies — particularly if the necessary adjustment is made to account for the extraordinary level of stimulus applied by all and sundry.

Which provides the perfect segue…

Raoul Pal and Remi Tetot of Global Macro Investor (one of, if not the, very best macro publications available anywhere) put this chart together for their most recent monthly and kindly gave me permission to use it.

It is without question the single best chart I’ve seen to explain the reality of all-time highs on the S&P 500 in relation to the application of trillions of stimulus dollars. This chart obviously applies solely to the USA, but no doubt we would find a similar pattern in just about all the major, QE-riddled markets.

The chart shows the S&P 500 deflated by QE — and it’s breathtaking:

There’s your all-time-high stock market, folks.

Just another primate dolled up like a sailor, I’m afraid.

Don’t follow the crowd and dive into markets just because everybody else is doing so.

That’s how monkeys end up getting hanged.

 

Full Letter below…

Ttmygh Dec 09 2013


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/Z4qpjumZdDo/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Things That Make You Go Hmmm… Like “Nothing Being What It Seems”

Investors all over the world are confronted by markets that have been dressed up for the amusement of the crew in charge of the ship, and nobody seems to recognize what they are looking at. Sure, they look like markets, but at the same time there is an unfamiliarity that is extremely unnerving to at least a few in the gathering crowd. The majority of the mob, however, have decided that they look enough like markets to charge in blindly in the expectation that all will be as it should. Things are not as they should be. Far from it.

Everywhere one looks are signs that the markets are just monkeys dressed up in fancy costumes…

From benign inflation, housing’s recovery, improved unemployment, and sustainable profitability; Grant Williams destroys the myths of the disturbing disconnects between these “headlines” and the facts in his must-read letter…

Countries all seem far rosier when viewed through the prism of stock market performance and government bond prices than when examined realistically by means of a long, hard look at the underlying economies — particularly if the necessary adjustment is made to account for the extraordinary level of stimulus applied by all and sundry.

Which provides the perfect segue…

Raoul Pal and Remi Tetot of Global Macro Investor (one of, if not the, very best macro publications available anywhere) put this chart together for their most recent monthly and kindly gave me permission to use it.

It is without question the single best chart I’ve seen to explain the reality of all-time highs on the S&P 500 in relation to the application of trillions of stimulus dollars. This chart obviously applies solely to the USA, but no doubt we would find a similar pattern in just about all the major, QE-riddled markets.

The chart shows the S&P 500 deflated by QE — and it’s breathtaking:

There’s your all-time-high stock market, folks.

Just another primate dolled up like a sailor, I’m afraid.

Don’t follow the crowd and dive into markets just because everybody else is doing so.

That’s how monkeys end up getting hanged.

 

Full Letter below…

Ttmygh Dec 09 2013


    



via Zero Hedge http://feedproxy.google.com/~r/zerohedge/feed/~3/Z4qpjumZdDo/story01.htm Tyler Durden

Bill O'Reilly, a Famous Cannabis Critic, Lashes Out at Cannabis Critics

I wrote
Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use
 to debunk the
purported moral distinction between the psychoactive substances
that Congress has decided to ban and the psychoactive substances
that remain legal. As I discovered when I discussed the book
on The O’Reilly Factor several years ago, that show’s
host also does a pretty good job of showing how specious this
distinction is, although not on purpose. O’Reilly was at it again
last night, blowing a gasket
over The Denver Post‘s
hiring
of a marijuana editor. Although the editor, Ricardo
Baca, will oversee a wide range of marijuana-related coverage,
including the ins and outs of transforming a
countercultural symbol into a capitalist commodity, what really
offended O’Reilly was Baca’s plan to hire a cannabis critic:

The Denver Post has actually hired an editor to
promote pot. Think about this. The only reason you use weed,
outside of a medical situation, is to intoxicate yourself. And of
course that can lead to bad things: DUI, the use of harder
drugs…They’re promoting marijuana use!…

They’re hiring a critic who is going to have to ingest marijuana
and tell everybody what’s the best intoxicant to use….If you have
teenagers, do you want them to read where the best pot is in the
state?…

They’re going to tell you what the best bud is…where to buy it,
how to prune it, how to roll it. This is promoting the use of an
intoxicant by The Denver Post

When Fox News analyst Juan Williams noted that marijuana is
legal in Colorado and drew an analogy to wine reviews, O’Reilly was
puzzled. “That’s not an intoxication deal, is it?” he asked. “You
can drink wine without getting inebriated.”

Well, that depends what you mean by “inebriated.” Wine drinking
is indeed “an intoxication deal,” in the sense that one of the
things people like about wine is the psychoactive effect of the
alcohol. Nonalcoholic wines do exist, but they are far less popular
than the real thing. And the idea that drinkers experience degrees
of intoxication, while marijuana consumers do not, has no basis in
reality.

Explaining such matters to O’Reilly is like addressing an
extraterrestrial who not only has never consumed an intoxicant but
cannot comprehend why humans might want to do so. This
extraterrestrial also does not know that newspapers carry reviews
of alcoholic beverages and of the establishments that serve them,
along with intructions for making such drinks at home:

Shouldn’t they hire a booze columnist…to say, “Look, this is the
best way to get high”? “Here we can drink Bailey’s, or we can drink
gin. Here’s how you mix it.”…Why don’t you just set it up like,
“Here’s the bar in Denver where you can get the cheapest chasers
and the most gin for your money?”

Although a drink featuring gin and Bailey’s does not sound very
appealing, it is simply bizarre that O’Reilly thinks publishing
cocktail recipes would be so reckless and socially irresponsible
that no reputable periodical would ever do so. O’Reilly displays a
similar cluelessness when he deems it “absurd” that The Denver
Post
 does not want its employees to smoke pot at work
“even though we have a marijuana critic and we’re going to tell you
where to get the best bud.” Presumably he also would consider it
ridiculously inconsistent for a newspaper that reviews beer, wine,
or distilled spirits to ask its employees not to drink on the job.
But the rest of us can only scratch our heads at the derangement
caused by attempts to defend the arbitrary lines drawn by our drug
laws.

[via
The Huffington Post
]

from Hit & Run http://reason.com/blog/2013/12/10/bill-oreilly-a-famous-cannabis-critic-la
via IFTTT

Bill O’Reilly, a Famous Cannabis Critic, Lashes Out at Cannabis Critics

I wrote
Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use
 to debunk the
purported moral distinction between the psychoactive substances
that Congress has decided to ban and the psychoactive substances
that remain legal. As I discovered when I discussed the book
on The O’Reilly Factor several years ago, that show’s
host also does a pretty good job of showing how specious this
distinction is, although not on purpose. O’Reilly was at it again
last night, blowing a gasket
over The Denver Post‘s
hiring
of a marijuana editor. Although the editor, Ricardo
Baca, will oversee a wide range of marijuana-related coverage,
including the ins and outs of transforming a
countercultural symbol into a capitalist commodity, what really
offended O’Reilly was Baca’s plan to hire a cannabis critic:

The Denver Post has actually hired an editor to
promote pot. Think about this. The only reason you use weed,
outside of a medical situation, is to intoxicate yourself. And of
course that can lead to bad things: DUI, the use of harder
drugs…They’re promoting marijuana use!…

They’re hiring a critic who is going to have to ingest marijuana
and tell everybody what’s the best intoxicant to use….If you have
teenagers, do you want them to read where the best pot is in the
state?…

They’re going to tell you what the best bud is…where to buy it,
how to prune it, how to roll it. This is promoting the use of an
intoxicant by The Denver Post

When Fox News analyst Juan Williams noted that marijuana is
legal in Colorado and drew an analogy to wine reviews, O’Reilly was
puzzled. “That’s not an intoxication deal, is it?” he asked. “You
can drink wine without getting inebriated.”

Well, that depends what you mean by “inebriated.” Wine drinking
is indeed “an intoxication deal,” in the sense that one of the
things people like about wine is the psychoactive effect of the
alcohol. Nonalcoholic wines do exist, but they are far less popular
than the real thing. And the idea that drinkers experience degrees
of intoxication, while marijuana consumers do not, has no basis in
reality.

Explaining such matters to O’Reilly is like addressing an
extraterrestrial who not only has never consumed an intoxicant but
cannot comprehend why humans might want to do so. This
extraterrestrial also does not know that newspapers carry reviews
of alcoholic beverages and of the establishments that serve them,
along with intructions for making such drinks at home:

Shouldn’t they hire a booze columnist…to say, “Look, this is the
best way to get high”? “Here we can drink Bailey’s, or we can drink
gin. Here’s how you mix it.”…Why don’t you just set it up like,
“Here’s the bar in Denver where you can get the cheapest chasers
and the most gin for your money?”

Although a drink featuring gin and Bailey’s does not sound very
appealing, it is simply bizarre that O’Reilly thinks publishing
cocktail recipes would be so reckless and socially irresponsible
that no reputable periodical would ever do so. O’Reilly displays a
similar cluelessness when he deems it “absurd” that The Denver
Post
 does not want its employees to smoke pot at work
“even though we have a marijuana critic and we’re going to tell you
where to get the best bud.” Presumably he also would consider it
ridiculously inconsistent for a newspaper that reviews beer, wine,
or distilled spirits to ask its employees not to drink on the job.
But the rest of us can only scratch our heads at the derangement
caused by attempts to defend the arbitrary lines drawn by our drug
laws.

[via
The Huffington Post
]

from Hit & Run http://reason.com/blog/2013/12/10/bill-oreilly-a-famous-cannabis-critic-la
via IFTTT