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When Shanelle Dates became pregnant, she asked her doctor if she would be able to continue taking part in Pennsylvania’s medical marijuana program. He told her she could and also that the other drugs she had been using before she joined the program—for severe gastrointestinal issues, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder—would be even more risky for her baby than the marijuana. Her ob/gyn and mental health counselor also recommended she continue to use marijuana. But the day she arrived home from the hospital after giving birth, a local Children and Youth Services caseworker showed up at her door. While the agency hasn’t said why they sent a caseworker, Sabrina McCloe Smith, head of a nonprofit that aids medical marijuana users, says it is common for mothers who use medical marijuana to be investigated. In 2018, lawmakers required healthcare providers to report all prenatal exposure to drugs, even if the mother was using the drugs as prescribed by a physician.

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I rarely watch cable news anymore. It’s all hysteria, all the time.

CNN: “We are destroying the planet.”

MSNBC: “The middle class is disappearing!”

President Donald Trump says drug trafficking “is worse than ever!”

I’m glad my favorite magazine, Reason, cuts through the gloom and tells us the truth: There is less war and more food. We live healthier and longer lives. HIV will soon be history. We are increasingly free to be whoever we are and love whom we want. Even work has become more pleasant.

It’s a surprising message, since most journalists tell us everything’s terrible.

“They’re wrong,” says Katherine Mangu-Ward, Reason‘s editor-in-chief, in my new video.

Why is the media so negative?

Mangu-Ward says evolution wired us to see a world in which things are bad. “If you are a caveman who hears a little rustling in the weeds and you say, ‘Oh, it’s probably fine’ and the other guy says, ‘It’s probably a tiger!’ that’s the guy who lives. That guy was our ancestor.”

So today, as life gets better, my profession wins clicks and ratings points by hyping whatever makes us afraid. Reporters ignore gradual improvement and, sometimes, miracles.

“We live in a world of reliable miracles,” says Mangu-Ward. “When I’m having a bad day, I trawl the internet for videos of happy cyborgs…hearing-impaired people getting cochlear implants turned on for the first time…paraplegics walking with the help of adaptive prosthetics, infants getting their first pair of coke-bottle glasses…things that, in another era, would have caused the founding of an entire religion!”

Even food is better. Meatless meat tastes as good as meat from an animal because “people want to make money by selling you a burger that didn’t hurt a cow,” says Mangu-Ward.

OK, so science moves forward, but how will we pay for it? News anchors tell us “the middle class is shrinking.”

That’s true, says Mangu-Ward, “because people are getting richer!” A chart in Reason shows that Americans moving out of the middle class mostly moved up. There are more high-income people than ever before and fewer low-income households.

Another Reason article points out that “pestilence, war, famine and death are all on the decline.” You wouldn’t know it from other news sources, but it’s true. Deaths from war have declined dramatically.

I pushed back, pointing out that American life expectancy dropped recently. Suicide among white men is up about 40 percent.

“Still, overall, that is the tiniest blip,” says Mangu-Ward. “People are living longer, healthier lives.”

Even work got better.

“If you watch the news, you would think absolutely everyone is America is laboring in an Amazon factory, crying while they fill boxes. That’s just not, on average, what work looks like,” says Mangu-Ward.

“A couple hundred years ago, work was dangerous. It was very easy to die at work,” she reminds us. “Work was extremely boring, even for people that had good jobs. Jobs are pretty interesting now, and they mostly don’t kill you, and we should be grateful for that.”

Reason‘s writers aren’t dumb. They don’t pretend everything is rosy.

The magazine includes reporting on “the terrifying rise of authoritarian populism,” threats to a free internet, and worries that “Americans aren’t saving nearly enough.” But Reason is the rare publication that also points out good news.

When looking at that, Mangu-Ward sees a pattern.

“Everything that’s bad is politics; everything that’s good is the market.”

Markets allow every individual a choice. Products and services must improve, or you won’t buy them. That’s why market competition brings us gradual improvements.

Politics, by contrast, gives us just two choices. Then it forces everyone to obey whatever the majority chose.

“At Reason (we) describe why everyone should have less power over each other…because people are going to make mistakes and hurt each other. Better that they shouldn’t do it with the force of the state behind them,” concludes Mangu-Ward.

She suspects life will continue to get better “if we can just manage to keep politicians from screwing it up.”

COPYRIGHT 2019 BY JFS PRODUCTIONS INC.
DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM

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Banning flavored e-cigarettes is all the rage among politicians these days. It’s an alarming trend that poses a clear and present danger to public health.

The epidemic of misguided meddling began earlier this month when Michigan Gov. Gretchen Whitmer announced that she planned to unilaterally criminalize the sale of e-cigarettes in flavors other than tobacco. The contagion quickly spread to the White House, where President Donald Trump said his administration plans to impose a similar ban at the federal level; New York, where Gov. Andrew Cuomo this week declared an “emergency” ban; California, where Gov. Gavin Newsom said he would copy Cuomo if it were legally feasible; and Chicago, where Mayor Lori Lightfoot called for legislation aimed at closing “the gateway” to adolescent nicotine addiction.

The official justification for these measures is recent increases in vaping among teenagers, who overwhelmingly prefer the flavors that Whitmer et al. want to ban. Yet those flavors are also very popular among adults who have switched from smoking to vaping, a far less dangerous source of nicotine.

In a 2018 survey of 69,000 adult vapers who were asked which flavors they used regularly, just 8 percent said “tobacco,” while 83 percent said “fruit,” 71 percent mentioned flavors in the “dessert/pastry/bakery” category, 13 percent said “menthol,” and 10 percent picked “mint/wintergreen.” Eighty-one percent of the respondents described themselves as former smokers, 13 percent were still smoking, and 5 percent had never smoked. Among the former smokers, 75 percent had started vaping when they quit.

Surveys of former smokers find that flavor variety plays an important role in the process of switching to vaping. The Food and Drug Administration (FDA) has acknowledged “the role that flavors…may play in helping some smokers switch to potentially less harmful forms of nicotine delivery.”

Former FDA chief Scott Gottlieb, notwithstanding his concerns about underage vaping, recognized the enormous harm-reducing potential of e-cigarettes, describing them as a “tremendous public health opportunity.” Yet the FDA now plans to ban nearly all of the vaping products used by former smokers, which is likely to drive many of them back to a much more dangerous habit while deterring current smokers from making a switch that could save their lives.

The evidence suggests that vaping is replacing smoking among teenagers as well as adults. The prevalence of cigarette smoking among high school students has fallen to record lows as the prevalence of vaping has increased, and a 2018 study found that the decline in smoking among teenagers and young adults accelerated as vaping became increasingly common.

Some public officials and journalists have insinuated that legal e-cigarettes have something to with recent reports of severe respiratory illnesses among vapers. Yet in the vast majority of those cases, the patients had vaped black-market cannabis products.

The leading theory among state and federal investigators is that the illnesses are caused by additives or contaminants in those products, and possibly also in black-market nicotine e-liquid. One plausible culprit is vitamin E acetate, which was detected in most samples of THC fluid tested by the FDA and New York’s state lab.

“The e-cigarettes and the vaping devices are often used to vape other substances,” such as “THC” and “vitamin E acetate,” Cuomo noted this week. “And many of these other products have no controls on them whatsoever, the so-called counterfeit products. They’re not cleared by the FDA. There’s been no analysis of them at all. So vaping is dangerous.”

Under the cover of “vaping is dangerous,” Cuomo is imposing a ban that will lead to greater use of “counterfeit products” that are “not cleared by the FDA,” have not been analyzed, and “have no controls on them whatsoever.” How does that make sense?

Selling e-cigarettes to minors is already illegal. Instead of enforcing age restrictions, the prohibitionists want to prevent adults from obtaining the vaping products they demonstrably prefer, which will predictably result in more smoking-related disease and death. That’s a pretty strange way to protect public health.

© Copyright 2019 by Creators Syndicate Inc.

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The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau began investigating the Seila Law for potential violations of federal telemarketing regulations. Seila Law was not cooperative, however. When the CFPB issued a civil investigative demand (CID) for relevant documents, Seila failed to comply. The CFPB went to court seeking an order forcing Seila’s compliance, and Seila responded by contesting the CFPB’s constitutionality. According to Seila, the CFPB’s structure violates the separation of powers.

In May, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit rejected Seila’s arguments. Seila responded with a petition for certiorari to the Supreme Court, and prompted an unusual response.

Today, the Department of Justice filed its response on behalf of the CFPB, and it was not the typical brief in opposition. Rather than argue against granting the petition, DOJ endorsed Seila’s call for certiorari, and noted that the CFPB itself now accepts the argument (which DOJ had previously endorsed) that the CFPB, as structured, is unconstitutional. Specifically, DOJ and CFPB accept the argument that the prohibition on removal of the CFPB’s Director absent cause is unconstitutional.

With both Seila Law and the federal government supporting certiorari, there’s a decent chance the Supreme Court will accept this case for review—adding another potential blockbuster to what is already a stacked Supreme Court term. If so, the Court will likely appoint an amicus to argue in defense of the CFPB’s constitutionality. Expect a decision on the petition later this fall.

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Minneapolis, Minnesota, has passed a strict new law regulating the ability of landlords to screen potential tenants by researching their credit scores, criminal backgrounds, and eviction histories.

On Friday, the City Council unanimously approved an update to the city’s Renter Protection Ordinance, requiring landlords to apply “inclusive screening criteria” when selecting applicants or else follow an onerous “individualized assessment” process.

“This ordinance provides a necessary protection for residents by ensuring they are not exploited with excessive move-in costs and have a fair opportunity to access housing,” said City Council President Lisa Bender in a statement following the vote.

Under the inclusive screening process, property owners are forbidden from rejecting a potential tenant for having an insufficient credit score, or for having insufficient credit history.

Landlords are also forbidden from turning down potential tenants for any misdemeanor convictions older than three years and for most felony convictions older than seven years. The law does allow landlords to reject applicants that have been convicted of murder, manslaughter, kidnapping, or first-degree criminal sexual conduct, but only if those convictions were within the last 10 years.

The inclusive screening process also prevents landlords from rejecting tenants for evictions older than three years.

Rental property owners who use the individualized assessment process are allowed to reject applicants because of their criminal record, credit score, or eviction history. Before they do so, however, the landlords must first give tenants the opportunity to provide supplemental information about the nature and severity of potentially disqualifying past behavior. A landlord who still wants to reject someone after considering this supplemental information must provide a written reason for denying their application, a copy of which must be filed with the city.

The new Minneapolis law also forbids landlords from charging security deposits that exceed a single month’s rent.

City landlords are predictably upset about the new requirements, saying that it gives them little room to decide who they rent their properties to while raising their costs of doing business.

One landlord told the Star Tribune that the new screening requirements would leave him “at a loss for how we’re supposed to figure out who the good tenants are and who the bad tenants are.” He said that he would likely raise rents at his properties or sell them in response to the new law.

Other landlords, in public comments submitted to the city council, said that the ordinance would raise insurance rates, and therefore rents, at rental properties. Still others complained that the individualized assessment procedures outlined in the law are unworkable and will leave landlords vulnerable to housing discrimination lawsuits.

The Minneapolis law also raises some constitutional red flags, says Ethan Blevins, an attorney with the Pacific Legal Foundation, a public interest law firm.

“You have a fundamental right with respect to the right to exclude people from your property and you don’t abandon that when you decide to become a landlord,” says Blevins. “Arguably these things burden that right because you are unable to use relevant factors in deciding whether or not you want someone to occupy your property.”

Blevins and the Pacific Legal Foundation are currently suing Seattle, Washington, over similar rental regulations that bar landlords from considering tenants’ criminal history.

Proponents of such regulations have argued that a criminal record is a poor predictor of tenant behavior, and that credit scores don’t accurately reflect people’s history of paying rent. Using these metrics to screen tenants, they say, makes finding housing even harder for folks who are already struggling.

Given that landlords are the ones assuming the risk of renting to a tenant, however, it seems reasonable to leave it to them to decide how to screen their tenants.

Blevins argues that it’s up to the government to tackle any disproportionate impact from landlords’ use of sensible screening methods, possibly by making it easier to expunge one’s criminal history, or by creating a certification program for rehabilitated ex-offenders.

Minneapolis’ new tenant screening regulations go into effect in June 2020 for landlords who own 15 or more units. Those with fewer units have until December 2020 to comply with the new law.

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The Trump administration is ramping up pressure on Congress to pass a rewritten version of the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) before the end of the year, but the new deal is likely promising more than it will actually deliver.

In a speech to conservative policymakers and members of Congress on Tuesday, Vice President Mike Pence argued that Congress should pass Trump’s much-ballyhooed United States-Mexico-Canada Agreement (USMCA) because the new trade deal will boost the U.S. economy. Specifically, Pence singled out automakers as one of the big winners under the proposed trade deal, which still has to be ratified by all three nations before it takes effect.

Passage of the USMCA would “make sure there’s more autoworkers’ jobs for decades to come,” Pence said Tuesday during an event hosted by the Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank.

Pence has become the administration’s primary cheerleader for the trade deal—both at public events like the one on Tuesday and others hosted over the past few months, and in private as the administration tries to sway members of Congress. Promising that the USMCA will create more auto-making jobs has been a central part of Pence’s message. The White House has also been touting a more general figure, based on an analysis by the U.S. International Trade Commission (ITC), showing that passage of the USMCA will boost growth by 0.3 percent annually.

Provisions of the trade deal “will eliminate the historic incentive to move manufacturing jobs out of the United States of America,” Pence said Tuesday, while promising that the USMCA “levels the playing field for American workers and American jobs.”

But Pence is overselling what the USMCA would do. In fact, the new trade deal includes a handful of protectionist measures that will likely slow the U.S. economy in general and harm American automakers specifically. At the same time, the ITC analysis of the trade deal is likely overselling the potential benefits.

“On balance, the pact would hurt rather than help the U.S. economy,” wrote Jeffrey J. Schott, a senior fellow at the Peterson Institute for International Economics, a pro-trade think tank.

Rather than boosting growth by 0.3 percent, the ITC analysis actually projects a 0.12 percent decline in growth, Schott argued, because it gives the USMCA credit for some developments—like new rules aimed at “reducing uncertainty in policies on data, e-commerce, and intellectual property rights”—that are already the de facto standard for trade between the three North American nations.

A separate analysis by the C.D. Howe Institute, a Canadian think tank, also concluded that the “negative elements of [USMCA] outweigh the positives and will result in lower real GDP and welfare for all three” countries involved in the deal.

Many of those “negative elements” have to do with new rules the USMCA would impose on automobile manufacturing across North America.

Beginning in 2020, when the USMCA is supposed to take effect, cars and trucks must have 75 percent of their component parts manufactured in North America in order to move across borders tariff-free. That’s a significant increase from the 62.5 percent threshold required under NAFTA. Additionally, 40 percent of all component parts would have to be built by workers earning at least $16 an hour—effectively creating a continent-wide minimum wage that will discourage automakers from building cars in North America.

Both these “rules of origin” requirements and the new minimum wage mandates might undercut the Mexican auto industry, which is a key part of supply chains that crisscross both sides of the U.S.-Mexico border. The Mexican government estimates that about 30 percent of cars currently made there would not meet the new requirements.

Instead of complying with the new regulations to trade duty-free, it’s likely that carmakers would simply pay the higher tariffs and pass those costs along to consumers. Indeed, even the Trump’s administration’s own ITC report says that consumer prices on cars in the U.S. would increase due to the USMCA—and that an estimated 140,000 fewer vehicles would be sold, while auto manufacturing jobs would decline by about 1,500.

If that’s true, however, one might wonder why groups like the American Automotive Policy Council, an auto industry group, have voiced support for congressional approval of the USMCA.

The answer is that they are likely more worried about what could happen if the USMCA doesn’t pass. Trump came into office promising to tear-up NAFTA, and passage of the USMCA seems like it might be the best way to avoid that worse-case scenario.

If the USMCA isn’t as great as Pence makes it sound, it is at least better than the economic damage that would be done to all three North American countries if NAFTA were dissolved without a replacement. That’s the unspoken part of the Trump administration’s pitch for Congress to pass the USMCA: refusing to do so might court chaos.

“Auto companies opposed the USMCA auto provisions during the trade negotiations, though they accepted the final deal for fear that Trump would implement his oft-repeated threat to pull out of NAFTA,” observed Schott. “And that’s why Trump needs to raise U.S. tariffs to prevent increased car imports and why he is using the excuse of a threat to national security…to block foreign shipments to the U.S. market.”

“Simply put,” Schott concluded, “Trump needs to protect U.S. producers against the damage done by his own trade pact.”

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