A double blind study at Meir Medical Center in Israel found that smoking two joints a day had a significant impact on Crohn’s Disease symptoms, with roughly half of the patients taking the drug considered in complete remission (symptoms greatly reduced) during teh study. No significant side affects were reported. See the study at Pub Med for more details.
And yet the US Federal Government still won’t remove Marijuana from schedule 1 because there are supposedly no medical uses for Marijuana.
The District Attorney in Philadelphia has decided to drop criminal charges in 50+ cases that involve marijuana possession. They will no longer be prosecuting these cases.
Dan McLaughlin wrote an excellent Op-Ed in the LA Times. In it he explains the trade-offs involved with the three solutions usually suggested after a mass shooting, like the recent tragedy in Parkland, FL.
In short, the only simple solutions come from people who are willing to give away rights that they don’t care about (privacy, speech, guns), but that other people do care about.
According to this article in Ars Technica, the European Parliament has asked the European Commission to review the costs and benefits of Daylight Saving Time. There are lots of hoops before the EU could drop DST but it is great to see this idea gaining traction. The change was spurred by 70,000 Finnish citizens who signed a petition against DST.
But according to Newsweek, Florida wants to be on DST all year round, to help with tourism and sleepy schoolkids.
This NY Post article says that Tickets sales for the Reputation tour are “disappointing” because not one concert date has been “sold out”, and also because prices are much higher than previous tours. The NY Post has it all wrong.
Those sell-outs and lower prices have largely been an illusion. The buyers in those immediate sell-outs are often not the fans that will be sitting in the seats. Many of the initial ticket sales go to brokers for resale. Broker tickets won’t be sold to an actual attendee until later, maybe even just before the show. And, that attendee will pay a significant markup over the face value. So if you look at ticket sales from the perspective of the actual concertgoer, these shows didn’t really sell out immediately. And the prices paid to a broker are always higher than face value. Recently ticket buying bots have taken over, making it even harder for consumers to compete with brokers when it comes to buying face-value tickets. Team Taylor Swift has found a way take out the middle man, by essentially scalping their own tickets.
So, what does that involve? Mainly charging more realistic prices up front. The main reason brokers can make money is that tickets are usually priced far below what fans are willing to pay. This is especially true when people decide to attend a concert after the concert sells out. By charging higher prices up front they reduce the profit available to the broker and therefore reduce the incentive to buy and resell tickets.
Raising the prices also slows down the ticket sales, making face value tickets available for a much longer period. When a concert doesn’t sell out, the broker’s markup is further limited. So the fact that these concerts are not selling out as quickly is by design. If the pricing is done perfectly a concert will sell the last seats right at showtime. Even if they have a few tickets left over, the fact that they are capturing a large share of the resale profit means the artist is making more money overall. This Rolling Stone article gives a great explanation.
So, while some fans are upset and complaining about the new pricing model, they should be happy that the money is going to the artist rather than a middleman.
There is activity at both ends of the country right now to challenge the “War on Sex”.
First in California. The ninth circuit court of appeals is hearing arguments in a case that claims California’s prostitution laws violate residents right to privacy. They are trying to build on US Supreme Court case (Lawrence v. Texas) that struck down sodomy laws in Texas in 2003. The argument is that consensual sex between sex workers and clients should be treated the same. Or, as one of the judges on the Ninth Circuit put it, “Why should it be illegal to sell something that you can [legally] give away for free?
Next over to Washington DC where David Grosso, a DC Council member, is pushing a bill that would decriminalize prostitution. His bill repeals many laws and portions of laws that make exchanging sex for money illegal. Mr. Grosso points out that his bill follows the recommendations of several human rights organizations like those that I have written about in the past. Prostitution that involves coercion or minors would still be illegal.
Not surprisingly, Mr. Grosso is also for legal marijuana, safe injection sites and looser drug laws in general.
Prohibitionists predicted the worst in 2000 when Portugal decided to decriminalize all drugs. Now the UN International Narcotics Control Board considers Portugal an example of how to do it right. Overdose deaths are down, HIV transmission is down, use hasn’t significantly increased. The key seems to be providing treatment to all who need it. I wonder how the cost of this plan compares to the cost of incarceration? Beyond the dollars, the social costs of the war on drugs are pretty steep.
According to this article in the NY Times, the Canadian Prime Minister will be introducing a law that legalizes marijuana in the entire country. While there are some details to be worked out, it appears that the Canadians want to avoid the craziness we have in the US where marijuana is legal in several states but is still illegal under federal law.
The only other country that has taken this step is Uruguay, but it is time for more countries to admit that prohibition doesn’t work.
According to an article in PC World., the republicans in the US Senate voted today to drop some privacy rules for the FCC, allowing ISPs to sell our online activity data to third parties without having to notify us. I have already sent a message to my representative in the house to let her know that I think she should vote against the change.
It may not come up for a vote this year, but according to the Chicago Tribune, Illinois lawmakers have introduced a bill that would legalize and tax marijuana. The logic is that “marijuana prohibition creates far more problems than it prevents.” Plus, the plan might generate $350 million in new tax revenue.
I personally have no interest in using mind altering substances but I hate seeing tax money wasted on an ineffective prohibition. It funds organized crime, corrupts law enforcement and incarcerates thousands of non-violent citizens.