Texas Progressives talk clean air, Rod Dreher, semi-legal pot

Prodded by Sharon Wilson, the EPA promises to take a closer look at emissions in the Barnett Shale, not just from individual wells, but compression plants and more. ABSOLUTELY needed. But? Drew Springer wants to cut people like her off at the state-level pass. He's authored a Texas Senate bill that would have a "loser pays" fee assessment against people who file three or more complaints against the TCEQ in one calendar year that have no action taken by it. The problem No. 1, as critics note, is that TCEQ may believe that issues cited by a complainant aren't a violation of either TCEQ regs or the federal Clean Air Act. And, if Drew thinks there's real abuses, up the cutoff to 10 a year, or 3 a month, or something like that. 

Socratic Gadfly, on hearing the latest, like Antony with Caesar, but, really, comes to bury Rod Dreher, not to praise him.

A wall all the way along the Rio Grande would cut ranchers off from water. Read about the horse rancher fighting the issue in Webb County, where the wall in general is not popular.

The Observer is the latest to talk about the pink-slime "news" site Dallas Express; reporter Steven Monacelli links it to "zombie astroturf" wingnut groups, which he covers in detail in a second piece. He quotes one person noting that their apparent failure, then resurrection as new groups, "is a feature, not a bug." Since they are 501(c)4, groups, and a Trump rule in 2020 not reversed by Biden allows such groups to hide their donors, the zombie angle is bad. The "recycling" also lets these groups act as incubators of new wingnuttery.

Shock me that, at the Monthly, Russell Gold is stanning for the genius of Elon Musk. Worse yet? It's their cover story.

Could the Lege decriminalize marijuana? I'll believe it when Danny Goeb and the Senate act.

As we've seen the garbage ChatGPT spews, and also how it games search engines, the Nation explains how big a battle is in court in a lawsuit between publishers and The Internet Archive. From the lawsuit itself, the piece goes into other issues with digital-only libraries and more. More from Inside Higher Ed. (Update, March 24: The four publishers were granted summary judgment. TIA says it will appeal. And, the Internet already has lies about the issue.)

Biden is deporting refugees back to Russia. Wonder what the warmongers of BlueAnon think of that? 

New York's Libertarian and Greeen parties are hoping the Supremes ovrturn onerous new ballot acess restrictions and beyond that, bring new review to this in general for all states. Reason has more.

Sylvia Poggioli is retiring from NPR.

What Would Jane Austen Do has a few words for Florida.  

Reform Austin reports on the State Senate giving the finger to green energy. 

The Austin Chronicle writes about a musicians' rally for increased pay at South By Southwest.  

El Paso Matters documents the link between climate change and your allergies. 

 Texas 2036 supports legislation to extend Medicaid coverage for new mothers to one year.

We want pot! We want it legal! We want it now!

As Texas is now semi-surrounded by New Mexico's legalization of recreational marijuana, Oklahoma still looking at ersatz full legalization, and Arkansas having medical legalization, per my updated blog post about that, Pew Research says 91 percent of Merika wants at least medical legalization, and 60 percent want the full meal deal.

Related, to a degree? The NYT explains the backdrop of state laws banning hanging air fresheners from mirrors. It notes that's why Daunte Wright was stopped in Minnesota — the law is often a pretext wedge.

That said, I'd like to see a state learn from both booze and tobacco and legalize it, but only with labeling and with THC-prorated taxes.

By the first, I mean, just like cigs have to list tar and nicotine, pot has to list THC, AND it has to list it versus "ditch weed."

By the second, I mean that 20 percent THC would be taxed as much as twice as much as 10 percent THC. I'd even be open to putting a cap on max THC.

More pressure on Texas to loosen pot rules

Unfortunately, due to the hidebound rules of a banana republic every-other-year Texas Legislature regular session, loosening of Texas' rules on legalized marijuana ain't gonna happen this year, unless Abbott includes it in the call for the redistricting special session.

But, the pressure is increasing.

I noted two weeks ago (and haven't checked the bill's status, but here's a bill-tracker site) that Oklahoma was considering expanding application for its wink-wink, nudge-nudge medical marijuana program to residents of all 50 states. This would seemingly be targeted most at Texas. 

And, no status check needed on this one.

Last week, in a special session, the NM Legislature approved full recreational marijuana. It's not a huge bill; it's not Colorado. Possession amount is 2 ounces plus growing for up to six plants, so essentially, it's full decriminalization of non-felony marijuana. And, per Cliff Pirtle of Roswell, had the NM Lege taken more time, it probably could have done better. But, nonetheless, this is a game changer. Former Gov. and Libertarian prez candidate Gary Johnson, who pushed for this 20-plus years ago, salutes the change.

 

(Update, April 12: It's now signed into law. Also, the bill automatically expunges old pot-related criminal records. )

Seriously, think about it. If roughnecks from the oil patch in Odessa, Andrews, etc., drive 62/180 to Hobbs to buy a bag, is DPS really going to waste time and money with entrapment efforts for speeding etc. on the state line?

(Update, April 19: Pew Research says we all want pot. It says 91 percent of Americans want either medical or recreational legalization and 60 percent want full legal recreational marijuana.)

In other neighboring areas, Louisiana has fairly liberal laws on medical marijuana, with the caveat it's for non-smokeable versions of pot only, and the second caveat that you can't take it in public.  Arkansas has kind of strict, but not too much, medical marijuana laws, but weed as well as edibles are allowed.

(Update, April 21: Virginia is now the first Southern state with recreational legalization, perhaps further increasing the pressure. It's a highly stringent legalization, though, if you look at the details.)

Beto-Bob O'Rourke doesn't walk the walk on legal pot (updated)

Yes, this is primarily a state issue, but to some degree, it's also a federal one. And, while Beto O'Rourke talks the talk about marijuana, as far as I know, he has sponsored no bill to even address the Drug Enforcement Administration continuing to list pot as a Schedule 1 drug, let alone do anything more than that. Anne Helen Peterson doesn't discuss this issue in her 8,000-world puff piece, which itself indicates how much Beto's putting it on the back burner in red-lands Texas. (I searched the piece. The word "marijuana" is not mentioned once. In turn, it seems like Beto is stereotyping old, white, red-lands Texas on this issue, as old, white, pro-pot Willie Nelson is from Abbott.

Per a piece Walker Bragman just wrote in The Intercept, the legend of "Beto loves pot legalization" most likely got its start from when he was on the El Paso City Council. There, it was simply a tactical ploy, threatening to start a dialog about drug legalization. Whether Beto then primaried Sylvester Reyes because he actually supported pot legalization or just because he was mad about Reyes threatening to whack Obama stimulus money for El Paso after the council approved a Beto-pushed regulation is open to debate, as is the issue of how much this played in Beto's first House run, period, as this went down in 2009 and Beto didn't run until 2012, not 2010. So, claiming this drove Beto to challenge Reyes is itself an uncritical promotion of the legend of Beto on pot.

In any case, by the time he got elected to DC, to any degree Beto actually believed in marijuana decriminalization, let alone legalization, in the hinterlands of El Paso, he took a pass in Washington. Kind of like Reyes.

In fact, in 2017, a bill was introduced in the House to force the Drug Enforcement Administration to move marijuana from Schedule 1 to Schedule 3. The bill has three co-sponsors in addition to the Congresscritter who introduced the bill. None of them is named Beto O'Rourke. The sponsor, Congressman Gaetz, even spoke about the bill on the floor.

Per Brookings, rescheduling down to Schedule 2, though it might mean less to state governments, would have at least symbolic value. As for what Brookings states about many people in officialdom worries about international law obligations, I believe Canada just legalized pot nationwide, becoming official Oct. 17. And nearly 50 countries have decriminalized it. The horse is out the barn door.

==

This is kind of similar to the Cares act that got moderately more support in the Senate. That said, it would only have moved pot down to Schedule II. There's a fair difference between Schedule II and Schedule III, per this list of federal schedules.

Lupe Valdez is OFFICIALLY in the ring for Texas governor (updated)

Lupe Valdez, fmr Dallas Co. Sheriff

What was rumored a couple of weeks ago now seems official — Dallas County Sheriff Lupe Valdez has announced she has resigned to run for governor.

UPDATE, Nov. 30: The Texas Trib says there appears to have been some gun-jumping by North Texas media last night, whether out of enthusiasm for her candidacy or misinformation by the Dallas County Democratic Party. She has NOT officially resigned as of Thursday morning.

UPDATE 2, Dec. 6: It's now official, per announcement.

On the surface, this seems to  check all the boxes that Texas Democratic Party Chairman Gilberto Hinojosa and allies could want in terms of visibility. (The Chronic notes that she's reportedly his personal choice.) Beyond local, regional and possibly state visibility, she is also "connected," connected enough to have been named to the Democratic National Committee in 2010. (Meanwhile, it's funny AND weird that Gromer Jeffers says she's expected to officially file "as early as next week." Gromer, she's only got 12 days left, and you know the calendar.)

Beyond that, she checks the right boxes on social issues, and, in the wake of Senate Bill 4 on sanctuary cities, checks the right box on that, too.

Indeed, that's part of her story. She was born the child of migrant farm workers, so she knows the immigration story. As is being lesbian along with a woman. No arguing that. (Also no doubt that in her first run for re-election, she faced definite right-wing smears, led by then-Dallas Snooze op-ed "pundit" Rod Dreher.)

In fact, in 2015, looking ahead a couple of years, I said the party, at a minimum, could do far worse. (Andrew White, this year, certainly comes to mind.)

I've met Valdez in the past, when I lived in the Metroplex. Never did an actual interview, but talked with her at one community event in the Best Southwest suburbs. Besides her "story" she is generally personable, no doubt about it. And, per that link immediately above, her story, unlike that of Wendy Davis, needs no "polishing."

But, she's got baggage.

That starts with the failed state jail inspections in years past at Lew Sterrett. Yes, that started under her GOP predecessor Jim Bowles. But, it continued under her. Even if we assign the 2005 fail, as well as 2003 and 2004 to Bowles. she still, with 2006-09 failed inspections, had one more than him.

John Wiley Price, Our Man Downtown, took her to the proverbial woodshed in the middle of that period, for not keeping him in the loop — whether she was legally required to or not. Worse, the "loop" was having the Discovery Channel film improvements at Lew Sterrett — improvements that still weren't good enough for the state of Texas for two more years.

That was the same year that she got sued for false imprisonment. (Update: It was eventually denied a hearing in the federal system.) The "whys" of what led to the suit speak of an ongoing lack of organizational skills in the department, and fish rot from the head down.

As noted, I said in 2015 that she could be a good candidate, because of visibility issues and she might be less of a DINO than some in the past. Hell, she'd surely turn out the Hispanic vote better than fake Dem Tony Sanchez did in 2002.

But, that 2015 post was before Tom Wakely threw his Stetson, or Panama , whichever it is, in the race.

Beyond support for LGBT rights, and presumably reproductive freedom, and the right of sanctuary cities to be sanctuary cities to illegal immigrants, what sort of a platform will she have? Wakely's already on the record about supporting not just single-payer health care, but wanting a Texas state level version of a National Health Service, with the state of Texas having government owned health clinics around the state. And more. He wants to legalize pot. He's tough on climate change. He wants stronger gun control.

Until I hear Valdez flesh out some actual policy positions, assuming that Greens either don't run a candidate or don't run someone better than Brandon Parmer, Wakely's got my support. And per Brains' take earlier on initial rumors, how much of a "law-and-order Dem" is she? Specifically, versus Wakely on legalizing pot? Remember, she had years and years at Homeland Security, pre-merger Customs before that, and the federal prison system before that. What's her take on decarceration? Fifth Amendment issues? More? Remember, contra Democrats at the federal level who say "Oh the SCOTUS," that even "liberal" Justices don't always support civil liberties in the face of "law and order."

==

Personally, this is the most interested I've been in a Texas Democratic gubernatorial race since being eligible to vote in Texas.

Note: In 1994, I had moved here too late to vote vote Miss Ann, as I presume I would have, against Shrub. With me being a leftist of sorts, not just an evolving liberal, today, I surely still would have voted for her if I had 1994 choices with no Green Party and no viable, interesting independents. In 1998, I'd moved out of state by the general. Not sure I would have voted for Gary Mauro or not. I bought the idea of some state Dems and many national ones to let Shrub have a cakewalk. OTOH, "Democratic" Lite Guv Bob Bullock had already given Shrub a cakewalk path to the presidency. He' the second worst Texas ConservaDem of the last 20 years, behind only John Sharp. Sharp is worse for being less competent. And, speaking of?

Sharp's hand-corralled "dream team" candidate of Tony Sanchez in 2002 was barf-inducing. I can't remember if I voted for Dan Morales in the primary or not.

The late-entered Chris Bell was a bleah choice in 2006, and since then has proved that his "good government" schtick is bullshit. I voted for him over even worse choices in the primary, and over Kinky Friedman, who threw away a semi-serious chance at getting elected.

Bill White in 2010 was only slightly less bland than Bell, and a Dem insider neoliberal. And, with a Green option, I voted Deb Shafto in the general. Since Greens already had ballot access, I can't remember if I voted in the Dem primary or not.

Wendy Davis certainly wasn't bland in 2014. But, between her and Green pseudocandidate Brandon Parmer, I undervoted.

And Wakely's already been co-campaigning with Lite Gov candidate Tom Cooper, more of a dream team than Sharp's. Fortunately, they've not had Beto O'Rourke in their loop; Brains says (and I'm with him) that he's too much of a squish and that Sema Hernandez is the best Dem in that primary.

Speaking of Greens? The state party is reportedly still deliberating whether to seek ballot access. For petition-signing purposes, it had better have a decision before the start of early voting, and if it's a "go," announce it loud and clear. Wakely's got a platform that's as solid as many a Green candidate would put together. And, Valdez may well not be bad.

I'm not just talking about governor, though; what I'm getting at is that this governor's primary is quite possibly going to draw in a bunch of left-winger Dems who can't sign Green petitions if they vote in the Dem primary. And, that then means that if a ballot access drive is started tardily, downballot Greens suffer.

Hat tip to Brains for noting the non-resignation AND for noting how Valdez would very likely boost turnout and jazz up down-ballot Democratic races.

That said, if Greens do decide to do a ballot access drive (which they had BETTER do if Dems don't fill up their CCA card) I'll have to sit out if I want to sign it.

#Marijuana legalization not a walk in the park — take note #GlennGreenwald, #libertarians

Mark Kleiman/Wikipedia

Mark Kleiman, one of the top scholars in America on drug policy and public policy, and certainly no shrinking violet on social libertarianism, has some definite words of "whoa, now," for the likes of Glenn Greenwald who paint an almost utopian result of drug legalization.

Kleiman's focused only on marijuana, not harder drugs, and even there, he says that legaalization is not a panacea, and might not even be that close. In part, he invokes images of "Big Pot," paralleling Big Tobacco and Big Alcohol, with vested financial interests in keeping those who are addicted in a state of addiction.

And, that's a good starting point. Contra some libertarians and other who say pot isn't addictive, Kleiman says, try again:

There's only one thing wrong with legalizing weed and that's that a certain number of people will get in trouble with it. ....

I mean will wind up with cannabis habits that are bad for them.  Many of them will know it.  Some of them won't.  Also that teenagers will use more of it.  We don't really want to get back to 1979 when 10% of high school seniors reported that they were daily or near daily cannabis smokers.

A lot of people on the pro-legalization side are still in denial about the cannabis abuse problem.  The numbers are about 33 million people will say in a survey that they've used cannabis in the last year.  About half of those, about 16 million, say they've used it in the last month.  Of those, about a quarter say they use 25 days or more per month.  In a different survey that folks over at Rand did the people who smoke many days per month also use a lot more per day.  That very heavy user group accounts for 85 or 95 percent of the total cannabis consumed.

About half the people who are daily or near daily users just from their own self-reporting in the surveys meet clinical criteria for abuse or dependence.  Cannabis is interfering with their lives and they've tried to cut down and they can't. 

If anybody had intellectual reason to soft-pedal this information, it's a libertarian think tank like Rand, so I think we can say these numbers are pretty solid.

As for those analogies I mentioned? Here's Kleiman:

It's not just that the problem users are profitable, it's that nobody else is profitable.  More than 80% of what you sell is going to go to people who are smoking too much. That is true of alcohol today.

When the booze companies tell you they're in favor of responsible drinking they must mean they're planning to go out of business.  Responsible drinkers don't build breweries.  Breweries are built by [sic] people (who?) drink four or more drinks a day average year round.  The top decile of the alcohol population accounts for 50% of the alcohol consumed.  Put it a different way, 46% of all drinks consumed in the U.S. are consumed as part of drinking binges.

Maybe that should be "for" instead of "by," but I think we get Kleiman's point of view.

Whether it's Mexican cartels or legalized distributors, people who peddle an addictive substance, whether alcohol, tobacco or marijuana, have a vested interest in getting people addicted.

That, in turn, leads to Kleiman's bottom-line assessment, and implicit call-out to folks like Greenwald:

Anybody who tells you, you can legalize cannabis and not have more drug abuse is fooling himself. Of course we're going to have more. The question is how much more?

So, let's be honest.

Let's also be honest that when a Greenwald or a Carl Hart talk about a Portugal, and its drug counseling boards instead of criminal courts, they NEVER talk about how much setting up something like that would cost in the U.S.

Hart? He strikes me as just happy to bask in the recognition and fame of being a new-found black libertarian, and basically ignorant of larger libertarian issues, at least for now, as I've blogged before.

Greenwald? He damn well has some idea, or knows where he could get some idea, about how much this would cost. He also knows better than to argue with Kleiman one-on-one on details of drug policy.

This is about more than just calling out a noted libertarian like Greenwald.

Here in Texas, Rick Perry's made a comment or two about decriminalization, at least, and Wendy Davis had someone belated reaction, while Greg Abbott had the big sound of silence out of his camp. If Texas isn't prepared for a potential increase in addicted marijuana users, and what to do to address that, then it may have more problem then it bargained for. And, on the dollars side, we know that Texas is pretty cheap on governmental funding in general.

It's nice to see someone who knows what he's talking about on drug policy telling us to all tap the brakes on utopian claims about legalization.

Kleiman wraps up by talking about purity and standards issues with decriminalized or legalized pot. He suggests that, within a decade or so, if the country and pot distributors are smart, we'll have marijuana e-cigs.

My personal stance is that I favor at least decriminalization, and am open to full legalization of at least smaller amounts of marijuana.

But, I agree with Kleiman that this isn't anywhere near a panacea.

I'm also with him that, if we're going to do this, we need to measure pot for THC content, just like tobacco for nicotine and booze for ethanol.

Race, addiction, science, public policy: Carl Hart writes an oversold book

I just got done reading a pretty new addiction-related book, and no, it's not (yet) that hot new book by Dr. Dodes, profiled on Salon, The Atlantic and NPR. Rather, this is "High Price," by Ph.D. neuroscientist Carl Hart.

Carl Hart is good on the basics of what we know, and don't know, about addiction and neuroscience. He's decent on telling the story of his life, and on public policy, minorities and the "War on Drugs." However, where parts 1 and 2 intersect, he sometimes seems to soft-pedal part 1 for the sake of part 2.

Basic point 1 is that he is African-American, and grew up in lower-class neighborhoods in greater Miami, and therefore in a unique position to talk about race and addiction, race and other races' beliefs about addiction, etc.

But, that's not my first primary point. Rather, per ideas I've heard from people who think that AA is unscientific, it's about "following the science" on addiction. More specifically, it's about updating one's scientific knowledge of what may cause addiction, the little knowledge we have, being updated rather than being 20 years old. More specifically yet, that involves moving beyond simple, or simplistic, ideas that we can reduce addiction to a matter of brain neurotransmitters.

Neurotransmitters and neuroscience

And, specifically, addiction is NOT "All about the dopamine," or anything similar. I quote from his book:

When dopamine's prominent role in reward was first proposed, there were only about six known neurotransmitters: dopamine, norepinephrine, serotonin, acetylcholine, glutamate and GABA. Now there are more than a hundred. Furthermore, we now know that there are specific receptors -- or specialized structures that recognize and respond to a particular neurotransmitter -- for each neurotransmitter, and most neurotransmitters have more than one type of receptor. For example, dopamine has at least five receptor subtypes -- D1-D5. We also now know that hormones like oxytocin and testosterone can act as neurotransmitters.

But despite these ever-intensifying complexities, our theory about dopamine's role in reward has not been appreciably revised since it was first proposed [in the early 1990s]. And, as you will see later, a growing body of evidence casts doubt on this simplistic view of reward.

I knew a fair amount of this before I read Hart's book. But, his directly applying it to addiction, combined with his ethnicity and sociological background, gave me the perfect excuse, or reason, to blog about it more directly.

For more on neurotransmitters, which may, depending on how widely the term is defined, include a variety of peptides and even minerals like zinc, see Wikipedia. I mean, histamine and products related to several amino acids are neurotransmitters. It's much more than the few neurotransmitters that health-food stores, and Big Pharma, try to pitch us on. More on that in a minute

And, folks, that's why addiction isn't all about the dopamine. And why truly understanding addiction will proved to be more complex than current ideas.

Related to this is why an anti-craving drug like Naltrexone doesn’t work equally well for different addicts with different addictions and never will.

And bingo on who might be behind the “cravings” idea. Per Wikipedia, anti-craving drug Naltrexone's first clinical trials? 1992. And, also per Wiki, all the different addictions it's now possibly supposed to help on cravings? I think we've struck Big Pharma gold, or at least silver.

Also, while Naltrexone is an opiate receptor antagonist, Campral, also marketed as an anti-craving drug for alcoholics, works, or “works,” as a GABA receptor agonist. Different mechanism entirely than Naltrexone. Campral was first approved, in Europe, in 1989. That’s a bit earlier than the 1990s, but still in the same framework. Don’t let the European start fool  you, though; Western Europe is at least as Big Pharma friendly as the US. And Wellbutrin, marketed to help smoking cravings as well as being a non-SSRI antidepressant? It targets, in various ways, dopamine, norepinephrine, and acetylcholine. And, its actions on dopamine don’t seem  to be enough to explain its alleged effectiveness. (All three of these may target neurotransmitters beyond members of the “original six,” which Big Pharma hasn’t looked for. Material on Campral and Wellbutrin is also from Wiki.)

There’s more, just from basic browsing of Wiki. We’ve long known that nicotine is an agonist for certain acetylcholine receptors and triggers the release of sever al “old” and “new” neurotransmitters; why would we focus on dopamine?

And, even if dopamine has a fair role to play in addiction, Wellbutrin alone shows that it’s not a primary role.

Oh, and substitute "serotonin" for "dopamine," and what's said above about addiction is just as true for depression. And, the "serotonin deficiency causes depression" idea was proposed at the same time as the "dopamine shortage causes addiction" idea. Yet, despite early hype, we still don't know a lot about depression, other than knowing SSRIs often don't work a lot better than older anti-depressants.

Beyond that, other neurotransmitters, like acetylcholine, have various types of receptors, too.

Hart himself addresses the issue of “craving” near the end of the book. He says that for apparently non-addicted but regular users of various drugs, as tested in laboratory settings, “craving” did not seem to be a significant concern, on average. I question that. Also, given some libertarian-type political "connectedness" the book and Hart apparently have, I also "question" that he did not spell out how much of the "low dopamine = addiction" idea, like "low serotonin = depression," was pushed by Big Pharma. And, that may be why he doesn't talk about anti-craving drugs that much, and minimizes the issue of craving.

Unfortunately, Nora Volkow, head of the US government's National Institute on Drug Abuse, is one of the biggest pushers of the dopamine theory. I'm not sure if I would go so far as to claim this is a new version of the "disease theory" of addiction, though, as Stanton Peele does. Especially given that Peele is one of the most tireless promoters of theories of addiction that largely deny the existence of addiction, one can usually depend on him to overswing, and therefore, take what he says with a 1/3 off grain of salt.

Now, public policy issues in the book

Hart, as noted, is a black male, of about the same age as I am, who grew up in greater Miami in the late 1970s and 1980s. As such, he remembers the Reagan-era paranoia about crack cocaine vs. powder, which he covers in detail, including showing no difference in addictiveness levels, just as other researchers have done.

From there, he looks at what he sees in many ways as being a very similar alarm over methamphetamine, or “meth,” in the past decade. He notes that the number of meth users is much lower than cocaine users, first. Second, most stories about superhuman strength, etc. of alleged meth addicts are anecdotal, he adds. Third, and to the point, he notes how there is little chemical difference between amphetamine, the main ingredient in Adderall and other anti-hyperactivity drugs, and methamphetamine. After all, per basic chemistry, methamphetamine is just a methylated version of amphetamine, with a single methyl radical added. Or, in other words, it’s like Celexa and Lexapro. But, both of them are legal and heavily prescribed. On stimulants, Adderall and Ritalin are legal and heavily prescribed; meth isn’t.

Skepticism of some of his claims

I don’t totally agree with Hart. I think he tilts the scale toward “abuse” rather than “addiction” at times, and doesn’t allow for even people who are addicts, not just abusers, still having enough self-control to moderate their behavior in lab settings. I mean, the stories of alcoholics and addicts trying to pull one over on people are legion, and at some point, per the old cliche, "anecdotes" become "data." Hart talks about how some of his test subjects appeared intimidated about getting to the lab, but doesn't ask if any were still intimidated later.

Nor does he seem to ask himself if he’s over-reacting to some of his own personal, and his larger background as an African-American’s, take on things like the “crack menace” or “reefer madness” long before that.

Related to both points, he doesn't ask, as a very rare minority Ph.D. neuroscientist, if some of his test subjects are "trying to help a brother out." I hate to stereotype, and I'm not a minority, but, I've been around a boatload of drinkers and users. I'm liberal enough to know the War on Drugs is a crock, but I've been plenty a person be sober or clean for years, even a decade or more, "slip," and not be able to get back on track.

Nonetheless, he’s right indeed, in my opinion, that addiction is a complex issue. And why should this surprise us?

Some “purely physiological” issues are far more complex than originally claimed and even than some claim today. Cancer immediately comes to mind. Fifty years on, we’re not close to “winning” a “War on Cancer.”

At the same time? His wanting to make it look like addiction isn't that common approaches simplicity itself. I gave this three stars on book review sites. It's barely that, I think.

Political issues, of his own

Finally, I raise at least a partial eyebrow at his crediting Maia Szalavitz for helping get the book done. Szalavitz at least has a few of her toes in the pool of right-wing funded journalism, or "journalism," or is at minimum a "fellow traveler." Her association with places like STATS.org, which, per Wiki, has connections with Scaife money, American Enterprise Institute, etc., and is affiliated with George Mason University, is a red alert right there. That would probably explain, per some Amazon reviewers, Hart visiting Fox News, and ... more than once! I suspect, per those Amazon reviewers who would be clueless as to why, this was to get "in" with libertarian Fox watchers, not the religious right. Hart explicitly calls for decriminalization, which is neither neuroscience nor memoir.

Related to that, I'm tired of libertarians, starting with Glenn Greenwald, talk about what a success drug decriminalization is in a place like Portugal when most of them know that Portugal has a better "safety net" than we do and spends more government money on it than we do now, and than many libertarians here are willing to pay.

Greenwald, and Hart here, if they want to propose this, then fine ... be honest with how much this costs. And, if you're either too lazy to have researched that, or are afraid to tell people that, or else are a committed enough economic libertarian that you don't want the government paying that price, then shut up about the "Portugal solution."

Summation

You can find the neuroscience work, including on neurotransmitters and related issues, from other neuroscientists, or else from psychiatrists doing research work. In many cases, it won't be explicitly tied to the decriminalization issues, and possible peddling of harm reduction over abstinence, which reportedly Hart has done on some of his TV appearances.

This is a book that has more froth than substance, after a first look.

There is a sort of political silver lining. Maybe the US needs a few more black libertarians of prominence, if that's what Hart is becoming, as well as black social conservatives.

#WendyDavis supports gay marriage — today

Per that header, and her increasing schwaffling, clarifications, and nuancing, call me back about this headline tomorrow or next week, but today?

Wendy Davis supports gay marriage.

You want my honest reasoning why?

The federal district court in Kentucky that ruled yesterday that Kentucky must recognize same-sex marriage from other states.

So, just like her schwaffles on marijuana and abortion, where Davis said she's OK with whatever the public wants on medical marijuana, and that she's OK with following the lead of Rick Perry! on marijuana decriminalization, and she's OK with a reproductive choice bill halfway like what she filibustered last summer, this is more of the same.  (NO, Davis defenders, she did NOT personally and unequivocally support either one of the marijuana items.)

Davis popped up, looked around, didn't see a shadow from too much unavoidable bad fallout, and said, "Hey, I support gay marriage!" Because, in this case, you can always blame "the federal courts" if there's too much backlash.

Did you support it three months ago?

Will you support it three weeks from now?

Did you decide this yourself, or did J.D. and/or Matt Angle help you out?

Will you nuance this a week from now, saying you really meant to talk about a "local option" on gay marriage?

Just like earlier this week, on the school finance lawsuit, who decided that you should tell Greg Abbott to stop defending the state on it?

Even then, this:

“A settlement recommendation to the Legislature should be to reconvene, to look at these issues and to determine what we’re going to do to own our responsibility to the schoolchildren of Texas,” she said.

Was a bit weak, compared to Virginia's AG actually joining the side of plaintiffs on a gay marriage lawsuit there.

It may be good that you're "growing a pair," but what took so long? And, again, why should we trust that these statements won't get "nuanced" at some point in the future.

And, is this part of a strategy to stop tracking ever further to the right? If so, how long will it last?

Let's see ... can Texas raise the state minimum wage for workers on state-contracted job? That bold move from Davis, following President Obama's executive order, might be next.

Yes, I'm now skeptical almost to the point of being cynical.

Perry's right in that it is good news. I'm still right in wondering what took so long, and why. I guess I'm seeing this as a "reboot" in Davis' "packaging."

Unfortunately, the Texas Green party continues to sit on its ass. And, yes, I've decided to keep repeating that. Any Texas Greens that don't like it? You know the ball's in your court. Because, like Jim Moore, I can decide not to vote for anybody for guv if Brandon Parmer's lethargy continues.

#WendyDavis nuances #abortion, goes a bit wishy-washy on #marijuana

Texas Democratic gubernatorial candidate Wendy Davis talked to the Dallas Morning News editorial board about both of the above issues.

I actually pretty much agree with where she is on specifics of abortion, though I don't think the viability line is going to get pushed back to 20 weeks any time soon.

“My concern, even in the way the 20-week ban was written in this particular bill (that she filibustered last summer), was that it didn’t give enough deference between a woman and her doctor making this difficult decision, and instead tried to legislatively define what it was,” Davis said. ...

Davis said the U.S. Supreme Court would likely evaluate when a woman could end a pregnancy. A fetus is generally considered viable at 24 weeks, the previous abortion limit under Texas law.

“The Supreme Court sets that viability and it probably will be revisited,” Davis said. “It’s one that deserves that kind of reflection to determine whether that kind of constitutional protection should exist at a time period less than what it is right now.”

Davis said she could have supported a bill that contained only a 20-week ban, but the law’s restrictions on clinics and doctors have greatly curtailed access to the procedure in parts of Texas.

Problem is, as I noted, unless one has a highly expansive definition of "viability," then a 20-week ban in general is not good right now, even with Davis' exceptions. And, given that the SCOTUS limit was 24 weeks, this would clearly be envelope-pushing, even had the Lege met her other concerns.

That said, here's the wishy-washy on pot:

“I do believe that Governor Perry’s approach is a reasonable approach, that we as a state need to think about the cost of that incarceration and, obviously, the cost to the taxpayers as a consequence of it, and whether we’re really solving any problem for the state by virtue of incarcerations for small amounts of marijuana possession.”

She said she would back legislation to decrease criminal provisions for possession of small amounts of marijuana. As for allowing the drug for medical purposes, Davis said she would want to know how voters feel.

“I don’t know where the state is on that, as a population. Certainly as governor I think it’s important to be deferential to whether the state of Texas feels that it’s ready for that,” she said.

Let's replace marijuana with "gay marriage," or just "gay rights."

(Update, Feb. 13: Ironic because Davis now says she supports gay marriage. My blog take on that is here.)

Should we have waited for the U.S. Congress to repeal, and President Obama, to sign into law, legislation repealing DOMA? Or tell state courts in the majority of the nearly 20 states that have approved gay marriage that they should "be deferential" to their particular states?

True, medical marijuana isn't as big an issue as gay marriage, at least to many. However, it may be more important than some.

The Snooze's opinion page blog now gives Davis a kudo as going beyond Rick Perry. I'll buy that, while noting that, had Perry not said what he did at Davos, Wendy Davis probably wouldn't have gone even that far, let alone as far as she has.

Anyway, the language sounds like what she used when she came out for open carry of handguns, then said, "wait, I meant local option."

Sometimes, you ... have to take a stand.

And, based on that, I have to disagree with Kuff's post: she's "straddling" more than she's "for" medical marijuana. That's especially true if you take in context, namely the context of the abortion statement at the same time and her backpedal on open carry a week ago.

Perry goes into much more depth on the abortion part. It's a good read.

And, he ends with this zinger:

Every time she tries to clarify something, it gets muddier.
This is a campaign in complete disarray, and we've reached the point where that can no longer be blamed on the handlers and the consultants any longer.

Sounds about right.

Unfortunately, the Texas Green party continues to sit on its ass.

Rod Dreher: Pot for me but not for thee; it's gotta be the gay

Rod Dreher channels his inner David Brooks on legalization of marijuana, and gets even worse.

Old "crunchy con" (I guess a nutbar with extra rocks in it can be "crunchy") Dreher says, nope, no pot for you, you huddled masses, you 47 percenter slackers. Only the financial titans vulture carcass feeders of America are entitled to smoke dope:

Most of these driven, type-A personalities would benefit heavily from being able to relax and avoid burn-out. If they experiment with drugs that function as source of stress relief (and pot does that better than anything else!), they see their experiences as overwhelmingly positive. They project those positive experiences externally on the general population, to the extent that they are in urban population centers which have little contact with “ordinary” Americans (those who feel their lives offer little prospect for advancement or self-improvement).

So, like children out of wedlock, this becomes another example of how something that works well for elites can simultaneously become a disaster for the underclass. Middle/lower-class employees in America need the energy and drive to show up at miserable jobs and work long hours for meager wages. That’s something you get from caffeine or nicotine, not from THC. If they mellow themselves out, they become the proverbial pot-smoking ex-roommate on the couch who never holds the same job for more than a couple months, due to apathy and disinterest. So successful members of the working-class are disproportionately not pot-users, and perceive unsuccessful pot-smoking members of their circle of friends and family leeching off them. This is a totally different set of immediate social references than those urban elites ever get to experience.

Old Rodney tries to spin himself as a moderate libertarian, even to the point of deceiving Oprah. But really? He's a hardcore far rightist on social issues who has never met a conservative religious based issue where he didn't want maximum state regulation against your personal rights.

He's antigay and personally homophobic. He's a racism apologist. (Related to that, he's probably some sort of Lost Cause Confederate mythologist.)

But, more than apologizing for the likes of Paula Deen, per the first of my two links in the paragraph above, it's teh gay that really bunches Rod's knickers in a knot. So much that the former Catholic, who's sampled from all the different waters of conservative Christianity, also got his dander up over the idea that Pope Francis might want to turn down the Vatican's boiling pot of antigay down to a low simmer.

So, it's gotta be teh gay, eh Rod?

Pot for me but not for thee? Maybe we should only let straights have pot because, well, teh gay will go all jungly-jiggly on us if they toke, you know? Some big gay black buck might want to molest Rod, fulfilling both his worst nightmare and possibly his top secret dream.

You know, Rod? Most gay and lesbian people just want to be treated as, and called, people. The Castro-district types are a small minority and probably, were it not for gay rights issues, they'd find some other reason to get their freak on.

And, you know, Rod? If you didn't rabidly foam at the mouth over stuff like this, on teh gay, then go on to write classist and racist crap like this on marijuana, people would not take such sharp shots at you.

#GaryJohnson ... the real Libertarian, #RonPaul and 2012

The *real* Libertarian, the former New Mexico governor not Ron Paul, has gotten the Libertarian Party presidential nod.

First, per a link inside this Daily Beast overview of what he could do in the race, I love how the WSJ disses his "outside the mainstream" views on gay marriage and legal marijuana, when they're both majoritarian (were I not voting Green, he'd likely be ahead of Dear Leader as my second choice).

Second, it's true that he walks the libertarian walk in a way Ron Paul doesn't. Above all, having been an executive, he had no problem pulling the veto trigger. Paul, of course, has brought bacon a-plenty home to his Congressional district, then offered the same excuse as Ayn Rand did with Social Security.

How "pure" is he? He vetoed a bill passed by the N.M. legislature that, in its initial form, had been pushed by his own wife. Still vetoed it; said it had been changed too much.

Third, he is a social libertarian to a degree far beyond Paul. He doesn't "favor" gay marriage because he doesn't favor the state regulating marriage at all.

That said, he's no Jill Stein.  He still stand well behind her in my affections. He's got "issues" as well as issues.

He was strongly pro-voucher for public schools, built multiple private prisons (including one in Hobbs when I lived there), is big on privatization in general, and, while not anti-environmental, isn't strong on it; Wiki lists his full political positions (which, unlike most politicians, don't change).

Majority favors pot decriminaliziation

The AP tried to fudge poll information on this issue, as California heads into an initiative vote on this in November, and Raw Story busts its chops.

There's some other interesting poll findings at that link, which undercut the bipartisan War on Drugs. (Yes, PR aside, Team Obama is still fighting that war, even against pot.)

Now, if you're a marijuana cartel, since this is headed for the November ballot via initiative, do you fund a campaign against it, and if so, how?

Drug-war non-change we can't believe in from Obama

Because, as he showed at his town hall, President Barack Obama, either from fear of the political establishment, or other reasons, won’t give us that change on marijuana legislation.

Instead, Team Obama first tried to have him simply not answer the No. 1 question on the town hall website.

Then …

As Sullivan notes, the answer Obama DID give was weak, and dismissive of the background of the issue.

Here’s a much more in-depth take on Obama acting like Bill Clinton 2.0 when he had the chance to do much more.

And, at least one MSLB may have shut down comments on one post for a similar reason.

Steve Benen and/or Washington Monthly staff closed comments on this thread, his usual end-of-day political roundup.

Why?

My best guess is a throwaway link about Obama’s town hall and saying he’s not going to legalize marijuana.

Benen’s “close the thread” antic is as weak and chickenshit as Obama’s answer to the marijuana-issue was, though neither is quite as bad as Team Obama removing the question from Obama’s original list of questions to answer.

The larger issue, though, is beyond the War on Drugs. The attempt by Jared Bernstein et al to simply ignore this issue, as posted on the town hall website, shows what I’ve known for nine months or more, with the e-mail addresses, ignoring requests that he not flip flop on FISA telecom immunity, etc.

The “openness” of electronic democracy is going to pretty much be a one-way street.

When a Washington Monthly ‘open thread’ is not

Steve Benen and/or WM staff has closed comments on this thread, his usual end-of-day political roundup.

Why?

My best guess is a throwaway link about Obama’s town hall and saying he’s not going to legalize marijuana.

Benen’s “close the thread” antic is as weak and chickenshit as Obama’s answer to the marijuana-issue was, though neither is quite as bad as Team Obama removing the question from Obama’s original list of questions to answer.

Update, 2:30 p.m. Central: Benen says he has never closed a commment thread as a blogger, via e-mail. I ask him to explain why, both then and now, this particular post is the only one on the page where you can't comment, either in the comments pop-up box or the permalink.

I told him I stand by my assumption that he, or somebody else at WM (I didn't say it was necessarily you, Steve), deliberately did the closure. But, I find it hard to believe this is an Internet or blogging program glitch.

Hey, if you did it because of NORML comments, per Team Obama trying to avoid discussing the question, fine. But, something happened, and it appears deliberate.

Finally, in his second e-mail, not his first, Benen, after referring to comment moderators in the original e-mail, says it was specifically because of some Xanax spam. Why he didn't mention that in the first e-mail, I don't know.

He also said he's not usually informed of when moderators (which include Blue Girl still, I'm sure... blecch; another "salute Democrats only" liberal who booted me from a joint blog after inviting me) intervene. Well, you told me the cause, in the second e-mail, Steve. Let's see how long it takes you to follow my suggestion and actually note, at the end of the post, that's a closed post.

And, to claim you're unaware of when a moderator shuts down a comment thread?

You, like most big bloggers, read the threads and actually post responses on occasion. Please. I'm not 100 percent buying that, either.

If that is 100 percent true, you have an internal communication problem, then. Don't blame that on me either.

Other than that, I know, I'm a mix of left-liberal, civil libertarian and anti-duopoly poster, which in the eyes of somebody like Steve, probably puts me at about 7.5 on the troll scale, 1-10.

And, I can be wrong at times. I was wrong about the cause of this shutdown. That said, I'll make another, not observation, but guess. Benen probably knew of the shutdown by the time I attempted to post, even if he didn't know the cause. How hard is it to update the last line of a blog post to say that it's no longer open due to spamming?

I've updated this blog twice, since Steve's first e-mail. True, it's a slow Friday at the office, but I do have a day job. And, I'm live-drafting for fantasy baseball at the same time.

One final thought: When I think of Democrats-right-or-wrong bloggers, I am reminded of the Iranian philosopher Idries Shah, who said, “There are never just two sides to anything.” Third parties aren't necessarily the “right” side, but they are a third or fourth or fifth side that deserves a hearing.

Could a real green stimulus go up in smoke?

California State Assemblyman Tom Ammiano wants to legalize and tax marijuana to help get the Golden State out of its dire straits.

Since pot does about 2.5 times as much in sales as all California veggies combined, it’s an idea with merit. Possibly as much as $1.3 billion in California taxes merit

He also notes, in his Salon interview, it would save millions on California’s prison system.

Bush has pot on brain

President Bush and the Department of Just-Less apparently just can’t stand the idea that a casual toker might be having fun. So, at today’s Barney Frank-Ron Paul hearing on a new marijuana decriminalization bill, three BushCo thugs had to crash the party. Per Raw Story, it sounds like a “Reefer Madness” moment.

Frank and Paul want to decriminalize pot –let’s do more

If their House bill becomes law, up to 100 grams (3.6 ounce) of marijuana would be decriminalized, as would “personal transfer” of up to 1 ounce.

It’s good as far as it goes, but it could do better. Move marijuana off Schedule 1 classification of controlled substances.

I mean, stuff like various forms of opium, methodone, morphine, hydrocodone (Vicodin), oxycodone (OxyContin), hydromorphone (Dilaudid), amphetamine, methamphetamine and phenobarbitol are all on the list of allegedly safer Schedule II drugs.