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William Bennett and Robert White join Power Line to discuss their new book, Going to Pot: Why the Rush to Legalize Marijuana is Harming America. B
ennett and White trace how marijuana has gone from the days of Reefer Madness to being legalized in four states, with more expected to follow. Their research-driven book has some disturbing information about how marijuana leads to abnormal brain development and they argue more Americans should be hesitant to jump on the legalization bandwagon. For more information about the book, visit their website.
Then the Power Line team looks at some of the events of the week, including President Obama’s summit on countering violence extremism. By failing to call ISIS an Islamic group, is the United States underestimating the threat the group poses?
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By the way, can the average couple raising children in this country even afford to buy Marijuana anymore?
The parents I know have to give up a lot of pleasures that are much less controversial to provide for their children.
Wow. The Fire and Brimstone comes out! Can’t you just say they are going to Hell and move on?
I don’t think you are being fair at all. You say you smoked and took drugs at one point. You were lucky to not get caught. Apparently you didn’t need to be sentenced to Folsom to ‘reform’ yourself and find Jesus, but it’s ‘on them’ if they get caught. What a sweet guy you are! What’s with the caps by the way? Degenerate Gamblers? Do you know Bennet’s history or was that just a coincidence?
Marijuana is cheap, by the way. Very cheap. Another testament to drug enforcement results.
My father was a Degenerate Gambler. When Mom found out that he had borrowed money from a loan shark (the Post Office never could, try as they might over the course of 30 years, promote him past the entry level position he started in on a Seasonal basis in the 1960’s – he died a few years after retiring in the 1990’s, of a stomach cancer that kept him from keeping food down for 3 months and metastasized with frightening rapidity into his Lymph Nodes … and he died owing the IRS money because he raided his own IRA to support his gambling habit) she kept him on an Allowance for 20 years (until the divorce). When they sold the house, he blew through $75,000 in two years.
Can it honestly be said that William Bennett has so strong an urge to gamble that his career has had the same arc? He may have been lucky, or he may have made better career and life choices that have allowed him to not be the degenerate Gambler who drives into Vegas in a $30,000 car and rides back out in a $50,000 bus.
And it’s by foregoing on a lot of cheaper pleasures that many responsible parents in this country pay for the expensive pleasures. Gas prices didn’t drop by that much between the time people eschewed vacations for stay-cations because they had children to raise.
Pot is probably harmful and certainly not beneficial. Why are we opening up another can of worms with legalizing such a substance? Count me with William Bennet. I am not a Libertarian. Society is not served by legalizing this crap.
If you want to cite examples from their book of the data they cite being spurious and anecdotal, do so. Otherwise use other terms to reveal your bias.
I need to know who sings the closing song “Victoria.” It is catchy and really sticks in my head.
The Kinks off their album Arthur. They were incorrigible pot smokers by the way.
Marijuana legalization is an issue I’m about as undecided on as any, although I’m much more pro-decriminalization than I used to be. My advice to legislators would be to see what happens in the states that have decriminalized it before making any rash moves.
The podcast guests mentioned that marijuana is much more potent today than it used to be, but did not discuss why this is so. Milton Friedman has argued quite persuasively that prohibition of drugs pushes the producers of drugs towards more potent forms of drugs. I’m a new follower of Friedman, so I may be accepting his argument too uncritically, but I found it persuasive.
Also, Bennett and White focused on explaining why marijuana is bad, and seemed to assume that this is a sufficient argument for making it, or keeping it, illegal. Conservatives and classical liberals should assume that when debating criminalization, the burden of proof is on those who seek to criminalize.
I consider Bill Bennett a throwback, but on this pot issue I agree. Today’s pot is far more potent than the 70s. It’s a hallucinogenic. It is not chemically related to alcohol. Never was. Being impaired or under the influence of booze is a different experience than a psychedelic high on pot. You are not likely to hold a conversation with Napoleon while hanging off the bar stool. Pot is dangerous.
I have no idea if it’s any more addictive than any other habit forming drugs or activities. Not my point. There are different strengths I suppose. Still, smoking a drug that blows your head off is not a prescription for good health.
Yes, I recognize the country is on an irreversible legalization path. Still, that doesn’t make it a good idea. Treating it as a controlled dangerous substance requiring a prescription might have been a cautious interim step. Sure, it was widely abused by doctor and patient alike, but the states could at least have tested out the efficacy of partial legalization before jumping off the cliff.