The Winners In The War On Drugs

Last week, Minneapolis mayor R.T. Rybak blamed white, middle-class, pot-smoking Minnesotans for murders in his city. He told MPR’s Cathy Wurzer:

This assertion is, of course, ridiculous on its face and smacks of a politician grasping at straws, looking for a someone to blame. He’s not the first politician to take the easy excuse rather than having the guts to admit the obvious: The War on Drugs is a miserable failure that creates more problems than it solves.

The first thing you have to come to terms with is that you will never eliminate human beings’ desire to alter their consciousness. We’ve been doing that throughout our history and we will continue to do so (see Prohibition). Then you need to look at who has won during our decades-long effort to fight drug use.

Jim Gray, a conservative judge in conservative Orange County, California, has changed his mind with regard to the War on Drugs. In 1992, he held a press conference during which he recommended that we rethink our drug laws. He is the author of Why Our Drug Laws Have Failed & What We Can Do About It: A Judicial Indictment of the War on Drugs
. In this interview, he discusses the six groups who benefit from drug prohibition. Found at YouTube from ReasonTV.

Outdoor Twins Baseball

I’ve been waiting since 1997, when the Twins started pushing for a ballpark, for the wonderful day I spent Sunday watching outdoor Twins baseball. Target Field is amazing:

FutureShock: Synthetic Life

This is a profound development. I wonder whether society is ready for it: Craig Venter and team make a historic announcement: they’ve created the first fully functioning, reproducing cell controlled by synthetic DNA. He explains how they did it and why the achievement marks the beginning of a new era for science. Found at TED.

Vikings Stadium Bill

Anyone who knows me knows I’ve been in favor of and advocated for sports stadia; both for the Minnesota Twins (and, gawd…look at that beautiful Target Field!!) and for the Minnesota Vikings. It’s also no secret that my rooting interest in getting a new stadium for our pro sports teams is my very own love of sports.

I’d be happy to argue all day with you the merits of pro sports for our state and our community but in the end it comes down to this: Building a stadium now will be less expensive. It is not a matter of if we will build a new football stadium, it’s a matter of when. We’ve seen this movie before in Cleveland; if we let the Vikings leave, we’ll see its sequel here in Minnesota. This state will inevitably build a new stadium to attract a pro football franchise back to Minnesota and the only difference will be a few years of an NFLless state and a significantly higher cost for the stadium.

We should pass this bill this year. The Strib compiled footage from the press conference: