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Group 11: Marijuana Reform Should Focus On Inequality

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Group 11: Marijuana Reform Should Focus On Inequality

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Read: Ending weed prohibition hasn't stopped drug crimes
That outcome should not come as a surprise. A federally supported program set rules for tobacco growers from the Great Depression until early this century. Its history suggests that production regulations, when done right, can be a powerful tool to spread wealth-but also that, when done wrong, they are a highly efficient way of excluding people from an industry.

Much like today's marijuana regulators, the tobacco program inaugurated during the New Deal also instituted a licensure system. Not anyone could just move to North Carolina or Kentucky and start selling tobacco. A farmer needed approval from the U.S. Department of Agriculture. That approval came in the form of a tobacco quota-the right to produce a certain amount of tobacco for which a farmer would receive a guaranteed minimum price. The specifics changed over its 70-year history, but the essence of the federal tobacco program was simple: A balance between supply and demand could be achieved with a limited number of farmers producing a limited amount of tobacco.

The architects of this system intended it to protect a privileged group of Americans: white farmers. Concentrated in the South, where Democratic representatives in Congress were crucial to Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal coalition, tobacco farmers were of particular concern to policy makers. Quotas were set on a yearly basis based on USDA estimates of domestic and export demand. But they were rooted in historical production patterns, essentially locking in inherited wealth, excluding black sharecroppers and poor white tenants from this program benefit. Quotas were a government-created piece of property-property that licensed owners to engage in a productive activity, selling tobacco, that the government also subsidized. Although quota formulations were rejiggered over the years, the biases present in their formulation continued

But for all its flaws, the tobacco program succeeded at what it was meant to do: endowing a designated class of Americans with a way of life that buoyed entire regional economies. Because of strict production restrictions, tobacco farms were among the smallest for any staple commodity, which forestalled the consolidation of farms and an exodus of residents from rural areas. And there were many tobacco farmers in the middle stratum of the farm income ladder, and relatively few at the top. Small tobacco farms could still provide for a decent standard of living because tobacco was a high-value crop. Growing even a small amount could be lucrative. In 1980, an acre of cigarette tobacco was worth $2,700, as opposed to $150 for corn or $250 for soybeans. "There is absolutely nothing on this Earth that can compete with tobacco money," a USDA economist told The Washington Post in 1980. Except, he added, "illegal smoking material."

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independent farmers of color.eleven states

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middle stratum of the farm income ladder

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Marijuana Reform Should Focus On Inequality

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Read: Ending weed prohibition hasn't stopped drug crimes That outcome should not come as a surprise. A federally supported program set rules for tobacco growers from the Great Depression until early this century. Its history suggests that production regulations, when done right, can be a powerful tool to spread wealth-but also that, when done wrong, they are a highly efficient way of excluding people from an industry.

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Group 10: Trends in college students’ alcohol, nicotine, prescription opioid and other drug use after recreational marijuana legalization: 2008–2018

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Group 10: Trends in college students’ alcohol, nicotine, prescription opioid and other drug use after recreational marijuana legalization: 2008–2018

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Group 9: Border Patrol Union Head Admits Legalizing Marijuana Forces Cartels Out Of The Market

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Group 9: Border Patrol Union Head Admits Legalizing Marijuana Forces Cartels Out Of The Market

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Before Mike Bloomberg launched his 2020 Democratic presidential bid, he really wasn't shy about his disdain for marijuana legalization.

The former New York City mayor has been widely criticized this week after a recording surfaced of him defending controversial stop-and-frisk practices and racially disparate marijuana arrests during a 2015 Aspen Institute speech. But while that short clip went viral on social media, the full audio recording from the event also features Bloomberg condemning cannabis legalization efforts at length.

Asked by an audience member about his thoughts on Colorado's decision to end marijuana prohibition, Bloomberg said, "I think it is just a terrible, terrible idea."

Some of the remarks from the talk were previously reported by The Aspen Times, such as when Bloomberg asserted that marijuana use is associated with reduced IQ among young people- something President Trump also said in a recently revealed secret recording.

"What are we going to say in 10 years when we see all these kids whose IQs are 5 and 10 points lower than they would have been?" Bloomberg told the Aspen audience. "Kids' brains are being formed while they are teenagers.

But much of his anti-cannabis commentary from the talk has not been reported until now.

"If you're my age, of course you smoked a joint in the 60s-but it was very different and just because we did doesn't make it right," the former mayor, who has previously acknowledged his own past marijuana consumption, said. "It was not easily accessible compared to today. Today it's much stronger and potentially much more damaging."
Listen to Bloomberg's anti-marijuana remarks below:
"We are making progress in reducing smoking. We are making progress in reducing obesity and diabetes. We are making progress in reducing automobile deaths and a variety of other things," he said. But cannabis reform is going in "exactly in the other direction."

Bloomberg also disparaged the idea that a regulated market can prevent youth from accessing cannabis, stating that "even if you have a law that says we're not going to sell it to them, let's get serious: if there's more of it around, they're going to get it."

"I just can't imagine why society is doing this," he said. "I couldn't feel more strongly about it, and my girlfriend says it's no different than alcohol. It is different than alcohol. This is one of the stupider things that's happening across our country."

Erik Altieri, executive director of NORML, told Marijuana Moment that the newly revealed remarks show just how much work Bloomberg has ahead of him if he intends to reform his image as a tough-on-crime, anti-cannabis candidate.

"Bloomberg and his wealthy friends may be able to sit around and joke about how he was able to smoke a joint in the 60's and be just fine, but that is cold comfort to the over 440,000 Americans who were put in handcuffs for marijuana possession in New York City during his tenure as mayor," Altieri said. "He is painfully ignorant and out of touch with sound public policy and basic scientific facts."

"If he expects voters to treat him as anything other than an awful relic of a bygone drug war era he needs to correct himself on marijuana law reform issues immediately and somehow attempt to make amends for the countless lives he had a role in ruining," he said. "Unfortunately, given the number of other candidates vying for the presidency who are leaps and bounds ahead of him on this, that still might be too little too late for his self-funded presidential aspirations."

Bloomberg has been sharply rebuked this week over a different clip from the same 2015 recording where he defended the use of stop-and-frisk policing that disproportionately impacted communities of color.

An "unintended consequence" of targeting policing in those communities, he said, is that "people say, 'oh my god, you are arresting kids for marijuana that are all minorities.'"

"Yes, that's true. Why? Because we put all the cops in minority neighborhoods," he said. "Yes, that's true. Why do we do it? Because that's where all the crime is."

Bloomberg has taken steps since launching his campaign to pivot away from his reputation as anti-reform, voicing support for decriminalizing cannabis possession and allowing states to set their own policies.

But he continues to oppose cannabis legalization, and his past comments haven't been forgotten. A Denver-based reporter brought up the candidate's 2019 statement that legalization is "perhaps the stupidest thing anybody has ever done" and asked whether that meant he felt Colorado voters were stupid for approving the policy change.

"Colorado has a right to do what they want to do," he replied. "I would advise going slowly to any other state because it's not clear, doctors aren't sure whether or not it's doing damage. But if a state wants to do it, and Colorado and Washington were the first two that did it, that's up to the state."

"But what I really object to is putting people in jail for marijuana," he added. "That's really dumb."

Bloomberg and former Vice President Joe Biden are the only two Democratic candidates in the 2020 race who oppose federally legalizing cannabis.

Top Pro-Trump Lawmaker: Congress Will Ignore President's Push To End Medical Marijuana Protections

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Border Patrol Union Head Admits Legalizing Marijuana Forces Cartels Out Of The Market | Marijuana Moment

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The head of the labor union that represents U.S. Border Patrol agents acknowledged on Friday that states that legalize marijuana are disrupting cartel activity. While National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd was attempting to downplay the impact of legalization, he seemed to inadvertently make a case for the regulation all illicit drugs by arguing ...

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Group 8: There Would Be Many Negative Effects from Marijuana Legalization

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Group 8: There Would Be Many Negative Effects from Marijuana Legalization

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Electronic resource login page for University of Alabama Libraries.

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Group 7: Why is Marijuana Decriminalization Not Enough?

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Group 7: Why is Marijuana Decriminalization Not Enough?

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California Takes Righteous Aim at the NCAA Cartel 

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California Takes Righteous Aim at the NCAA Cartel 

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On this issue, conservatives should be rooting hard for America's most progressive state.

Free-market reform can come from the most unlikely places. California has passed a law that on January 1, 2023, will prohibit its colleges and universities from upholding "any rule, requirement, standard, or other limitation that prevents a student of that institution participating in intercollegiate athletics from earning compensation as a result of the use of the student's name, image, or likeness." This provision directly conflicts with current NCAA regulations regarding athlete compensation.

In plain English, it means that in California, a college athlete won't receive a salary from his school, but he can star in a local commercial or make royalties from the sale of merchandise featuring his name. He can hire an agent. He'll be treated - for the first time - like virtually any other student at the school. He won't have his off-campus earning power artificially limited by NCAA eligibility rules.

California's law is fundamentally just. Presently, the NCAA runs a multi-billion-dollar monopoly that not only refuses to compensate its most important workers fairly but has created a labyrinth of regulations that often treat athletes substantially worse than their student peers. And those regulations often fall on athletes who have far fewer financial resources than do students who enjoy economic opportunity without collegiate restraint.

The result is a perverse, often corrupt system where staggering sums of money flow to virtually everyone except the athletes who often lay their bodies on the line in front of stadiums full of adoring fans and an immense national-television audience. And no, their free education is not fair compensation for many of these athletes. Doubt me? Lift the earnings regulations and watch their income explode.

Sure, life won't change substantially for many university athletes. I'm not sure if there's much endorsement money available for, say, the fourth-ranked player on the college tennis team. But California's rules could be a boon for other athletes, especially those college stars who do not go pro (i.e., most college stars) and for their families.

Colleges should maintain academic eligibility rules. Coaches will continue to exercise immense control over an athlete's time. (The practice and travel commitments for college athletes can render their sports careers a full-time job.) But athletes still have spare hours in a week, and if they want to use them to help a local businessman to sell cars or mattresses, why should the NCAA stop that economic activity?

I'm fully aware that athletes at big programs will make more money. But does anyone think that the big programs don't already enjoy an extraordinary structural advantage? When was the last time the college-football playoff didn't feature either Alabama or Clemson? There are hundreds of athletes at other schools who can and will enjoy at least some economic benefit from a revised rule, and for some families that additional check may well help a mom make her rent payment on time.

As the statute's deadline looms, expect litigation. The law attempts to avoid the game of chicken by purporting to regulate both California colleges and the NCAA. It tries to ban the NCAA from implementing its eligibility rules. But while California has a strong legal claim to regulating its own schools, it has a much weaker claim to regulating the internal eligibility rules of a private, out-of-state association. A court may find that California schools are forced to comply with California law, but also that the NCAA is still free to impose its policies.

A game of chicken is underway. Unless something changes between now and the effective date of the California statute, the NCAA will likely face a choice - change its policies or exclude every university in the nation's most populous state. For perspective, that would mean no more March Madness for UCLA - the college-basketball program with the most titles in NCAA history. That would gut the Pac-12, as Stanford, Cal, USC, and UCLA would be forced to defy state law or drop out of the conference.

In theory, the NCAA can perhaps take the hit. (That's one reason why California universities have opposed the law.) It can wipe the California schools from the board and roll forward with a 49-state basketball tournament and a 49-state football tournament. Sure, ratings and revenue would take a hit, but the NCAA can gamble that the cost to California would be greater, that the looming loss of revenue and prestige would cause the state to reverse course, to repeal or delay the law rather than face a future with empty stadiums and an NCAA-sized hole in the budget.

That may well be the outcome - if California stands alone. But now is the time for other legislatures to act. If a state such as Florida enacted California's free-market reform, then the NCAA would be shaken to its foundation. Add a few additional SEC or Big Ten states to the mix, and the NCAA would have no choice but to cave. A decades-long injustice may finally be corrected. Will any other state follow California's lead?

David French is a senior editor of The Dispatch. @DavidAFrench

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California Takes Righteous Aim at the NCAA Cartel | National Review

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On this issue, conservatives should be rooting hard for America's most progressive state. Free-market reform can come from the most unlikely places. California has passed a law that on January 1, 2023, will prohibit its colleges and universities from upholding "any rule, requirement, standard, or other limitation that prevents a student of that institution participating in intercollegiate athletics from earning compensation as a result of the use of the student's name, image, or likeness."

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Electronic resource login page for University of Alabama Libraries.

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Group 2: Should College Student-Athletes Be Paid? Both Sides of the Debate

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Group 2: Should College Student-Athletes Be Paid? Both Sides of the Debate

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The debate rages on: Should college athletes be paid to play their sport? Read our take on both sides of the argument and watch our accompanying video here!

Originally Posted: Mar 20, 2017

Should college athletes be paid? People who think college student-athletes should be paid often say the students' names and images are used on products and in advertising, among other things, so they should receive some of the profits. Those who say college student-athletes should not be paid argue that they receive scholarships as a form of payment for their talents. Then there are plenty of other questions: Would athletes be paid differently depending on the sport they play? How do you quantify the true worth of a college sports team, especially if it's making the school much more popular overall and bringing in lots of students? Where would the money even come from? The debate could go on and on. Here's a look at each side.

Why student-athletes should get paid

Being a college student-athlete is a full-time job, bouncing between the weight room, the court/field, classes, and film sessions. College athletics are extracurricular activities, but the schedules of the National Collegiate Athletic Association's (NCAA) tournaments require an extended period in which the student-athletes must miss school. Not only do they miss class, but they are absent for nationally televised games that make a lot of money and receive millions of viewers, according to Marc Edelman in his article " 21 Reasons Why Student-Athletes Are Employees and Should Be Allowed to Unionize."

Since student-athletes also bring in revenue for their team and college or university, especially in the championship games, those who debate in favor of paying them say the students could receive a small portion of the profits. Yes, pay would vary, just as the universities with the more successful teams receive more television time or money than those with less successful teams. College football and men's basketball programs earn far more than any other athletic program, so these athletes would likely earn more as well. This may not be considered fair pay, but many of those who argue in support of paying college players point out that team popularity and consumers generally determine what is "fair." These sports also tend to support other less popular sports that do not bring in a lot of money on their own.

Student-athletes are the ones working hard out on the court and field. Coaches might have a big effect on a team, but it is up to the athletes to get it done. Coaches receive bonuses for breaking records, reaching the offseason, and winning the big games; the athletes receive none of it, writes Tyson Hartnett for HuffPost. Most profits from college athletics do not go toward academics. Instead, they go to the coaches, athletic directors, and some administrators, reports Edelman. Student-athletes do not need to receive huge salaries like their coaches; rather, they could still be paid a reasonable amount relative to how much the program makes. Scholarships often cover most of the student-athletes' books and room expenses, but even few extra hundred dollars per year could compensate for the lack of time these students have to earn spending money at a regular part-time job, argues Harnett.

It's also important to note that college student-athletes are not only a part of a sports team; they are a part of the college or university's advertising team. For example, the "Flutie effect" is used to describe a surge in college admission following a big sports win. It's named for Boston College quarterback Doug Flutie; he won the Heisman Trophy in 1984, and the College's admissions rose significantly in subsequent years-though the extent of Flutie's impact has been largely refuted by BC officials since then. Still, colleges and universities use their athletic success to promote their school and entice potential applicants. Student-athletes would be paid for this and all the additional benefits they provide for their schools.

A timeout of the regular season college football game between the University of Michigan at the University of Iowa
📸: Madisen Martinez

Why student-athletes should not get paid

In 2013, survey expert John Dennis found that 69% of the public is opposed to paying student-athletes. (This proposed payment would be in addition to the scholarships given in men's football and basketball programs.) If scholarships were taken out of the deal, and only salaries were given, then it would be more fair and affordable for the university, right? Wrong. If salaries were given, then these college student-athletes would have to pay taxes. Depending on the student-athlete's income, those taxes could be high enough to reduce what they earn until they can barely cover tuition, according to John R. Thelin in his article "Here's Why We Shouldn't Pay College Athletes."

Those who opposed paying college student-athletes say scholarships are the best option; there is no question as to what the scholarship money is going toward. Cash or a salary could be spent on wants rather than necessities, potentially leading the athletes into a debt they would not have with the benefit of a scholarship. Furthermore, those who debate against paying student-athletes say it would change the very nature of college athletics. College student-athletes are given a rare opportunity. It's difficult to earn a position on a college team. Though a dream for many, only about 7% of high school athletes move onto the bigger stage. Another 2% of these athletes reach the Division I level, reports Dave Anderson in his article " Top 10 Reasons College Athletes Should Not Be Paid."

If payments were involved, athletes would be given incentive to commit to the college or university with the highest offer. The next year, they may transfer to another school with an even higher offer. Before you know it, these college sports would be 100% a business. This new "business" could also lead to the downfall of other college programs. The money to pay athletes must come from somewhere, which might put the least-popular college programs at risk of being cut. That, in turn, can deprive other students of their chance to gain the education and experience at the college of their dreams, since their desired program will no longer be offered, says Anderson.

Finally, even though these college student-athletes may be playing at an advanced level, they still aren't playing professionally, Anderson notes. It is not their job to play sports; it is an extracurricular activity that is pursued while pursuing a higher education. Student-athletes are going to school to learn, and many are lucky enough to do so for reduced cost, given the often generous athletic scholarships. If these athletes were paid, it would change their motives as students. They are still in college-which is a privilege in itself-while pursuing their dreams of playing a sport.

What do you think?

Whether student-athletes should be paid is an ongoing debate often brought up during championship seasons, especially the college football playoffs and the basketball post-season. What's your view of this heated debate? Will a salary for college-athletes ever come to be? It's up to the NCAA to decide if they'll break away from their current model of collegiate sports, in which "the young men and women competing on the field or court are students first, athletes second."
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Should College Student-Athletes Be Paid to Play? Both Sides of the Debate

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The debate rages on: Should college athletes be paid to play their sport? Read our take on both sides of the argument and watch our accompanying video here!

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Group 1: The Myth of the 'Exploited' Athlete

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Group 1: The Myth of the 'Exploited' Athlete

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Electronic resource login page for University of Alabama Libraries.