mrclay.org

Update Nov. 15: My letter to the editor in Monday’s Alligator.
Recently I wrote about the potential e-cigarettes hold for harm reduction, so when the University of Florida proposed a regulation that would expand its tobacco use ban to explicitly include e-cigarettes, I decided to speak up. Today I sent the following e-mail to Paula Fussell, [...]

Today almost no credible evidence suggests that cannabis belongs on Schedule I of the Controlled Substances Act, alongside drugs like heroin. This position has stifled medical research of the drug and its component chemicals for 39 years, making research extremely expensive and arbitrarily difficult to secure compared to that of much more harmful drugs.
A few [...]

I first learned about e-cigarettes from Reason’s coverage of the FDA’s rush to ban them, and of the rightful criticism of that intent from the American Association of Public Health Physicians. Without smoke (e-cigs are miniature vaporizers), nicotine use is likely to be many magnitudes less harmful to the body.
The hope is that e-cig use [...]

(From January 7)
Over the break Kathleen and I watched a bunch of movies, but season 1 of The Wire delivered beyond the hype it got from friends. It gives a crash course on the frustration and futility of local cops fighting drug gangs on the street level in West Baltimore. The police jump through major [...]

For a few moments, imagine the year is 2109 and the U.S. government “grudgingly tolerates” the recreational use of psychoactive drugs, but requires users to take an education course and earn a license to buy and use (even alcohol).

Surprisingly, Mike Wallace’s 1968 TV report on Marijuana is probably the most reasonable, well-balanced, and well-researched report available on the drug.

If you haven’t noticed, Juarez and many other Mexican cities are facing a violent crisis. The drug cartels are so well funded and armed that they can bribe officials and even threaten police chiefs into retirement. The drugs moved by the traffickers can, of course, cause harm, but Mexico’s problem isn’t a “drug problem” but [...]

What if we had zero tolerance for laws that have a lot of ugly side effects? Like busting an amazing teacher in front of her kids… for finding a couple Xanax pills… in a suspicion-less search of her car.
Herrick, 59, has taught at Roberts for 17 years. Parents describe her as “inspirational,” “talented” and “loving.”
She [...]

What if Congress debated the prohibition of drugs for over 2 hours, finding surprisingly that most members already favored harm reduction policies and, in some cases, regulation over criminalization?
This just happened in the U.K.’s House of Lords. On January 22nd, a debate was held (full transcript) to encourage the government to send a senior (rather [...]

Daniel Rodriguez said there’s no such thing as a healthy discussion about legalizing drugs because young people take their cues from adult conversation.
“There are things I believe should not be open for discussion, and this is one of them,” he said. [El Paso Newspaper Tree]
Thank goodness we now have more excuses to stifle discussion on [...]