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Sanders Jokes: Let Postal Service Deliver Marijuana to Raise Revenue
U.S. Senator Bernie Sanders made history last week at a Democratic primary debate by becoming the first major presidential candidate to indicate he’d vote in favor of legalizing marijuana if given the chance.
But now, thanks to Jimmy Kimmel, Sanders might have a way to use marijuana to save the the U.S. Postal Service from budget problems that have plagued it in recent years.
“Would you be open to the idea…maybe have postal carriers deliver marijuana to people?” the ABC late-night talk show host asked Sanders during an interview on Wednesday.
“That’ll get rid of the federal deficit pretty quickly, won’t it?” quipped the senator from Vermont.
The Postal Service has operated at a loss recently, ending the most recent fiscal quarter $568 million in the hole. The previous quarter it lost $1.5 billion.
Sanders has already proposed allowing people to access banking services through post offices, and now the marijuana delivery idea, while clearly a joke for now, might actually not be too far off from being seriously considered as more and more states enact legalization and pressure builds on the federal government to end its overarching prohibition laws.
On the broader question of legalization, Sanders told Kimmel that he’s still taking a close look at how Colorado and other states are implementing their new laws. “I am not unfavorably disposed to moving toward the legalization of marijuana,” he said.
Click here to see what else Sanders and other presidential candidates have said about marijuana.
Neil deGrasse Tyson and Carl Sagan Differ on Drugs and Creativity
Two well-known astrophysicists. Two very different views of the role that drug use can play in artistic creativity.
Neil deGrasse Tyson, who hosted last year’s reboot of Carl Sagan’s legendary “Cosmos” series, says in a new interview that “if you’re in an altered state, you can think something is good that you just created, but it really isn’t.”
That contrasts sharply with Sagan’s view. He wrote, “I am convinced that there are genuine and valid levels of perception available with cannabis (and probably with other drugs) which are, through the defects of our society and our educational system, unavailable to us without such drugs.”
The new Tyson comments come from a video Reddit published this month after the scientist participated in an “Ask Me Anything” session with the site’s users, one of whom asked, “How much of an impact do you think drugs (psychedelics) have had on art over the centuries?”
Before opining on how drug use can make you think your work is better than it actually is, Tyson made clear that he doesn’t have much personal experience in the area, at least when it comes to illegal substances. “I don’t count myself among those who are active recreational drug users.”
On the other hand, Sagan wrote that his own use of cannabis “produced a very rich array of insights” and that those revelations stayed relevant even when he wasn’t high any more:
“The cannabis experience has greatly improved my appreciation for art, a subject which I had never much appreciated before. The understanding of the intent of the artist which I can achieve when high sometimes carries over to when I’m down. This is one of many human frontiers which cannabis has helped me traverse.
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“A very similar improvement in my appreciation of music has occurred with cannabis. For the first time I have been able to hear the separate parts of a three-part harmony and the richness of the counterpoint. I have since discovered that professional musicians can quite easily keep many separate parts going simultaneously in their heads, but this was the first time for me. Again, the learning experience when high has at least to some extent carried over when I’m down.”
Tyson, for his part, gave an example from his own life of why he doesn’t mix drugs and work:
“For me, the least altered state of awareness I can achieve is the one that I seek, because that one is most likely to be closest to reality.
“I used to write a question and answer column while I was drinking a bottle of wine. And I was thinking, you know like Hemingway, with his bottle of whatever he drank. You know, the alcohol and the writer. This is like almost a trope. And I thought I wrote some awesome stuff. And then a few years later I looked back at what I wrote then and I said, ‘No, that’s not awesome.’ I thought it was awesome at the time. In the state of mind that I wrote it, I thought it was awesome. Later on I was like, ‘No, I write better than that not drinking wine while I’m writing.’”
Sagan once gave a young Neil deGrasse Tyson a tour of Cornell University, where the older cosmologist taught and the younger was considering enrolling, and the two corresponded fairly regularly until Sagan’s death, in 1996. But Tyson’s new interview makes it seem unlikely that the two ever shared a joint.
Whereas Carl Sagan wrote that “the illegality of cannabis is outrageous, an impediment to full utilization of a drug which helps produce the serenity and insight,” Tyson’s views on legalization are not publicly known.
To learn more about Carl Sagan’s views on marijuana, as unearthed by a Marijuana.com review of his papers archived at the Library of Congress, click here.
Clinton: It’s “Important” for Feds to Let States Legalize Marijuana
One day after she declined to endorse legalizing marijuana in the first Democratic presidential debate, Hillary Clinton gave her strongest indication yet that, if elected to the White House, she would nonetheless allow states to move forward with implementing their own cannabis laws without federal harassment.
“I really believe it’s important that states like Colorado lead the way, so that we can learn what works and what doesn’t work,” the former secretary of state said in an interview on Wednesday with KUSA-TV, the NBC affiliate in Denver.
“And I would certainly not want the federal government to interfere with the legal decision made by the people of Colorado, and enforced by your elected officials, as to how you should be conducting this business that you have approved. So, no, I want to give you the space and I want other states to learn from you, what works and what doesn’t work.”
During Tuesday’s debate, Clinton said she wasn’t ready to take a position on whether legalization is a good policy, but made sure to note that “I do support the use of medical marijuana” and “I agree completely with the idea that we have got to stop imprisoning people who use marijuana.”
Sen. Bernie Sanders, Clinton’s chief rival for the Democratic nomination, on the other hand, made history at the debate by becoming the first major presidential candidate to indicate he’d personally vote for legalization if given the chance.
Last month, Clinton said during an appearance in Iowa that she “would support states and localities that are experimenting with this,” but the new remarks are her clearest yet on the federal-state relationship on marijuana laws.
Click here to see what else Hillary Clinton, Bernie Sanders and other presidential candidates have said about marijuana law reform.
Ben Carson Knows Anti-Legalization Stance Isn’t Popular
Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson opposes legalizing marijuana, and he knows that his prohibitionist stance isn’t likely to win him any votes from young people.
Appearing on CNBC’s “Squawk Box” last Wednesday, Carson was asked whether his support primarily comes from voters who care about fiscal or social issues. Without direct prompting, the neurosurgeon who has never held political office responded that his stances opposing legalization of marijuana and marriage equality for LGBT people aren’t doing him any favors when it comes to attracting support from younger generations.
“When we have rallies, I see huge numbers of millennials and young people, and I know that they for the most part probably don’t agree with me on the definition of marriage or whether marijuana should be legalized,” he said.
But he added that for the most part, young voters are willing to look past their disagreements with the candidate on these social issues in favor of fiscal concerns. “They do understand that there’s somebody who is looking out for their future,” he said. “And understands the economic implications of our fiscal irresponsibility and what it would do to them.”
Carson isn’t the only 2016 candidate who knows a prohibitionist stance is a political loser. Last month, fellow Republican Rick Santorum, who opposes legalization, was asked why Democratic candidate Bernie Sanders seems to be drawing a lot of support from young people. “When you go out and say you’re gonna legalize drugs and do all sorts of great stuff, you get people showing up at your events,” he said.
While marijuana legalization and drug policy reform were once widely seen as dangerous third rails of politics to be avoided at all costs, polling now shows that a growing majority of Americans support ending cannabis prohibition and supermajorities support medical marijuana and letting states set their own laws without federal interference. And support for marijuana law reform is particularly high among younger voters: One survey showed that 63 percent of Republican millennials support legalization.
Even though he opposes full legalization, Carson does at least support medical marijuana. “Would I recommend medical marijuana? Absolutely,” he said at a campaign rally in Ohio. “I have no problem with medical marijuana. But that is very different from legalizing it for recreational use. I would not do that under any circumstances.”
Click here to see what else the presidential candidates have said about marijuana.