Bong Hits, Car Misses

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Two social developments are about to collide — for our good?

First up, the relaxing of the Drug War approach, at least against marijuana use.

The Drug War didn’t work. Increased drug use, even in prisons, suggests there was something fundamentally wrong with the strategy.

With medical marijuana legalized in 19 states, and near-complete decriminalization in Washington and Colorado, we will see what happens when the black market is cut out of the social picture. Will people become less responsible? More? Will there be little change?

The worst thing about drug use is incitement to violence; the second worst thing is decreasing personal responsibility, perhaps especially relating to automobile usage. Marijuana’s violence-promotion seems completely a factor of the black market. But, like alcohol mis-use, marijuana imbibing can impair motor functions, and lead to traffic accidents, even fatal ones. That’s quite bad.

How to control this?

Well, Washington State’s decriminalization law, I‑502, had built in a THC indicator for inebriation: the “five nanogram rule.” Alas, evidence suggests it’s, well, the wrong number. Too extreme, too picky, too low, as Jacob Sullum reports at Reason.

Obviously, how to incentivize good driving and responsible drug use, and dis-incentivize reckless driving and drug abuse, will continue to be a problem.

Still, a second social development may provide a long-term alleviation of the problem: driverless cars. The successes of the Google self-driving prototypes, and the legal preparation for this, may soon provide a real and safe alternative to inebriates driving around helter skelter.

Progress comes in unexpected ways.

This is Common Sense. I’m Paul Jacob.

Tags cannabis, driving, DUID, Google, marijuana

8 replies on “Bong Hits, Car Misses”

OT Statement:

There is NO level of bank corruption that will result in the revoking of a bank charter in this country.

Updated, 8:25 p.m. | The top law enforcer in New York State, Eric T. Schneiderman, filed civil fraud charges on Wednesday against Barclays over its private stock trading platform, contending that it favored high-frequency traders over other investors.

Mr. Schneiderman, the state attorney general, accused Barclays of falsely representing the concentration of high-frequency traders in its private trading platform, known as a dark pool. He also claimed the British bank had falsified marketing materials and misrepresented a service that purported to protect investors from predatory trading behavior.

The lawsuit, which was filed in New York State Supreme Court, seeks to compel Barclays to forfeit the profits gained through its actions and pay an unspecified amount of damages.

“The lawsuit filed today charges that Barclays grew its dark pool into one of the largest in the United States by telling investors they were diving into safe waters,” Mr. Schneiderman told reporters on Wednesday. “In fact, Barclays’ dark pool was full of predators who were there at Barclays’ invitation.”

http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2014/06/25/n‑y-attorney-general-to-accuse-barclays-of-fraud-over-dark-pools/

Rick:

2 things.

1. What has that to do with the topic that Mr. Jacobs wrote on?

2. Isn’t that basic free market economics – give preference to those who buy more of your product (or, in this case, trade more)? Is there proof that ANY of the “small” traders or investors WERE FORCED TO PARTICIPATE? OR DID THEY DO IT ON THEIR OWN?

I will say, the latter; and a small trader might be someone with ONLY 15 million to trade as opposed to 100 million (or more).

Pure business decision. NY can keep the lawsuits against firms- that operate in their interest ‑AT NO RISK TO THE GENERAL PUBLIC, and see the goose that laid the golden egg and provided most of the money for the bureaucrats who have never held a real job, move away-to other states or offshore. With the modern technology, and always improving, the physical location is not as important as even 20 – 30 years ago.

My view

The black market will never go away. The politicians will always overtax something they consider a sin.

Just saying that all traffic crimes be based on actual performance. If someone is driving perfectly well, no harm no foul. Laissez faire. Repeal drunk and drugged driving laws, they’re irrelevant and nonobjective, solely an excuse for the state to abridge our freedom of movement. Driving bad, stop it, punish it reasonably. Driving good, leave it be.

Jay,
1) Nothing, that’s why i prefaced it with OT…off topic.

2) Barclay’s and all the rest front run their clients. In this case, they walk their orders in front of somebody who does a “take away” and buys what the client wants and sells it to them at a higher price. In other cases it’s outright fraud. Maybe you work for a bank, i have no idea but banks have turned into predatory, rogue, front-runnning, bait & switch machines that prey on their clients and avoid the rule of law because they write the legislation that gets passed. They commit fraud after fraud, every single day and it’s my mission.

I presume this board is a place for open discussion of libertarian ideas and if i see something that Paul can write about, something as egregious as the organized crime that goes on at “banks”, the place where honor, integrity and a place where you could trust them with your money, which have now morphed into criminal fleecing machines of their clients 1 – 2‑3% at a time, then i post it up. Nothing is as it appears and the subject needs way more light.

OK?

Rick,

I do not work for a bank. Many decades ago i worked on Wall Street. I know what front running is.

Ia also know about per-arranged trades, etc. However, the after hours trading is for the big boys, not the John 6 pack buying 100 shares for his IRA or 401 K.

They should be able to take care of themselves.

By the way, i despise Barclay’s, for other reasons.

But, if libertarian, then should allow the big boys to get fleeced.

I agree with some, not all libertarian views.

Banks – yes, they are corrupt; as are almost all businesses and governments and people. I believe it was James Madison who said ” If men were angels, we would not need governments”. People are not angels.

Nor are they perfect.

Weird, i presume Jay wrote the above but was identified as Rick.….

I wasn’t talking about after hours trading. This is the big exchanges, the dark pools, everything. Most brokerages actually sell their order flow to the predators who front run every single trade happening.. But it’s not just that. The corruption is top to bottom and left to right. I just don’t think the guy on the street realizes what thieves there are running the banks. And the banks are the ones who, along with the govt, who want to force out currency, in order to force everything to move through the digital realm so they can tax every transaction and have immediate access to everything you have.

It is why bitcoin is popular. And we’re all the way back to a question of “What is money”? Govt is destroying it and people want an alternative to the fiat “Federal Reserve Note”, which is nothing but a promise to pay voidable by bankruptcy.

One day soon, you will wake up to a disturbing market where the Central Banks of the world have stopped trading on the global exchanges so they can implement a “global haircut” on all assets. THis is not me, this idea was started by The Boston Consulting group in a paper called “Back to Mesopotamia”. It’s a perverted look back to eons ago where the new king cancelled all debts and returned farms to their ancestral owners, etc. Only in the new Mesopotamia, the governments propose a 20 – 30-40% confiscation across the board to relieve themselves of debt. The IMF is now openly talking this up, Reinhardt & Rogoff too. Google it. It’s shocking reading.