Politicians on the left and right valorize small business. As it happens, small businesses create most of the new jobs in the US. Yet businesses that sell e-cigarettes, most of which are family-owned and employ just a few people, are the targets of unrelenting assaults from governments at all levels. My new story for Medium, …
MDMA is an illegal drug that, according to the Drug Enforcement Administration, has no medical value and a high potential for abuse. Yet MDMA — better known as ecstasy or molly — is being welcomed into a veterans administration hospital where it will be used to help combat veterans with PTSD. How can that be? …
“In almost every respect imaginable, Prohibition was a failure,” writes Daniel Okrent in Last Call: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition. The war on drugs has, if anything, been worse. Why, then, do people want to ban e-cigarettes? Or flavored e-cigarettes? Have anti-tobacco warriors like the Campaign for Tobacco-Free Kids and the Truth Initiative and their political allies forgotten history? My …
I wrote a short post yesterday explaining why I am obsessed by very interested in e-cigarettes and tobacco policy. If you are curious, you can read the post here at Medium.
There’s lots of conversation about “best practices” in philanthropy and some about “worst practices,” but almost no one who writes about worst practices is courageous enough to name names. (The invaluable Vu Le of Nonprofit AF is an exception.) This is a problem for the sector. In my latest story for Medium, I write that …
In my new story for @Medium, I try to figure out whether Richard Nixon called Timothy Leary “the most dangerous man in America.” The quote has been published thousands of times. There’s no evidence that Nixon ever said it. You can read the story here.
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is a progressive champion. Matt Gaetz is a conservative firebrand. They don’t agree on much — except psychedelics. Ocasio-Cortez, a New York Democrat, and Gaetz, a Florida Republican, have joined forces in Congress to try to make it easier for scientists to research marijuana and psychedelic drugs, including MDMA and psilocybin. Such bipartisan …
This story began as a conversation in my family–how do we get groceries or order food while trying to shelter at home during the pandemic? Some argue that going to the supermarket is needlessly risky. Others are reluctant to ask others, who are less well off, to assume those risks. We’re having similar debates, as …
On April 2, two people working on the construction of Marriott’s new corporate headquarters in downtown Bethesda, MD, tested positive for the coronavirus. Their illness was entirely predictable — and preventable. Hensel Phillips, the prime contractor for the $600m project, said it would temporarily suspend work, clean up the site and resume the work in a few days. That’s …
Slightly off topic, but please forgive me. This is about more than baseball. Last week my beloved Washington Nationals won the 2019 World Series in thrilling fashion. There’s lots to learn from this team. Here are nine reasons to love the Nats: Nevertheless, they persisted: That the underdog Nationals won should not have come as …
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