Next week in Trenton: Marijuana and other shady stuff

Legalizing marijuana – including so-called “edibles” in the shapes of chocolate bars, peanut butter cups, cookies, and candies (in other words, attractive to young children) – is number one on the agenda of some Trenton Democrats.  The Senate Democrat leadership is pushing marijuana – in the midst of an opioid epidemic, no less – but an opposition of principled Democrats and Republicans, led by Senator Ron Rice (D-Newark) has formed and they are pushing back. 

Senator Rice, who was on the front lines defending America as a Marine in Vietnam and defending innocents as a police officer on the streets of Newark, now he has taken the point again and this victory, when it comes, will have been gained by his courage and leadership.  God bless Senator Ron Rice.

Now a new study supports Senator Rice and the bi-partisan coalition that has formed around him.  The study is by the leading psychiatric journal of the English-speaking world, The Lancet Psychiatry, a renowned peer-reviewed journal that is part of The Lancet, the world's most important medical journal.  You can access the study here:

www.thelancet.com/journals/lanpsy/article/PIIS2215-0366(19)30048-3/fulltext

Here's the takeaway…

Daily cannabis use was associated with increased odds of psychotic disorder compared with never users (adjusted odds ratio [OR] 3·2, 95% CI 2·2–4·1), increasing to nearly five-times increased odds for daily use of high-potency types of cannabis (4·8, 2·5–6·3).  

It's worth noting that what the authors call "high-potency cannabis" is flower marijuana (aka buds) with more than 10% THC. Most cannabis sold in legal U.S. dispensaries is about 20-25% THC. In other words, by American standards, the cutoff was actually quite low. Using that daily led to a fivefold increase in the risk of psychosis.

The other takeaway…

If high-potency cannabis were no longer available, 12% of cases of first-episode psychosis could be prevented... rising to 30% in London.

In other words, marijuana appears to be producing a measurable increase in the number of psychosis cases in Europe - 1/3 of all cases in London (where use patterns are most similar to the United States) are due to cannabis use. If that's correct, than legalization and the increased use it produces is even more of a public health disaster than we thought.

Maybe the most important comment on the study came from Dr. Adrian James, who is the Registrar of the Royal College of Psychiatrists, the British equivalent of the American Psychiatric Association:

“This is a good quality study and the results need to be taken seriously. Cannabis carries severe health risks and users have a higher chance of developing psychosis."

www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-daily-cannabis-use-potency-and-psychosis/

The Assembly will have a voting session on Monday, March 25, 2019.  Legalizing marijuana – including child-unfriendly “edibles” – is top on the agenda.  There will be individual Democrat and Republican caucus meetings at 11:00 AM.  The Assembly voting session will begin at 1:00 PM.  Citizens are urged to attend and observe this session.  The Senate is meeting the same day.  We will send out the Senate schedule over the weekend.  Here is the legislation up for consideration by the Assembly:

Booker’s “Spartapuss moment”. It was all a fake.

The philosopher Christopher Lasch predicted this.  Way back in 1978, Lasch wrote a book called “The Culture of Narcissism” in which he predicted what would come from “the dotage of bourgeois society.”  Lasch saw the coming man-child, the “narcissistic personality” of our time… “their emotional shallowness, their fear of intimacy, their hypochondria, their pseudo-self-insight, their promiscuous pansexuality, their dread of old age and death.”  People who had lost their memory, without history… “a culture that has lost interest in the future.” 

Even before social media made it possible for anyone/everyone to become an overly self-regarding, self-celebrating, living-in-the-moment celebrity – Lasch saw it coming – and he saw “leaders” like Cory Booker, once himself king of the Twitter realm, a politician who offers his childish “feelings” and a false intimacy in place of rational discourse.  A Peter Pan. 

Forty-years ago, Lasch wrote that the cultural Narcissists’ outlook on life was revealed in “the new consciousness movements and therapeutic culture; in pseudo-confessional autobiography and fiction; in the replacement of Horatio Alger by the happy hooker as the symbol of success; in the theater of the absurd and the absurdist theater of everyday life; in the degradation of sport; in the collapse of authority; in the escalating war between men and women…” 

Last week Senator Booker contrived an “I am Spartacus” moment, as a juvenile would, not to teach but in order to attract a moment’s satisfying attention.  His ego sated, to boost celebrity his acolytes sent record of the moment to the four corners of the globe.  But it was all play-acting, make-believe, false, fake… more like playing dress-up, as children do.

During the Senate Judiciary Committee's hearing on the nomination of Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court, Senator Booker threatened to release confidential documents relating to Judge Kavanaugh's service as a lawyer in the Bush administration.  "I understand the penalty comes with potential ousting from the Senate," our brave Booker said, "This is about the closest I'll probably ever have in my life to an ‘I am Spartacus' moment."

For his “I am Spartacus” moment, Senator Booker posed that he was in real danger – that he could be prosecuted for revealing confidential correspondence that had been provided to a Senate Committee by someone facing confirmation hearings.  Booker was acting against the kind of basic confidences most small town council members understand when they enter into “executive session” to discuss a personnel issue.  Booker called another Senator a “bully” (shades of the school yard again?) for suggesting otherwise.

Except that it wasn’t even that, because Senator Booker had sought and received permission from committee counsel of both parties.  There was never a “Spartacus moment” because – like a true Narcissist, Booker loves himself so much that he would never place himself in such danger.  He just likes the celebrity that comes with pretending to do so… and so he made it all up.

No less than the Washington Post reported that the so-called "confidential" correspondence was already cleared for public release before Booker's floor show, confirming the fact with both Democratic and Republican aides on the judiciary committee.

"We cleared the documents last night shortly after Senator Booker's staff asked us to," confirmed Bill Burck, Bush's presidential records representative. "We were surprised to learn about Senator Booker's histrionics this morning because we had already told him he could use the documents publicly. In fact, we have said yes to every request made by the Senate Democrats to make documents public."

A confirmed narcissist never likes to be called out, and when Wall Street Journal reporter Byron Tau questioned Senator Booker’s actions and suggested it was a stunt, Booker accused him of violating the U.S. Constitution and threatened the reporter with prosecution.  Yes, Booker probably is a few bricks short of a full load. 

What this all shows is that someone on his staff needs to provide the Senator with new reading material.  This way, when he is dreaming about the kind of super hero he would like to pretend to the world he is (and that he would like the world to celebrate that he is), he’ll get it right, and keep it closer to reality.

So no more “Spartacus” by Howard Fast for Senator Booker.  There are too many words for a start.

From now on, his staff should have him read “I am Spartapuss” by Robin Price.  It is something a Peter Pan will understand.