The Outsider Perspective Issue 376 | The Beltway Outsiders

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Good Friday Morning! Especially to an Illinois deputy who arrested a DoorDash driver but proceeded to deliver the order anyway. And in an actual quote from the story: “My deputies always follow through,” Kane County Sheriff Ron Hain said. “After having to arrest a food delivery driver, he completed the order to ensure no one went hungry.”

God Bless America. I’m glad we all have our priorities straight. Leave no DoorDash order behind.

This week, I will go through some observations I’ve had watching the drug legalization movement move back toward restrictions. It turns out people don’t want mass legalization—links to follow.

Quick Hits:

There was quite a bit of coverage this week over Alabama executing a man with nitrogen gas, the first of its kind in the country. The usual crowd called it wrong and a form of torture. I have a proposal to solve this quandary on the type of execution method: have states execute inmates in the same manner that Canada is administering its assisted suicide program. My Friday column this week covers Canada’s continuing descent into a death cult, but many progressives praise Canada’s assisted suicide program. I want to get these two issues put side-by-side.
In the news, there’s a lot of coverage of the continuing firefights in the Red Sea between the Iranian-backed Houthis versus the US, Israel, and their allies. But it’s equally fascinating how little this specific part of the conflict has mattered. A significant shipping lane is involved, and considerable amounts of oil get transported through the region. Yet, if you’re watching economic interests in the area, none of them seem very concerned. Notably, neither oil nor shipping prices have jumped on this news. That could change, putting pressure on Biden/Democrats in an election year. But for now, nothing.
Two of the top three stories in Politico this week were about Nikki Haley. In the first story, we learn: “‘Not a good night for Donald Trump’: Why never-Trumpers think he’s really losing. He has defied political gravity before. But voting data out of Iowa and New Hampshire are giving his GOP detractors cause for optimism.” It goes on to talk about how Haley has a shot to win, according to these people (she doesn’t). The second story in Politico paints a different picture: “‘They’ve all turned their backs on her’: Haley hosts a homecoming in a hostile state. The former South Carolina governor has won longshot primaries in her state before. But this one is different.” In this piece, you learn the obvious. After lapping up independent and Democratic votes in New Hampshire, Haley is getting ready to crash and burn in her home state. Ben Domenech made a solid point: “Tonight was a big win for Nikki Haley and her donor class supporters. They can justify spending more money on her in the coming weeks. And as Vivek accidentally acknowledged to us on Fox, general election similarity increases her possibility of being VP. How hard Trump goes after Nikki will reveal how much that factors into his consideration.” And in terms of all the negative things Trump has said about Haley, note what he did with DeSantis. After DeSantis dropped out, Trump immediately pivoted to talking about DeSantis positively. It’s all a show.

Where you can find me this week

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DeSantis Offered Something Rare – A Different Path – Conservative Institute

Canadian Healthcare Has Become A Death Cult – Conservative Institute

The Drug Legalization Movement Comes Full Circle

For most of my life, it’s been a political truism that we were headed toward more drug legalization. Marijuana was at the top of that list. And for the most part, I think that’s true. The number of dispensaries in places that have legalized pot is going up every day; there are hemp and THC products online, and more.

Libertarians used to argue that it’d be like alcohol, and the state would give up as more and more people started using various drugs freely. And, again, looking purely at what you can get on the market legally these days, that seems essentially correct.

But I wonder if we’re seeing the beginning of a reversal in this trend.

In the second half of 2023, I started noticing a series of essays, and people on Twitter began to complain about rampant drug use in their cities and the unmistakable stink of weed in places like NYC.

The NYPost ran a piece complaining that everywhere in the city smelled of weed:

Saks Fifth Avenue’s Manhattan flagship is offering a new scent: marijuana.

On a recent weekday afternoon, the high-end flagship’s shoe department smelled less like Manolo Blahnik leather and more like a head shop, a stylist told The Post.

“It’s jarring when you walk into a high-end department store where you used to smell Chanel perfume and now it’s weed,” the stylist, who requested anonymity, said. (The Post has reached out to Saks for comment).

But, she admitted: “Everywhere you go in New York City smells like weed. It’s not just Saks — it’s at Bloomingdales, at the movies … there’s no high-end anymore.”

Indeed, brazen New Yorkers are lighting joints on the F train, ripping vape pens on the Hampton Jitney and firing up at upscale restaurants like Carbone and Nobu 57, observers told The Post.

Others argued that pot was scaring away tourists.

The Atlantic started publishing think-pieces like this: “I Don’t Want to Smell You Get High: I’m glad that draconian anti-marijuana laws have disappeared. But we need a taboo against public consumption.”

These aren’t just anecdotal observations, either. Gothamist noted of New York:

Smoking violation complaints to the city’s 311 system are up an average of 86% since adult-use marijuana was legalized in 2021 — compared against the prior decade. Smoking complaints in parks are likewise up 44%. The records do not specify if weed or cigarettes are the culprit, but tobacco use rates have declined sharply in the city over the last two decades.

The spread of marijuana has been staggering. People have jumped on it in every city where it’s been legalized. And we’re seeing THC or hemp crammed into every conceivable product known to man.

It’s ironic to watch cigarettes and tobacco use overall drop while weed has skyrocketed. It’s even stranger to compare the legalization of pot to the White House’s growing insistence that we ban menthol cigarettes. That crackdown is getting delayed, but the impulse is still there.

So we’re banning some forms of smoking but not others. The arguments are all over the map. Chuck Schumer made waves this week by wanting to add nicotine pouches to the ban list.

With the legalization of pot, I think we’re going to see a move to get it out of the public’s eye and nose, much like we’ve done cigarettes. For instance, NYC announced a crackdown on weed smoking in Times Square (the effort hasn’t done well, but the impetus is there). Creating smoking areas is the first baby step to outlawing it in public.

But I’m starting to wonder if that’s all.

This week, Oregon Democrats partially repealed their extremely progressive drug legalization law:

Democratic lawmakers in Oregon on Tuesday unveiled a sweeping new bill that would undo a key part of the state’s first-in-the-nation drug decriminalization law, a recognition that public opinion has soured on the measure amid rampant public drug use during the fentanyl crisis.

The bill would recriminalize the possession of small amounts of drugs as a low-level misdemeanor, enabling police to confiscate them and crack down on their use on sidewalks and in parks, its authors said. It also aims to make it easier to prosecute dealers, to access addiction treatment medication, and to obtain and keep housing without facing discrimination for using that medication.

“It’s the compromise path, but also the best policy that we can come up with to make sure that we are continuing to keep communities safe and save lives,” state Sen. Kate Lieber, a Portland Democrat, told The Associated Press.

Voters passed the pioneering decriminalization law, Measure 110, with 58% support in 2020. But Democratic legislators who championed it as a way to treat addiction as a public health matter, not a crime, are now contending with one of the nation’s largest spikes in overdose deaths, along with intensifying pressure from Republicans and growing calls from a well-funded campaign group to overhaul it.

For reference, “Measure 110 directed the state’s cannabis tax revenue toward drug addiction treatment while decriminalizing “personal use” amounts of illicit drugs. Possession of under a gram of heroin, for example, is only subject to a ticket and a maximum fine of $100.”

The AP and Democrats, of course, cite “experts” who say it’s too early to judge the law (this is not something the same kinds of experts do with conservative laws). But when the party that pushed and passed the law is trying to backtrack, that’s a tacit admission of failure.

In the past, libertarians have always said, “drugs aren’t harming anyone but the individual involved. Legalize it and tax it.”

We’re seeing states try that, and the results aren’t pretty. We are witnessing community-level impacts beyond the individual. States and cities are having to push drug use out of public areas to reduce a nuisance. And Oregon Democrats are partially waving the white flag on their extreme drug legalization law.

Watching this fallout has me questioning the accuracy of the truism that total drug legalization is the future. That may be true of marijuana, but it’s hard to see the same being true of anything more substantial. The downstream impacts of rampant drug use are beginning to show up, and people don’t like it.

These kinds of movements typically produce a rubberband snap in the opposite direction. I’m curious when that happens and what will be the straw that breaks the camel’s back.

One thing is clear, though. The momentum is not all on the legalization side. How far back we go will depend heavily on the ill effects these legalization laws bring.

Links of the week

One Hundred Days of War: Reflections from Bari Weiss, Michael Oren, Shadi Hamid, Einat Wilf, Bruno Maçães, Haviv Rettig Gur, Andrew Sullivan, Rachel Goldberg-Polin, and more. – The FP

NYU Professor Tells Students of Hamas Atrocities: ‘We Know It’s Not True’: Amin Husain added that New York is a ‘Zionist city,’ and bragged about violence against Israel at an event at The New School last month. – The FP

Embattled Biden Judicial Nominee Helped Lead Anti-Police Nonprofit – The Washington Free Beacon

Matt Gaetz Privately Told Colleagues His Real Motivation for Kevin McCarthy Ouster Was Ethics Probe – The Daily Beast

The Story of the Decade: New documents strengthen—perhaps conclusively—the lab-leak hypothesis of Covid-19’s origins. – The City Journal

CBS anchor admits he could not find a single person outside of New Hampshire grocery store who feels ‘good about the economy’ – NYPost

The Media Is Melting Down, and Neither Billionaires Nor Journalists Can Seem to Stop It: Across the industry, contraction, layoffs, sales and labor unrest remind of 2008 — but insiders are less optimistic this time. – THR

Florida lawmakers move to bar kids from social media in latest statehouse push – The Washington Post

California homeless people are found living inside CAVES 20 feet below street level complete with home furnishings – as Democrat state grapples with vagrancy and LA begins annual count of those living rough – The Daily Mail

US laughs off reports of Putin eyeing Alaska as Russia’s ‘former real estate’: ‘Not getting it back’ – State Department rejects idea of Russia reclaiming Alaska after 1867 purchase – Fox News

They’re Black Democrats. And They’re Suing Chicago Over Migrants: The city greets new arrivals with resources like health screenings and rent support. ‘They’re giving migrants all the things we’ve been asking for since we came here in chains.’ – The FP