A new episode of Five Minutes Five Issues is posted. You can listen to it, and read a transcript, below. You can also find previous episodes of the show at Stitcher, iTunes, YouTube, and SoundCloud.
Listen to the new episode here:
Read a transcript of the new episode, including links to further information regarding the topics discussed, here:
The Ron Paul Institute for Peace and Prosperity welcomes you to Five Minutes Five Issues.
Starting in five four three two one.
Hello, I am Adam Dick, a Ron Paul Institute senior fellow.
Let’s start.
Issue one.
This week, Utah state legislators voted to replace the medical marijuana ballot measure approved by voters last month with much more restrictive legislation. And Utah Governor Gary Herbert signed the replacement into law.
The new law further limits who can use medical marijuana and eliminates the legalization of some individuals growing their own marijuana. In addition, Kyle Jaeger reports at Marijuana Moment that other changes include reducing the number of stores where people can buy medical marijuana and requiring stores to hire pharmacists.
Issue two.
The death last week of former Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) Director and President George H.W. Bush brought to mind his creepy promotion as president of a “new world order.”
That phrasing received an update this week when another former CIA director — Secretary of State Mike Pompeo — said in a Tuesday speech at the German Marshall Fund in Brussels, Belgium that “[i]n the finest traditions of our great democracy, we are rallying the noble nations of the world to build a new liberal order.” Continuing, Pompeo said it would be an order “that prevents war and achieves greater prosperity for all.”
In case you are thinking that Pompeo is not giving us doublespeak of promoting war as peace and destruction as prosperity, note that he dedicates much of his speech to challenging countries the US has imposed sanctions on and militarily threatened. These include Iran, China, and Russia as well as three countries — Cuba, Nicaragua, and Venezuela — that National Security Advisor John Bolton termed a “Troika of Tyranny” in a November speech. Note also that Pompeo declares in his speech that President Donald Trump is “returning the United States to its traditional, central leadership role in the world” and that Trump “knows, as George H.W. Bush knew, that a safer world has consistently demanded American courage on the world stage.”
Issue three.
The farm bill coming out of a United States Senate and House of Representatives reconciliation committee contains legalization of hemp farming along the lines of the provisions in Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s (R-KY) Hemp Farming Act (S 2667) that I discussed in the April 13 episode of Five Minutes Five Issues. Expect Senate and House votes approving the bill soon.
Paul Armentano, the deputy director at the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, discussed the importance of this legal change relative to the larger war on marijuana in the concluding paragraph of his Tuesday The Hill editorial. Armentano writes:
Finally, the symbolic significance of this forthcoming law change should not be under emphasized. Passage of the 2018 farm bill will mark the first change in the federal classification of the cannabis plant since it was initially classified as a schedule I controlled substance by Congress in 1970. As statewide and public support in favor of broader marijuana reforms continues to grow, it is apparent that this federal change won’t be the last.
Issue four.
Kurt Nimmo wrote this week at his website kurtnimmo.blog about efforts to insert into legislation in the lame duck US Congress penalties for companies boycotting products from Israel. In his interesting and informative editorial, Nimmo mentions reasons why people may be justified in engaging in such a boycott. Yet, fundamentally, boycotting is an exercise of people’s right to use their resources as they see fit. People should face no legal punishment for boycotting products from Israel even if Israel were a libertarian wonderland.
Issue five.
There is a debate in New York over how to spend tax money from likely-soon-to-be-legalized marijuana in the state. People are taking sides on whether the money should be spent on subways or on welfare programs or on this or that other government project. It may be best to just throw the money into general revenue for the state legislators to divvy up as they choose. Dedicating the tax revenue to particular projects would give special interests much incentive to ensure marijuana taxes stay high or even increase.
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That’s a wrap.
Transcripts of Five Minutes Five Issues episodes, including links to related information, are at the Ron Paul Institute blog.
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