marijuana
GRITtv: Jane Hamsher & Nathan Newman: Taxes, Marijuana and More on the Ballot
"People are looking to state ballot initiatives to have some form of control over governance when elected officials are abdicating," says Jane Hamsher of this year's crop of ballot initiatives around the country. Perhaps best known is California's Proposition 19, which would legalize, regulate, and tax marijuana, but there are also important tax initiatives on ballots around the country, as well as state environmental regulations. Hamsher joins us via Skype and Nathan Newman, formerly of the Progressive States Network, is in studio to discuss the various ballot initiatives and their effect both on voter turnout and on actual governance.
Email this pageGRITtv: Jane Hamsher: Time Has Come for Marijuana
Jane Hamsher discusses the campaign for legalizing marijuana in California, the various motives, and voter turnout. Distributed by Tubemogul.
GRITtv: Dr. Joycelyn Elders: Marijuana & Masturbation
Dr. Joycelyn Elders is no stranger to making controversial statements in public, so her support of California's Proposition 19, the marijuana legalization ballot initiative, shouldn't be surprising. After all, years ago she was ousted as Bill Clinton's Surgeon General after noting that a discussion of masturbation should be part of educating young people on avoiding HIV infection. Elders joins us via Skype from Arkansas, where she is professor emeritus at the University of Arkansas School of Medicine and an associate at Arkansas Children's Hospital, to discuss marijuana legalization, the return of masturbation as a campaign issue, and the ongoing struggle for universal health care in the U.S. Distributed by Tubemogul.
GRITtv: Can Marijuana Save the Economy?
An initiative in California for marijuana legalization is slowly moving toward an appearance on the November ballot, and several other states have taken steps to legalize the drug for medical purposes, or to decriminalize possession, reducing it to a misdemeanor charge. Since the start of the economic crisis, many -- including the venerable Economist magazine -- have called for legalization and taxing in order to boost revenues. Could marijuana save the economy? Would the benefits -- both for government money and for those who use the drug for medical purposes -- outweigh the negatives? We ask Ryan Grim, correspondent for the Huffington Post and author of This Is Your Country on Drugs: The Secret History of Getting High in America, Brendan O'Flaherty, professor of economics at Columbia University and author of City Economics, and Terrence Farley, former prosecutor for Ocean County, NJ and former director of the New Jersey Division of Criminal Justice.
GRITtv: Nov. 4, 2009: One Year Later
In a special one-hour show, we convene two panels of GRITtv regular guests to talk about these questions, the election results, and what progressives need to do better going forward into 2010. Joining us are Katrina vanden Heuvel and Chris Hayes of The Nation, Jehmu Greene of the Women's Media Center and formerly of Rock the Vote, James Rucker of Color Of Change, Danny Schechter of News Dissector, Jane Hamsher of FireDogLake, Ron Reagan and Mark Green of Air America, and Esther Armah of WBAI.
