Word: serious
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...It’s ridiculous. It doesn’t hurt the tobacco companies at all, just the smokers. A lot of them are on a tight budget as it is,” said Michael L. Nachbar, a student at Tufts University. Nachbar added that he sympathized with serious smokers. “I’m never going to bum a cigarette again,” he said. But other residents said they approved of the newly implemented tax. “I’m a big fan of taxing commodities like cigarettes instead of taxing necessary...
...lobbied for the cause. In 2004, prompted by increasing pressure from activists and legislators, then-Gov. George Pataki signed the Drug Law Reform Act, a move that significantly changed the Rockefeller laws' sentencing guidelines. The harshest mandatory minimum was relaxed to 8 to 20 years and those convicted of serious offenses were allowed to apply for lighter sentences. (Read "The Wire's War on the Drug...
...enough to reverse the damage they felt the original laws had done. Even Paterson, who had served as a State Senator representing Harlem during the height of the crack epidemic, says he felt the legislation "didn't make any kind of difference." He noted a serious racial disparity to the effect of the laws. "Ninety-two percent of the inmates in these facilities on drug crimes were black and Hispanic, while the [proportion of the overall] population was 32 percent." Read "Another By-Product of the Recession: Ex-Convicts...
...This was a rare instance of Barack Obama reacting reflexively, without attempting to think creatively, about a serious policy question. He was, in fact, taking the traditional path of least resistance: an unexpected answer on marijuana would have launched a tabloid firestorm, diverting attention from the budget fight and all those bailouts. In fact, the default fate of any politician who publicly considers the legalization of marijuana is to be cast into the outer darkness. Such a person is assumed to be stoned all the time, unworthy of being taken seriously. Such a person would be lacerated by the assorted...
...There are serious moral arguments, both secular and religious. There are those who believe - with some good reason - that the accretion of legalized vices is debilitating, that we are a less virtuous society since gambling spilled out from Las Vegas to "riverboats" and state lotteries across the country. There is a medical argument, though not a very convincing one: alcohol is more dangerous in a variety of ways, including the tendency of some drunks to get violent. One could argue that the abuse of McDonald's has a greater potential health-care cost than the abuse of marijuana. (Although...