On December 18,  US president Donald Trump signed an executive order  — titled “Increasing Medical Marijuana and Cannabidiol Research” — which directs US attorney general Pam Bondi to “take all necessary steps to complete the rulemaking process related to rescheduling marijuana to Schedule III” from Schedule I.

To be clear up front, I’m not complaining: ANY relaxation of the federal government’s idiotic standards for, and ANY retreat in its evil war on, marijuana is a win.

It’s a win for patients whose ailments the drug addresses. It’s a win for taxpayers who fork over tens of billions of dollars a year to the DEA to maintain those standards and continue losing that war. And it’s a win for freedom in general.

So, yay Trump.

That said, it’s long past time to “deschedule,” rather than “reschedule,” marijuana.

What’s the difference?

According to the Drug Enforcement Administration, a Schedule I drug is one with “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.”

Marijuana clearly falls outside that first clause (according to patients, according to doctors, and according to the laws of 41 states).

A Schedule III drug has “currently accepted medical uses” and “a moderate to low potential for physical and psychological dependence.”

That leaves the “abuse” and “dependence” considerations … which always have been, are, and will forever remain far outside any legitimate purview of government.

“Abuse” is in the eye of the beholder, and humans find ways to be dependent on all kinds of things.  Here are four: Caffeine. Nicotine. Alcohol. Sugar.

None of which, by the way, are “scheduled” drugs, and none of which have been used by humans in their modern, refined forms for as long as cannabis, aka marijuana.

There’s a reason people call marijuana “weed” — it is one. It grows wild on every continent except Antarctica.

It’s been used both medically and recreationally for thousands of years. Queen Victoria, whose name defined strait-laced moral views of the 19th century, used it for menstrual cramps.

It didn’t become illegal in the US until the 20th century, and the real reasons had far  more to do with keeping alcohol prohibition cops employed after booze became legal again, and suppressing hemp as a competitor to the wood-pulp paper industry, than with “abuse” or “dependence.”

The war on drugs has always been stupid and evil; its application to marijuana particularly so. Far too many people have spent far too many years in prison for possession and use of a common and benign plant, and taxpayers have been mulcted of far too much money to put them there.

Again, yay Trump. Making it easier to develop and deliver effective medicines is laudable. But  when do we get a return to marijuana’s former normalcy?

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

On December 14, “film director, producer, screenwriter, actor, and political activist” (per Wikipedia) Rob Reiner and his wife, Michele Reiner, were murdered at their home, allegedly by their son.

“Celebrity” deaths inspire various public reactions. Mourning, obviously. Praise, sometimes overstated, for careers. Moralizing of various kinds. And, unfortunately, celebrations by their political opponents.

With Reiner, the most prominent attempt at such a connection comes from US president Donald Trump via his social media platform, Truth Social.

Reiner, Trump says, “passed away. Cause of death? “Reportedly due to the anger he caused others through his massive, unyielding, and incurable affliction with a mind crippling disease known as TRUMP DERANGEMENT SYNDROME.”

It’s true that Reiner led a politically engaged life, generally disdained the Republican Party, and specifically opposed Donald Trump.

So what?

I’m not going to work up a laundry list of Reiner’s political positions; some of them I agreed with, some of them I vociferously disagreed with.

Again, so what?

Did Reiner’s politics in any way diminish the entertainment value — nay, the greatness — of (to name just three of my favorites) The Princess Bride, When Harry Met Sally, or A Few Good Men? I say no. His chosen job, for more than half a century, was to entertain us. He did so, and he did so well.

I could probably name 50 entertainers whose political positions I find odious … if I bother to notice those political positions. I mostly go out of my way NOT to.

Is there any compelling reason to deprive ourselves of great films or great performances from Oliver Stone, Jon Voit, Jane Fonda, Sean Penn, James Woods, Susan Sarandon, Oliver Stone, Spike Lee, Leonardo DiCaprio  — the list goes on and on — just to indulge our political disagreements with them and maybe cost them a buck or two in box office sales, TV residuals, etc.? The idea smacks of cutting off one’s nose to spite one’s face.

As for speaking ill of the dead, even dancing on their graves … well, I’m not against it in the case of particularly unsavory characters. But over political disagreements? No. Tom Smothers wasn’t Charles Manson and Pete Seeger wasn’t Joseph Stalin. They enriched our lives whether we liked their politics or not.

It’s a truism that politics ruins everything, and that’s a good argument for abandoning politics altogether. We should at least seek, in our personal choices, an intentional separation of politics and entertainment.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY

“In order to comply with the January 2025 Executive Order 14161 (Protecting the United States From Foreign Terrorists and Other National Security and Public Safety Threats),” US Customs and Border Protection informed the public in a December 10 Federal Register entry, “CBP is adding social media as a mandatory data element for an ESTA application.”

ESTA — “Electronic System for Travel Authorization” — is used by tourists coming to the US for short stays from countries with which the US government has “visa-free” arrangements.

ESTA travelers will have to share five years of social media history with CBP snoops if they want to visit the Grand Canyon or catch Keanu Reeves’s turn as Estragon in Waiting for Godot on Broadway.

Travelers who have to request visas (students and workers, for example) have been required to set their social media profiles to “public” for “a comprehensive and thorough vetting” since June.

Even assuming a need or authority on the US government’s part to “vet” travelers — an assumption I reject — the idea’s kind of silly for two reasons.

First, how much does CBP really need to know, other than that a traveler isn’t toting a suitcase nuke or an aerosol can full of smallpox virus?

Second, how long will it take for bad actors start manufacturing — even retroactively — false social media histories, leaving them free to travel while adding yet another layer of useless inconvenience for everyone else?

Worse, from what one might think of as an “America First” point of view, how long before the “national security” state’s bureaucratic camel gets this same nose under the domestic tent?

Don’t tell me it can’t happen here. I’m not THAT old, and I’m old enough to remember when the process of boarding an airplane in the US was as simple as running your bag through an X-ray machine and showing a boarding pass.

These days, you have to show a Very Special Important Federally Approved ID Card (as late as the 1990s, “conservatives” opposed “national ID” schemes) and budget an extra hour or more for body scans (with, potentially, “enhanced” manual groping) just to get from New York to LA in a timely manner.

America’s already crawling with creepy wannabe cops demanding — Third Reich or Soviet Union style — that people “show their papers” as a condition of going just about anywhere or doing just about anything (including their jobs if the ICE gang happens to drop in on a workplace).

If you think they won’t eventually escalate to browsing through YOUR shared memes, photos of cats and memories with your significant others, etc., think again.

As a practical matter, all this snooping just gums up the works of everyone’s life so more government employees can collect more paychecks. It doesn’t protect “America” and it doesn’t protect you.

As a moral issue, let me phrase this as a question and answer:

Q: Who do they think they are?

A: They think they’re your masters.

We shouldn’t tolerate that attitude, or this nonsense. Neither at, nor within, the border.

Thomas L. Knapp (X: @thomaslknapp | Bluesky: @knappster.bsky.social | Mastodon: @knappster) is director and senior news analyst at the William Lloyd Garrison Center for Libertarian Advocacy Journalism (thegarrisoncenter.org). He lives and works in north central Florida.

PUBLICATION/CITATION HISTORY