Sen. Bernie Sanders brought marijuana into the national conversation last week, calling for legalizing and regulating the drug. Under his plan, people in possession of the substance would be treated no differently than people smoking cigarettes or drinking alcohol.
By removing marijuana from the list of dangerous drugs, Sanders’ move would allow states to legalize the marijuana without Washington having a say.
Beyond campaign speeches meant to appeal to young voters, a host of state ballot initiatives on marijuana will be greeting voters next November. In California, which became the first state to legalize medical marijuana in 1996, residents may vote to legalize recreational use of the drug.
With so many members in Congress, California could become the catalyst for changing federal law. Massachusetts opened its first medical dispensary early this year. A referendum to end cannabis prohibition has been filed, and voters are expected to approve full legalization.
In Nevada, a legalization initiative has already qualified for the 2016 ballot. Vermont’s state legislature could become the first in the nation to end cannabis prohibition and replace it with tax-and-regulate policies, directly challenging federal law rather than using a ballot initiative. In Maine, where state legislators rejected recreational pot this summer, the Campaign to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol said it would put its organization behind a ballot initiative submitted by Legalize Maine, which had by then already collected about 40,000 signatures. It needs only 61,000 by January to place the measure on a statewide ballot.
A Gallup poll released Oct. 21 found that 58 percent of U.S. residents believe marijuana should be legal. – Joana Suleiman
LEGAL ADVERTISING
Plaintiff lawyer ads are proliferating, study says
Television legal advertising for law firms has grown by a whopping 68 percent in the past eight years, according to the Institute for Legal Reform, rising from $531 million to this year’s projected $892 million.
The top firm on the list is AkinMears, a personal injury firm in Houston, which boasts an estimated TV budget of $30 million.
The top metro area on the list is Tampa Bay, Florida, whose heavily saturated market includes TV, radio, billboard and bus ads from Morgan and Morgan, an Orlando-based personal injury law firm with 250 lawyers and a TV advertising budget is $24 million.
The analysis says high concentrations of trial lawyer ads may reflect legal markets more conducive to filing lawsuits. “But regardless of the reason, it is apparent that legal advertisers are targeting select markets.” The report also discusses how law firms are increasingly using sophisticated social media to spread their brands and litigation messages online while additionally searching for more clients. – Joana Suleiman
AGRICULTURE
USDA investigating misuse of public funds
The Agriculture Department is investigating whether the semi-governmental American Egg Board broke federal law to bring down a competitor.
The egg board is accused of working against vegan project Just Mayo by allegedly using public funds to try to obstruct company Hampton Creek from selling its eggless mayonnaise. Last month, emails obtained by a Freedom of Information request revealed that the egg board may have violated a bylaw that says funding can’t be used “for the purpose of influencing governmental policy or action.”
American Egg Board Chief Executive Joanne Ivy, who resigned last month, sent messages calling Hampton Creek “a crisis and a major threat” to Edelman, AEB’s public relations firm. One email jokes about having mobsters pay Hampton Creek chief executive Josh Tetrick “a visit,” others compare Big Egg to Hillary Clinton, while Just Mayo is the “little known, left-wing member of her party.”
The conversations span a couple of years, including before Hampton Creek had launched its first product. The American Egg Board apparently tried to call Whole Foods via an independent contractor to keep Hampton Creek’s product from selling before it hit shelves in 2014. – Joana Suleiman
MEDICARE SPENDING
Dementia is the most expensive disease
Spending on dementia well exceeds the healthcare costs for other diseases such as cancer or heart disease, according to a new study that sheds light on the financial strain of the disease. A new analysis in the Annals of Internal Medicine estimates that total healthcare spending for those with probable dementia was $287,000, while it totaled $183,000 for other Medicare beneficiaries, according to the National Institutes of Health, which supported the study.
The costs include not only those for medical expenses, but also the “social” costs of dementia. Spending analyzed in the study included insurance, hospital, physician, medication, nursing home, hired helpers and in-home medical care. The study also looked at out-of-pocket spending as a proportion of household wealth, NIH said.
Researchers at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai Hospital calculated the costs for 1,702 Medicare beneficiaries age 70 and older who died from 2005-07. Patients were divided into groups based on their probability of dementia, those who had cancer or heart disease and those with another cause of death.
“This complex analysis lays out the significant health care costs to society and individuals in the last five years of life,” said Richard Hodes, director of the National Institute on Aging. “It provides an important picture of the risks that families face, particularly those with dementia and those who may be least able to bear major financial risk. Such insights are critically important as we examine how best to support the aging of the U.S. population.”
Families’ out-of-pocket spending for those with dementia was $61,522, compared with $34,068 for those without dementia, NIH said. – Robert King
ENVIRONMENT
Bill would increase recreational revenue to federal lands
The National Park Service has a visitor problem, specifically among young people. So Rep. Rob Bishop, R-Utah, plans to introduce legislation calling on the service and other federal agencies to use money more smartly and make federal lands more attractive to families.
The Federal Lands Recreation Enhancement Modernization Act of 2015, in draft form, would require 90 percent of fees collected at a federal recreation site stay at that site, a 10 percent increase over the current legal requirement. The bill also would reduce the amount that agencies are allowed to spend on overhead to 5 percent, down from 15 percent.
“If we are not attracting those families to federal lands, then there’s no point in having those federal lands in the first place … if we are not using FLREMA fees to enhance those lands, then we shouldn’t have them,” he said at last week’s House Natural Resources Committee hearing.
Visits to parks have been falling relative to the population for decades, and visits from young people are down by half in just the past 10 years, he said. – Kyle Feldscher
EDUCATION
Carson in flap over school funding
Republican presidential candidate Ben Carson was confronted on Tuesday with comments he once made about supporting redistribution of education funding but opposing redistribution of wealth. In an interview with Carson, CNN’s Jake Tapper raised an April 2014 interview in which Carson said, “Wouldn’t it make more sense to put the [education] money in a pot and redistribute it throughout the country so that public schools are equal, whether you’re in a poor area or a wealthy area?”
Carson distinguished between the two issues, arguing that while the government has a responsibility to educate all citizens, it should not redistribute wealth simply “because you think it’s the social thing to do.” Since 1965, the federal government has given extra funding to schools with high portions of low-income students through Title I of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act.
Even with that funding, only 10 cents of every dollar spent on K-12 education come from the federal government, with state and local governments equally splitting the rest. Carson expressed support for Title I funding and clarified his comments in a Facebook post. “I support Title 1 funding to raise up poor inner-city and rural schools,” Carson wrote. “I do not support the national pooling of property tax receipts. That is a falsehood.” – Jason Russell
