Tag: John Marek

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Opinion Viewpoint

Shelby County Officials Promote Marijuana Myths

At least temporarily, the Shelby County Commission put itself on the wrong side of history last week when it recorded a vote of 4-7 on the first of three readings of an ordinance to partially decriminalize cannabis. While the resulting vote was different from a positive vote from the Memphis City Council on a similar ordinance, the amount of misinformation on display from opponents during the debate was not. 

Back in the 1930s, when “reefer madness” began, misinformation about cannabis was easy to spread because there was little research, and the public didn’t have access to information that we have today. Now, there is really no excuse for public officials to make blatantly false statements. 

During the council’s debate, Police Director Michael Rallings made demonstrably erroneous statements on everything from driving risks to the much-repeated and much-debunked gateway drug argument to a wildly overstated estimate of how many joints could be rolled out of a half-ounce of marijuana (though, admittedly, the thought of MPD officers sitting around a table rolling doobies is hilarious). 

On the issue of driving risks, Mark A. R. Kleiman, an NYU professor specializing in drug and criminal policy issues, said driving while under the influence of cannabis compares to having a noisy child in the back seat, making one perhaps twice as likely to have an accident. As a point of comparison, Kleiman found that using a hands-free cell phone while driving makes one four times more likely to have an accident. 

U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch has also disputed the gateway drug theory as applied to pot. In arguing for the potentially addictive nature of prescription drugs, which might in her estimation lead on to dangerous opioids such as heroin, she was dismissive of equivalent dangers from marijuana: “It’s not like we’re seeing marijuana as a specific gateway.”  

Addressing the issue of marijuana decriminalization, Kim Gerecke, chair of the neuroscience program at Rhodes College, is in agreement with that thesis. As she puts it, “Marijuana has a relatively low addiction rate of about 9 percent. In contrast, the addiction rate of alcohol is 15 percent, and nicotine is around 32 percent. Importantly, addiction rates to opioids, including prescription painkillers, are about 25 percent.”

Pointing out that there has never been evidence of a death directly attributable to a marijuana overdose, Gerecke says, “research has shown overwhelmingly that marijuana has an incredibly low toxicity, especially when compared with the over half a million Americans who die every year due to the toxic effects of alcohol, prescription opioids, and nicotine.”

Gerecke goes so far as to suggest that decriminalization may actually have a deterrent effect on use of dangerous drugs: “It’s important to note here that recent research in Colorado and other states in which cannabis is decriminalized, or even legalized, has shown that use of other illicit drugs has declined.”

In Tennessee, even the amount of marijuana used as a standard to impose legal penalties may be overstated. The state deems that possession of 14 grams is the amount at which a misdemeanor occurs, whereas most states set the limit at a range from an ounce (28 grams) to 30 grams.

During the county commission’s debate, Commissioner Heidi Shafer made the claim that marijuana is extremely carcinogenic. However, in the Harm Reduction Journal, which publishes research focusing on the prevalent patterns of psychoactive drug use and the public policies meant to control them, Robert Melamede, a physician, writes that the cells of the lungs are lined with nicotine receptors but do not appear to contain receptors for THC, which may explain why marijuana use has not, in fact, been linked to lung cancer. 

As an indication of just how wildly misleading the local case against decriminalization has been, Chief Inspector Mark Kellerhall of the Sheriff’s Department stated to the commission that a half ounce could have up to a $3,000 street value. Aside from its having no discernible relation to the argument, that misstatement is so ridiculously far from the truth that it should not even have been published as news or allowed to go unchallenged at the commission meeting. 

My plea to all public figures, regardless of their viewpoint is: Please just do the research; merely repeating hearsay legends is doing a disservice to the public.

Memphis lawyer John Marek is president of the local branch of NORML (the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws).

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Politics Politics Beat Blog

Despite Report, Cohen Not Ready to Endorse

CREDIT: JB

JB

U.S. Rep. Steve Cohen (second from right) at Saturday fish fry event for Super District 9, Position 2 Council candidate Paul Shaffer (second from left). Others are Jeff Sullivan and Carol Risher.

Candidates trying to get into public office no doubt envy those who are already there. But being an office-holder has its special quandaries.

Take 9th District congressman Steve Cohen, for example. He’s been in public life for so long and in so many different guises — County Commissioner, state Senator, and even, briefly, General Sessions Judge — that he’s accumulated an expectedly large number of friends and political allies. And he, like everybody else, has his ideological preferences.

At election time, understandably, several of the aforementioned friends and allies crave special attention from the Congressman.

Specifically, they’d like his endorsement — a commodity that, both in theory and in proven practice, is a help in getting elected.

The problem is that often there are several friends and allies all seeking the same position, and that puts the Congressman — and other officials in a similar situation (think Wharton, Luttrell, Haslam, etc., etc.) — in a bit of a bind.

The bottom line: Reports to the contrary notwithstanding, Cohen has not endorsed anybody for anything yet in the Memphis city election, as he made clear on Saturday, when he stopped by a fish fry at the IBEW building on Madison, in honor of his longtime friend and ally, Paul Shaffer, a candidate for the City Council, District 9, Position 2 seat.

“I may do something close to the [July 16] filing deadline,” Cohen said, “but I’m not endorsing as of yet.”

Shaffer is certainly a prime candidate for a Cohen endorsement; so are several candidates in other races.

Take Council District 5, for example: At least three candidates in the multi-candidate field are close to Cohen, either personally or politically of both. They are John Marek, Mary Wilder, and Charles “Chooch” Pickard. (One or two others in that field he finds potentially attractive, as well.)

Cohen posted some flattering remarks on his Facebook page this past week about Marek (his former campaign manager in two recent reelection efforts), and he’s certainly very fond of Marek and very impressed by him and encouraging of Marek’s political ambitions.

“But I have other friends in that race, too,” he clarified Saturday, indicating that he could speak highly of them, as well.

At least one published report stated flatly, though, that Marek had Cohen’s “endorsement,” and, to repeat, the Congressman insists that is not literally the case, as the word “endorsement” is commonly understood in the case of a political race.

All of this will work out in the wash, and it may well be — but it’s not guaranteed — that Marek will get a formal endorsement at some point. Meanwhile, friends of Wilder and Pickard — are perhaps those candidates as well — are bending Cohen’s ear.

As indicated, he is likely to confer an endorsement either just before or just after the filing deadline — if for no other reason than he is aware that three candidates vying for the same essential constituency (call it “progressive” or Democratically-inclined or what-have-you) could split the district vote in such a way as to leave them all outside the frame of a runoff election.

It is known, in fact, that Cohen counseled with at least one candidate, and perhaps more, about that prospect some weeks ago, before the field expanded.

Anyhow, if nothing else, the current confusion has made Cohen’s ultimate decision — about District 5 and other races — something of a suspense factor in a city election season getting ready to dispense with training wheels and pick up speed.

Categories
Politics Politics Feature

Outliers and Insiders

CREDIT: Jackson Baker

The history of American politics demonstrates that positions that seem unconventional, even outrageous, when first broached have a way of becoming the norm with the passage of time — and sometimes not much time at all.

Think “Defense of Marriage Act,” now blink your eyes and think “Marriage Equality Act.” Even simpler: Think “Bruce,” don’t waste time with blinking and now think “Caitlyn.”

Though there was a time when the political left was responsible for most innovations (think 1960s, sit-ins, or even Social Security), the initiative where change is concerned seems to have shifted over to the right. Or at least to some mutating middle.

On the urban scene — and not just in problem-plagued Memphis city government — the idea of de-annexation may be finding its time. A bill to that effect got a trial run in the General Assembly last year, and it’s sure to take another bow in 2016.

Now you find the phenomenon of three city council candidates running as a ticket on that idea — which seemingly originated with suburban conservatives, but coupling it with such street-populist and Mempho-centric ideas as saving the Mid-South Coliseum and restoring pension and benefit levels for city police and firefighters.

The three are Jim Tomasik, a veteran of Libertarian Party politics; Lynn Moss, who admits to being Republican; and Robin Spielberger, whose politics are more amorphous. The trio of council candidates (Moss, Super-District 9, Position 2; Tomasik, District 2; and Spielberger, Super-District 9, Position 1) held an open-air meet-and-greet/fund-raiser Saturday at Lost Pizza Company on Poplar (site of the old Ronnie Grisanti’s Restaurant).

Their slogan (on a sign alongside a downtown-skyline graphic) indicates the ambivalent appeal of their position. “Right for Memphis/Cordova,” it says, and the fact is, sentiment for de-annexation seems to have just such a divided appeal. Recently annexed suburbanites (Moss and Tomasik are Cordovans) want independence (though they might settle for autonomy); meanwhile, a growing number of Memphians, like Spielberger, are concerned about the high costs of providing services to the sprawling outer areas annexed in recent years.

Maybe these three are wasting their time (competing with well-financed traditional candidates is going to be a problem), and maybe they are pathfinders, and maybe they’ll even run competitive races. All that remains to be seen, and how it works out may tell us something about our future.

• The developing matchup in council District 5 involves more conventional candidates and enough conservatives and liberals to allow for intramural contests within the larger race itself.

Of the nine potential candidates who have so far drawn petitions, five have drawn the most attention, and, though the nonpartisan nature of city elections allows for a certain flow across party preference and ideological lines, those five divide into two groups, basically.

Dan Springer, a still-youthful veteran of government service and Republican politics, and Worth Morgan, an even more youthful insurance executive with family ties to elite Memphis business circles, are regarded as battling it out for the loyalty of conventional conservatives. (Morgan’s first-quarter financial disclosure showed upwards of $150,000 on hand; my friend Kyle Veazey of the Commercial Appeal may not like the term, but that’s a war chest.)

On the other side of the ideological spectrum, Mary Wilder, Charles “Chooch” Pickard, and John Marek, will be competing for the support of those voters who see themselves as progressives (a designation that has largely replaced “liberal” as a self-signifier).

All three have overlapping interests and platforms, with Wilder noted for neighborhood advocacy, Pickard for preservationist activity, and Marek for campaign management. Wilder and Pickard have been in the field for some time, while Marek, a longtime advocate of police reform and loosening of restrictions on marijuana, is poised to begin a serious effort.

Expectations are that a runoff is inevitable, with no candidate able to get an absolute majority as of October 8th. It seems almost certain that either Springer or Morgan will make the runoff, to vie against whoever predominates among the progressive trio. But it is not impossible that the two perceived conservatives, given the depth of their anticipated resources, will end up opposing each other.

It is less likely that the runoff will be drawn exclusively from the Wilder-Pickard-Marek aggregation, but that is possible.

The Rev. Kenneth Whalum drew a petition for a District 5 race, along with petitions for Super-District 9, Position 2, and mayor, but it’s now being taken for granted that he will end up in the mayoral field.

Colonel Gene Billingsley, Jimmie Franklin, and Jennifer James Williams, all of whom have drawn petitions for District 5 (Franklin has actually filed), have to be regarded as outliers, on the basis of the name-identification factor alone.

• At its meeting of June 3rd in Nashville, the Tennessee Ethics Commission met to consider several new penalties for alleged campaign-finance offenders and to reconsider several already assessed. One of the latter was a $1,000 fine imposed on then Shelby County Democratic Party chairman Bryan Carson last September.

As the commission recapped the situation last week: “Mr. Carson was assessed $1,000 at the September 17, 2014, meeting for failure to file the Statement of Interests. Mr. Carson has subsequently filed and appeared before the commission to explain the tardiness of his filing. After the discussion, Mr. [Jim] Stranch made the motion to reconsider and to waive the penalty as it was Mr. Carson’s first time filing. Mr. [Greg] Hardeman seconded and the motion passed 5-0.”

Carson — who ran afoul of his executive committee and the state Election Registry for his accounting procedures a few months ago and subsequently resigned his chairmanship — offered this explanation: “A few months ago, I learned that each candidate running for public must file a Statement of Interest and submit it to the Tennessee Ethics Commission. I ran for the Tennessee Democratic Party Executive Committee last August 2014 and did not know that I needed to complete a Statement of Interest which was due in September 2014. 

“All candidates were required to complete another statement in January 2015, of which I completed and filed on time. Running to serve on the TNDP was my first time running for public office, therefore, that weighed heavily on the final decision of the Tennessee Ethics Commission.”

• Fresh from serving as host for a “Memphis for Hillary” rally held on Saturday in a Southeast Memphis storefront owned by her family, state Representative Raumesh Akbari (D-Memphis) is in Canada this week, guest of the Embassy of Canada, which selected her and seven other legislators from the United States for a week-long “Rising State Leaders Program.”

The program began in 2006 with the goal of facilitating understanding between the two neighbor countries on business, trade, and cultural matters. The 2015 program, focusing on eastern Canada, will take legislators to Ontario, Quebec, and Nova Scotia. It began on Sunday and will continue through Saturday.

Following the death of longtime legislative eminence Lois DeBerry in 2013, Akbari won a special election to represent DeBerry’s District 91 House seat in the Tennessee General Assembly. She was easily reelected to full term last year.

A member of the House Criminal Justice Committee and Subcommittee, Akbari also serves on the House Education Instruction and Program Committee, where she closely monitors the effect on Memphis public schools of various state programs. She has sponsored several pieces of legislation designed to safeguard the structure of Memphis schools during a period of rapidly imposed innovations at the state level.