Author: Matthew Clemente

The House I Live In

/ Matthew Clemente / Leave a comment

I recently watched “The House I Live In” a documentary about the cost of the War on Drugs. “The House I Live In” won the Grand Jury Prize: Documentary at the Sundance Film Festival. The documentary is available from multiple outlets, including Netflix.

Here is a description of the documentary:

Why We Fight director Eugene Jarecki shifts his focus from the military industrial complex to the War on Drugs in this documentary exploring the risks that prohibition poses to freedom, and the tragedy of addicts being treated as criminals. In the four decades since the War on Drugs commenced, more than 45 millions of addicts have been arrested — and for each one jailed, another family is destroyed. Meanwhile, the prisons in America are growing overcrowded with non-violent criminals, and illegal drugs are still being sold in schoolyards. By examining just where it all went wrong, Jarecki reveals that a solution is possible if we can just find it in ourselves to be compassionate, and see past the decades of paranoia and propaganda.

Feel Good Friday: Burglars Return Computers To Charity

/ Matthew Clemente / Leave a comment

Feel Good Friday: Burglars Return Computers To Charity

Gawker recently ran a story about apologetic burglars who returned the things they stole from a clinic that treats the victims of sexual assault. 

Here is how the story began: 

Burglars rarely return to the scene of the crime — much less in order to return the things they stole.

But that’s exactly what happened in California last week, just hours after the San Bernardino County Sexual Assault Services was robbed of several computer, monitors, and other valuables.

Candy Stallings, who runs the nonprofit, says she was called to the office on July 31st after a report came in about a break-in at the office.

The burglars had climbed in through the walls, disabling security systems and motion detectors as they went.

As Stallings left the scene around 1:30 AM, she overheard an officer explain to some “transients” who had gathered near the building what the nonprofit did.

The office has no sign on the door identifying itself in order to protect victims who seek its services.

Just three hours later, Stallings received another call: The burglars were back. But this time, rather than steal more stuff, they had left some stuff behind.

So Weed It Is: Why Dr. Sanjay Gupta Changed His Mind on Marijuana

/ Matthew Clemente / Leave a comment

So Weed It Is: Why Dr. Sanjay Gupta Changed His Mind on Marijuana

This Sunday, August 11 at 8PM, CNN will feature a documentary by Dr. Sanjay Gupta, CNN’s Chief Medical Correspondent, titled, “WEED”. In promoting the documentary, Dr. Gupta wrote a commentary explaining why he changed his mind on weed. 

Here is how it begins: 

Over the last year, I have been working on a new documentary called “Weed.” The title “Weed” may sound cavalier, but the content is not. I traveled around the world to interview medical leaders, experts, growers and patients. I spoke candidly to them, asking tough questions. What I found was stunning.

Long before I began this project, I had steadily reviewed the scientific literature on medical marijuana from the United States and thought it was fairly unimpressive. Reading these papers five years ago, it was hard to make a case for medicinal marijuana. I even wrote about this in a TIME magazine article, back in 2009, titled “Why I would Vote No on Pot.”

Well, I am here to apologize. I apologize because I didn’t look hard enough, until now. I didn’t look far enough. I didn’t review papers from smaller labs in other countries doing some remarkable research, and I was too dismissive of the loud chorus of legitimate patients whose symptoms improved on cannabis.

Instead, I lumped them with the high-visibility malingerers, just looking to get high. I mistakenly believed the Drug Enforcement Agency listed marijuana as a schedule 1 substance because of sound scientific proof. Surely, they must have quality reasoning as to why marijuana is in the category of the most dangerous drugs that have “no accepted medicinal use and a high potential for abuse.”

They didn’t have the science to support that claim, and I now know that when it comes to marijuana neither of those things are true. It doesn’t have a high potential for abuse, and there are very legitimate medical applications. In fact, sometimes marijuana is the only thing that works. Take the case of Charlotte Figi, who I met in Colorado. She started having seizures soon after birth. By age 3, she was having 300 a week, despite being on seven different medications. Medical marijuana has calmed her brain, limiting her seizures to 2 or 3 per month.

Special thanks to Professor Douglas A. Berman’s insightful blog, “Sentencing Law and Policy,” for bringing this story and documentary to my attention. 

 

“Child custody rights for rapists? Most states have them”

/ Matthew Clemente / 1 Comment

“Child custody rights for rapists? Most states have them”

I could not believe this story when I learned of it. In 31 states, rapists have child custody rights. Shauna Prewitt, attorney, author, and rape vicitm, is currently fighting to change these baffling laws.  Prewitt gained notoriety for writing an open letter former Congressman Todd Akin, who infamous stated that in the case of “a legitimate rape, the female body has ways to try to shut that whole thing down.”

Will Lobbying Destroy the American Empire?

/ Matthew Clemente / Leave a comment

Will Lobbying Destroy the American Empire?

Recently, Fareed Zakaria began his Sunday show discussing the deleterious influences of lobbyist on American politics.  

Here are the basics of “Fareed’s Take”

The entire political system creates incentives for venality. Consider just one factor – and there are many – the role of money, which has expanded dramatically over the past four decades. Harvard’s Lawrence Lessig has pointed out that Congressmen now spend three of every five workdays raising money. They also vote with extreme attention to their donors’ interests. Lessig cites studies that demonstrate that donors get a big bang for their campaign bucks – sometimes with returns on their “investment” that would make a venture capital firm proud.

Now, taking money out of politics is a mammoth challenge. So perhaps the best one could hope for is to limit instead what Congress can sell. In other words, enact a thorough reform of the tax code, ridding it of the thousands of special exemptions, credits, and deductions, which are, of course, institutionalized, legalized corruption.

The most depressing aspect of This Town, by Mark Leibovich, is how utterly routine all the influence-peddling has become. In 1990 Ramsay MacMullen, the great Yale historian of Rome, published a book that took on the central question of his field: Why did the greatest empire in the history of the world collapse in the fifth century? The root cause, he explained, was political corruption, which had become systemic in the late Roman Empire. What was once immoral had become accepted as standard practice and what was once illegal was celebrated as the new normal. Many decades from now, a historian looking at where America lost its way could use This Town as a primary source.

Watch the video for the full take and read more in the Washington Post