Author: Matthew Clemente

Private Equity and Marijuana Inc.

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Private Equity and Marijuana Inc.

NPR’s All Things Consider ran a story about how investment bankers are beginning to look at the marijuana industry as a potential investment opportunity.

Here is an introduction to the story:  

A couple of guys with serious investment banking experience are moving into the marijuana business. They’ve launched the first multimillion-dollar private equity fund devoted entirely to what they like to call the “cannabis space.”

It started when Brendan Kennedy was working at the Silicon Valley Bank and learned of an entrepreneur who wanted to sell software for marijuana dispensaries. The idea piqued Kennedy’s interest. A few days later, a radio show about legalizing pot piqued it even more.

There’s an opportunity here, he thought, and picked up the phone and called his Yale business school buddy, Michael Blue. He told Blue he thought his friend needed to quit his job and come start a company in the cannabis industry.

Politics and the “Culture of Rape”

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Recently, the New Yorker‘s “Political Scene,”  hosted by Dorothy Wickenden, discussed the “culture of rape” from rape in the U.S. military to the Steubenville High School case.

Here is a description of the podcast: 

“The easiest way to talk about” rape culture, Ariel Levy says on this week’s Political Scene podcast, “is in action as opposed to in abstract definition. Rape culture in action simply means taking a situation where a woman—by virtue of the progress that our society has made over the last hundred years—where a woman is in a situation where something has nothing to do with sex and where sex is forced upon her.” In the latest issue of the magazine, Levy writes about the presence and role of rape culture in the Steubenville High School case, but, as she and Ryan Lizza discuss with host Dorothy Wickenden, it’s not restricted to such places—in fact, sexual violence has retained a stubborn hold on the U.S. military that is only now finally being addressed as a political matter.

“What’s different now about what could happen in the wake of this Pentagon report about the huge increase in sexual assaults is you now have twenty women in the U.S. Senate, and you actually have five women on the Senate Armed Services Committee,” Lizza notes, saying that the increased presence of women has prompted “a pretty robust debate about what to do about this.” That debate, Levy says, ought to extend beyond the military: “Some of it has to start … with comprehensive sexual education for boys and girls.”

The Best and Worst of Drug Court

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The Best and Worst of Drug Court

This week, I was able to attend the nationally recognized treatment court in Scranton, PA.  The program was very impressive, a stark contrast from a 2011 episode of This American Life about drug court judge in Georgia.  

Here is a description of the episode:

This week: A drug court program that we believe is run differently from every other drug court in the country, doing some things that are contrary to the very philosophy of drug court. The result? People with offenses that would get minimal or no sentences elsewhere sometimes end up in the system five to ten years 

Less Than “Do Nothing” Congress?

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Less Than “Do Nothing” Congress?

Recently Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross interviewed New York Times congressional correspondent Jonathan Weisman about Congress’ coming summer recess and its inaction in the last term.  

Here is a description of the interview: 

Friday is the last day before the 113th Congress scatters for their summer recess. And what has it accomplished so far? Almost nothing, says New York Times congressional correspondent Jonathan Weisman. As he points out in a recent article:

“None of Congress’s 12 annual spending bills have reached Mr. Obama’s desk, and with the House and the Senate far apart on total spending levels, a government shutdown is possible on Oct. 1, when the current spending law expires.

“Once Congress returns on Sept. 9, lawmakers will have just nine legislative days until the current fiscal year ends and large swaths of the government would be forced to close.”

Weisman joins Fresh Air‘s Terry Gross to discuss why this Congress has passed so few laws, and explain some of the conflicts between Republican lawmakers and President Obama.

“Should a Chimpanzee Have Human Rights?”

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“Should a Chimpanzee Have Human Rights?”

That was the topic being discussed on the Lawyer2Lawyer podcast. Here is a description of the (somewhat strange) show:

If it’s not legally a human, it’s a thing. But animal rights advocates argue these alternatives fail to recognize that there are many cognitively complex species who deserve to be treated as people. The Nonhuman Rights Project is planning to file a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of a chimp to grant her the right to bodily liberty. This will release her from the cage she is currently living in, and the project will have her admitted into a cageless sanctuary. Steven M. Wise, president of The Nonhuman Rights Project, has been researching and planning this case for 20 years.

Steven M. Wise has been practicing animal protection law nationwide for for the past 30 years. He was the first professor to teach animal law at Harvard University and is still teaching animal law courses all over the world. He has published four books on the matter, including Rattling the Cage – Toward Legal Rights for Animals.

On this edition of Lawyer2Lawyer, hosts Bob Ambrogi and J. Craig Williams will talk with Wise about the case to grant a chimp the right to bodily liberty and The Nonhuman Rights Project’s long-term plans for animal rights