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Comment by tptacek | Hacker News Reader

This is a surprisingly thoughtful article for CNN.

"We have been terribly and systematically misled for nearly 70 years in the United States, and I apologize for my own role in that."

Wow. Ownership of a mistake. Rare to see on a 24 hour news network. +1 for Sanjay

Considering CNN's role (as a 24 hour news network) in forcing politician's to defend anything and everything they've ever said, I really like seeing something like this coming from someone within the network. Especially about something as absurd as the illegality of medical marijuana.

> Wow. Ownership of a mistake. Rare to see on a 24 hour news network.

Renouncing a position that was formerly nearly universally held in favor of one that seems to be the new trend isn't actually that rare.

To be fair, it's somewhat rare to admit that's what you're doing so explicitly. Most public figures who do this kind of thing try to pretend like it never happened.

Yes, taking ownership of your obvious flaws is often an effective maneuver. By so doing you minimize the effect of external critics calling attention to them. ( related: http://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Main/LampshadeHanging )

I do think he's doing the smart/right thing (now).

I too am surprised to see such an article on CNN.

The one thing it doesn't touch on is the cost we have incurred as a nation by making it illegal. We have seen this before with prohibition, it didn't stop people from drinking it just made better criminals. Once we legalize it we can stop spending money fighting it and start taxing it!

Of course the funny thing will be watching all the farmers in Illinois plow down their corn fields to crow weed! Yes I am aware of what it takes to grown corn in terms of resources, time, and cost and at the current market rate for weed those fields would be plowed under in record time!

I'm not increadibly fammilar with current agriculturual laws in the US, but my understanding is that we are still artificially limiting crop production (a temporary measure from the great depression). Given that, it is not clear to me what the actual cost to farmers of replacing corn with weed is.

I am not that surprised. Dog biting man is not an interesting news. Man biting a dog - that's something. So, anti-cannabies doctor is a common creature, the opposite - that's catching subject.

It's unlikely that the end of prohibition would have a large impact on agriculture; growing weed usually requires an indoor or greenhouse environment to prevent pollination, it doesn't really lend itself to large-scale production, and the amount that people smoke is minuscule compared to tobacco/cigarettes. Of course, tobacco companies could roll out some industrial processing machines and drive the price of production down near to zero, but as long as the government uses taxes to keep the price high, people will demand the kind of quality that requires more of a greenhouse type of a solution.

indeed, they should be commended. but equally, that's not a very high bar.

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