More reasons to legalize marijuana

Written in response to Bobby Lindsey's post The Money Plant:

"I agree with you. The legalization of marijuana is a completely logical move. It would be an additional source of revenue (especially if there is a tax on it), and it would mitigate some of the violence caused by the drug trade by narrowing the illegal drug market (though there are certainly other illegal drugs that would continue this aspect of the informal economy).

However, I have to point out a few problems with your argument. For starters, you make a large point in the benefits of hemp as a reason for the legalization of marijuana. Well, hemp is legal because hemp usually refers to the strain of the plant with low levels of THC, the chemical that creates the high. There are hemp products left and right here in Austin, in both clothing stores and grocery stores. In fact, as a vegan, I consume hemp products on a fairly regular basis. Therefore, it’s important to make a distinction between hemp and marijuana and not use the terms interchangeably.

Second, you point out the economic benefits of legalizing marijuana, and yes they do exist. But a stronger case could be made when discussing the additional social benefits and how those would help a struggling budget as well. As I’ve already stated, legalizing marijuana would knock down a huge part of the illegal drug trade. Less drug trade means less drug dealers (both petty dealers and those affiliated with gangs). Less dealers translates to less money spent on law enforcement and criminal corrections (not to mention less violence, but certainly money is the more valuable aspect…). That right there would tack on even more capital gain for the budget in addition to any money raised from a taxed marijuana, though both would certainly help.

Lastly, I disagree that marijuana legalization seems far off. We’ve already made some gains in the usage of medicinal marijuana, and the growing acceptance and popularity of hemp products suggests a shift in the American psyche regarding all strains of cannabis. That being said, the War on Drugs is definitely a thorn in America’s side at this point in time. It’s not only halting a wonderful source of revenue, but it fails to address the real social problems that created the violence and issues associated with drug trade: poverty, social disorganization, and mental illness among other things; and even the legalization of marijuana won’t fix those."

New Urban Disaster

Austin is certainly my favorite city in Texas, and this city has been working hard to sustain growth as others all over the country realize what a gem this booming urban center is. In the last 15 years a lot has been done to revamp this once quiet capital. For starters, the downtown area has been an area of focus for new development and redevelopment. Like many other growing cities, Austin has unfortunately latched on to the growing trend of “New Urbanism,” and has employed such new urbanism into much of its recent development projects, something that threatens to destroy the potential that Austin has as both a progressive and unique city.

New urbanism isn’t terribly new. It’s a development trend that started in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s with towns like Seaside, FL. There’s actually a lot of really cool things about new urbanism. It’s meant to be high density, pedestrian and bicycle friendly, and mixed-use, all of which are aspects of model cities. However, many new urbanism developments end up becoming homogenous, exclusive, and aesthetically contrived, all of which are aspects that begin to reek of suburbia more than “urbanism.” In Austin, the two most shining examples of new urbanism are the Mueller Development and the 2nd St District. Both of these areas look like places where people can walk around, shop, dine, and live in close proximity. And yes, you certainly can—if you at least look like you have enough money to do so. The housing is unaffordable. The shops and restaurants are top end. If your beard looks a little too scruffy you’re most likely not even welcome to amble about on the sidewalks let alone use the services offered in these mixed-use developments. Like I said, new urbanism is a breeding ground for exclusivity and homogeneity, thus destroying public space by allowing only certain parts of the public to enjoy that space.

For Texas, a state with a rich history of populism, and for Austin, a city that prides itself on a healthy dose of liberalism (or at least more than the rest of the state), new urbanism is a direct violation of equality, especially in access to public space and resources. But the worst part of the city of Austin’s endorsing of new urbanism development is not only the destruction of public space, but the fact that such exclusivity and homogeneity also effectively destroys one of the few avenues for intermingling of classes. The city streets are thus the veins of the urban organism. Those veins require diversity to survive. Thus new urbanism is killing the urban organism by killing the streets by killing the diversity on those streets. If we want Austin to grow to truly be the city it can be, new urbanism must come to a halt. Otherwise, Austin will be doomed to become an undistinguished urban area of underlying discrimination. Austin needs to stop endorsing, subsidizing, and even allowing new urbanism developments and instead find other ways to sustain growth while retaining the true vitality, identity, and values the city is famous for.

History Depends on the Present

Written in response to Lone Star Liberal's post 'How dentists and real estate agents know more than you':

"I agree with you on multiple fronts. When deciding on material to be covered in textbooks, experts on the subject should be at minimal consulted if not making the decisions themselves. I also believe that the changes you have described are not conducive to a wholesome education. For example, capitalism is definitely a broken system and portraying it in a positive light with euphemisms like “free enterprise system” is unsettling and certainly reflects some sort of conservative agenda.

However, it’s important to remember that interpretations of history reflect the atmosphere of the time, and you’re likely to find different interpretations as time goes on. Though, that certainly doesn’t excuse wrong or dubious interpretations. You mentioned that the members deciding the curriculum were trying to portray the philosophies of the Black Panther as violent while downplaying African American victimization. That’s definitely evident of some ideological bias. The Black Panthers weren’t violent as much as they were brilliant. (They found a loophole in California law that allowed them to carry guns in plain sight, and therefore did so to intimidate police officers and stop victimization of minorities. Absolutely brilliant!) So, I would definitely agree that the conservatives are offering a faulty re-envisioning of history. However, liberals aren’t so guilt-free either. On the same topic of the Civil Rights Movement, more liberal interpretations of history in textbooks have portrayed Rosa Parks as a courageous victim of southern discrimination, when in fact her arrest was both premeditated and a collaborative efforts between her and the numerous social justice and civil rights organizations she was a part of. But we didn’t learn that in 11th grade U.S. history, did we?

Like I said, interpretations of history very much have to do the atmosphere of the present time, and textbooks will reflect that. Obviously that does not justify or excuse biased interpretations. But instead of blaming poor quality textbook material on the Texan conservative agenda, the better course of action would be finding a system of portraying history as accurately as possible while recognizing that even the most extinguished historians are going to have their own interpretation bias.

I like the curriculum changes as much as you do—not a whole lot. But I’m not so quick to jump down conservatives’ throats. The biggest problem, as you pointed out, is the qualifications that these people lack that would allow them to mandate what is taught and what isn’t, and has much less to do with political ideology."

Just like prisoners it holds, prison budget needs reform

There are a lot of things wrong with how Texas chooses to raise and spend its money. But ignoring the fairly regressive tax system, and also ignoring large investments in business over things like children’s healthcare, the most deplorable aspect of Texas’s inability to budget reasonably is the huge amount of money spent on public safety, particularly the corrections system. Don’t get me wrong. Public safety is the epitome of why governments are even around to being with. It’s important! But in the U.S., and especially in Texas, we’ve been going about handling it in the least responsible way possible.

The breadth of the prison system is no secret in Texas, and it keeps on growing. More beds are added to keep up with a growing population and an even faster growing incarceration rate. Massive prison construction began in the late 1980s coinciding with widespread public fear of gang violence and the war on drugs. Public officials sought to quell these fears with suppression and incarceration. But even with new prison construction, the incarceration rates were higher, leading to early paroles and the rather shocking fact that about 50% of prisoners are released each year due to shortages of beds. To say that rates of recidivism are high would be an understatement. Texas has spent and continues to spend a lot of money on the corrections system, but if more arrests are made, why is the crime rate still comparable? Well, for each criminal that goes to prison, there is one coming out.
It’s understandable to see why the government would choose to spend so much money on prisons. It reassures the general public that criminals are locked up and off the streets. But that’s obviously a false security. However, since recent fears of violence spillover from drug cartels in Mexico have reignited public unease, it’s all the Texas government has got. Or so it says.

Regardless of whether or not violence spillover is real (it is to some degree), crime is still a problem that needs to be dealt with. Spending more money on prisons isn’t the answer. Instead, that money needs to be directed to something that Texas is very reluctant to spend money on: more resources. Criminologists have created 8 theories as to why crime exists, most of them point to a lack of resources in poor communities. There are no doctors. Poor schools and lack of recreational activities fail to form social bonds among youth. Redlining and disinvestment by banks create dilapidated neighborhoods. And I, as someone who researches urban food landscapes and geographies, am especially appalled by the existence of food deserts in poor communities (food deserts are locations that lack a grocery store within a certain distance). It’s no wonder so many people in Texas resort to crime when looking at our dismal spendings on resources like education and healthcare and our rather high rate of incarceration. Moreover, very little of the money that is spent on prisons goes towards actual rehabilitation, but rather incapacitation and punishment. Yet, the existence of prison gangs (or Security Threat Groups as we like to call them in Texas) signifies one thing. Prison doesn’t reform people. It makes them more toxic. And half of those toxic prisoners are getting out of jail each year.

Case and point—money spent on prisons is ill-spent money. Expenditures need to be rearranged with more money poured into resources, something that will alleviate crime rates by treating the cause: the miserable conditions we allow our underclass to inhabit in Texas. What’s even more miserable is that expenditure rearrangement will never happen, and Texas, known for its expansive prison system, will remain unchanged. I suppose we’ll just have to treat the crime problem with more executions.

Sonogram Bill Goes to Court

Medical providers already have enough to worry about these days as far as liability goes. In the post titled The Sonogram Lawsuit Hearing written July 7th on Paul Burka’s blog, details are given about the class action lawsuit on behalf of medical providers of abortions in the Western District of Texas, a lawsuit that hopes to give medical providers one less thing to worry about: administering abortions under the scrutiny of the state. After examining the trial, Burka comes to the conclusion that problems for the plaintiff lie in absence of claims of undue hardship, while problems for the state’s case lie in the vagueness of the statute. Burka further concludes that the lawsuit's claim about violation of the First Amendment is most intriguing. He questions whether or not the legislature has the ability to invade doctor-patient relationships “to the point that it can mandate speech.”

I agree with Burka on multiple fronts. First, the Center for Reproductive Rights (the New York Agency representing the Western District medical providers) should have brought up the undue burden claim. Forcing a woman to view a sonogram prior to an abortion is rather cruel. If the state government is supposed to protect its citizens, why then issue a statute that places someone in an emotionally draining situation? That seems like a violation of why government exists to begin with and suggests something amiss with this statute. Surely the judge would have seen that as well.

Second, Burka’s feelings of intrigue at the claim of the First Amendment violation is just. Hopefully by intriguing he also meant powerful. The state has no right to mandate speech by a doctor any further than medical risks. The patient-doctor relationship is private, why else would there be such lengths taken to ensure patient confidentiality. Moreover, the patient has every right to refuse hearing information, especially visual information such as a sonogram. Once the risks of the procedure are detailed, the doctor should let the patient dictate whatever else comes out of the mouth of the doctor. This statute is in every way a violation of the First Amendment. Doctors should be free to decide what is to be said once risks are detailed, and the patient has every right to not hear any of it. Burka recognizes this too and says so by describing the requirement of the doctor “to describe images to a patient that does not wish to see them” as a “different matter" than revealing procedural risks.

The lawsuit only mandates an injunction on the statute, an injunction that hopefully leads to repealing this law. The sonogram bill is whack; please abort!

Hold Developers Accountable? Let's Hold Austin Accountable!

In the anonymous editorial titled Developers must be held accountable written for the Austin American Statesman on July 12, the upcoming waterfront development in Austin as a joint deal between Grayco Partners, a real estate development company, and the city of Austin is brought to the table again two years after the deal was made. This time, rather than praising the deal as beneficial to Austin’s development, the author is criticizing Grayco’s failure to follow through on the agreements made in the deal regarding the displacement of low-income families who currently reside on the waterfront property where construction is to begin in August. The author claims that while the city should indeed hold developers accountable for their actions, the impending displacement of these residents ultimately falls on Grayco’s shoulders because they agreed to provide both some affordable apartments and relocation services to those families, but failed to do so in a timely fashion. It seems like the editorial makes an effort to pull at heartstrings of the middle class and pit those sympathizers against big business, but whose failure is this really? More likely the city of Austin’s.

First and foremost, the situation presented is reminiscent of redevelopment efforts in San Francisco, a city that became so ripe with gentrification by the late 1990’s that affordable housing was essentially nonexistent. But by 2002, San Francisco cleaned up its act with an inclusionary housing ordinance that required a certain percentage of new development units to be “affordable.” This was fundamentally an effort by the city the make sure that below-market rate units were available when redevelopment occurred, but the city actually made sure those units became a reality.

That illustrates why this current failure belongs to city of Austin. The responsibility to ensure housing for these displaced people belongs to the city, not Grayco. Grayco is just another private company with private interests, and the public interests that result are only those that were imposed by the city in order for the deal to be valid. Why would Grayco possibly care what happens to those people otherwise? Though the deal made by the city of Austin and Grayco placed that responsibility on Grayco, it is the city government’s role, as protector of its constituents, to make sure they follow through on their end. If there had been proper enforcement on the city’s behalf to find housing for the displaced families to begin with, there wouldn’t be an issue to write about today. San Francisco demonstrated an effort to include affordable housing as part of the law. Perhaps Austin should follow suit.

Moreover, the Grayco wasn’t the only beneficiary of the deal. Using public benefits incentive zoning (again, San Francisco much?), the city of Austin waved zoning requirements in turn for some returned benefits on Grayco’s behalf, including a $2 million donation to the city’s affordable housing trust fund. Why not use some of that money to find homes for the people who are directly affected by this new development?

Though Grayco is not free from blame completely, they are not the major party at fault simply because the city allowed this development project to happen in the first place. Waterfront redevelopment is another step towards creating the sort-of gentrified city tableau that destroys culture and true public space. Not only is Austin allowing the displacement of its own people, but it’s doing so for the building of yet another component of the pseudo-city we see expanding downtown (cough, 2nd Street). Thus, while the editorial still praises the project as a whole, I’m left with an uneasy stomach about the future of public space in Austin and what points towards further exclusion of the lower classes from the city streets, if not from homes.

So no, this is not Grayco’s failure. This one falls on Austin’s shoulders, and suggests a much bigger issue at hand, an issue the editorial only hints at. What is the city doing to make sure that affordable housing is available for the lower-socioeconomic classes? You know…those people that cook our food, clean our offices, build our homes, and sometimes even raise our kids… Where do they get to live, especially if we keep destroying their homes and replacing those buildings with housing that’s simply unaffordable? If the city failed to provide homes for these people on such a small scale, things do not bode well for the future of affordable housing more generally.

Oh No, Rural Texas!

With closing of agency, worries about services for rural Texans

This article in the Austin American Statesman discusses the closing the Texas Department of Rural Affairs as part of the budget cuts, and incorporating it into the Texas Department of Agriculture. Governor Perry justifies this action in the name of no duplication of services and consolidation. In response, people express fears about being incorporated into a much larger agency (mostly regarding the loss of services), but also express there may be potential benefits.
More than anything else, it’s worth giving this article a glance because it demonstrates a way in which Texas budget cuts are affecting an already largely “unseen” group of people—rural Texans. Sure, there may be benefits of being included as part of a large, well organized, and possibly well-funded agency. But what happens when the parts of rural Texas that aren’t necessarily agricultural, like hospitals, schools, or other parts of the economy, are brushed under the table? The threat of these people losing not only their services and livelihood, but also their voice remains a possibility as part of a larger, only slightly related agency. Furthermore, giving the Texas Department of Agriculture an entirely new responsibility can stretch the agency a little thin, especially when the responsibility is, again, only marginally related as far as previous responsibilities of the TDA go. It seems like this maneuver is playing with fire and could end with a lot of burnt crop fields (something we really don’t need with this drought going on!)