The Botany of Desire: Michael Pollan

Michael Pollan, The Botany of Desire:

What... was the knowledge that God wanted to keep from Adam and Eve in the Garden? Theologians will debate this question without end, but it seems to me the most important answer is hidden in plain sight. The content of the knowledge Adam and Eve could gain by tasting of the fruit does not matter nearly as much as its form... from nature. The new faith sought to break the human bond with magic nature, to disenchant the world of plants and animals by directing our attention to a single God in the sky. Yet Jehovah couldn't very well pretend the tree of knowledge didn't exist, not when generations of plant-worshipping pagans knew better. So the pagan tree is allowed to grow even in Eden, though ringed around now with a strong taboo. Yes, there is spiritual knowledge in nature, the new God is acknowledging, and its temptations are fierce, but I am fiercer still. Yield to it, and you will be punished.

So unfolds the drug war's first battle.
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Monday, July 19, 2010

Cornell Study Indicates New Yorkers Support Legalization

Cash Crop

Cash Crop (via Slate and Big Money) is a blog that is keeping track of the changes in marijuana legislation.

A wide majority of New York State residents support legalizing pot for medicinal use, according to a poll conducted by Cornell University. The support cuts across geographic, demographic, and, to a lesser degree, political lines.

More than two-thirds of New Yorkers want medical pot legalized, a fact that could help push a forward a proposal in the state legislature to approve it. According to High Times, bills to allow medical pot have come up several times over the past dozen years, and have even passed the state assembly twice, only to be shot down in the Senate.

The legislature might yet pass a bill this year, though, since the state's budget, now three months late, is being debated in Albany. The state could raise between $10 million and $15 million a year from legalizing pot. Assembly Health Committee Chairman Richard Gottfried, the Democrat sponsoring the bill, told the Poughkepsie Journal that his law, if passed, would be the "most narrow and restrictive of any law in the country."

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