IFLScience: Canada Votes To Legalize Cannabis For Recreational Use

The new bill, known as The Cannabis Act, controls and regulates how the drug is grown, distributed and sold. It means that Canadians can now legally grow up to four plants in their own household, and carry up to 30 grams of dried cannabis for personal use. Anyone found to be carrying more than this amount, or providing it to minors – anyone under the age of 18 or 19 depending on the province – will be breaking the law. [...]

It means that Canada now joins Uruguay as the only two countries in the world where recreational cannabis is now legal, as technically it is still illegal in the Netherlands although the law is not actually upheld. In Portugal, which famously relaxed its drug laws, the possession and use of the drug is decriminalized, but not legal.

The move by Canada is likely to cause a headache south of the border, and twist an already strained relationship with the current US government. Currently, 29 states have legalized medical marijuana, with nine of those going the whole way and opening it up to personal use. But there have been previous suggestions that the White House may try and stem the recreational use by enforcing federal laws to override individual states.

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Quartz: The LGBT political glass ceiling is cracking wide open

It was only in 2009 that Iceland’s Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir was elected, becoming the first openly LGBT person in the world to serve as a prime minister. In 2011, Belgium’s Elio Di Rupo became prime minister. In 2013, in neighboring Luxembourg, Xavier Bettle was voted prime minister—a position he still holds. He has since been joined by two additional LGBT leaders: Serbia’s Ana Brnabić, and Leo Varadkar of Ireland, a country that only decriminalized same-sex relations in 1993. [...]

Today, at city, regional and national levels, several thousand openly LGBT politicians have entered the scene—a trend that shows no signs of slowing down. The 2017 elections in the US, for instance, saw important successes for LGBT candidates around America—primarily, but not exclusively, within progressive voters. The number of American LGBT mayors is up to 23—one of them, Peter Buttigieg, is a rising democratic star serving in conservative South Bend, Indiana who came out on the pages of his local paper while in office. Last weekend he married his partner as his town celebrated Pride with the rest of America. In the same year, in the UK, 35 LGBT representatives were voted into parliament (on both sides of the aisle). [...]

Despite the relative diversity of New York City’s political scene, Johnson rejects the idea that being an LGBT representative shouldn’t matter. “Being gay is not like having blue eyes,” he says. He considers his sexual orientation an integral part of his identity—the way he lives, who he loves—and says it will always be associated with his political persona. [...]

In addition to representation, it’s also important that LGBT candidates aren’t reduced to just LGBT issues. This is a stance Ohana clearly embraces, as a member of the hawkish, right-wing Likud party. Back when he first joined Likud, many members “thought I was the first gay [person] they had ever met,” he says. Yet for them, as well as the larger Israeli society, “when they see me, ‘gay’ isn’t the first thing that comes to mind, but my actions and views.”

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Quartz: Porn could have a bigger economic influence on the US than Netflix

In 2012, respondents to an XBIZ poll estimated the industry makes about $5 billion a year. According to Alex Helmy, founder and publisher of adult-entertainment trade publication XBIZ, that figure would likely be over $6 billion if the poll ran again today in 2018.

That said, revenue estimates for the porn industry vary widely. Some believe the industry does not even make $6 billion a year, while others say it makes $10 billion, $15 billion, or even $97 billion. Because most porn firms are privately held, it’s impossible to get a completely accurate estimate, Helmy says. [...]

Despite how frequently people use porn—Pornhub alone claims it racked up 28.5 billion views last year—its economic power remains hidden among the masses. Unlike other forms of entertainment, whose news regularly gets splashed across the front page of consumer publications, rumblings within the adult entertainment industry are typically only followed by niche trade audiences. Due to the taboo shrouding sexual content, a porn company can make hundreds of millions of dollars through monopolistic practices while remaining unknown to most consumers. [...]

The porn industry’s adaptability also transfers to how they do business. Similar to the music industry’s woes, piracy cut into porn’s profits. Porn companies adapted by designing new business models around licensing, educational courses, live camming, crowdsourcing, event hosting, and commerce. Porn also has its own trade publications, industry events, talent agents, and lobbyists.

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The Guardian: Trump's family separation policy is as damaging to America as Abu Ghraib

America’s power comes from its values: freedom, the rule of law, respect for human rights. Whatever problems America may face at home, America’s democratic system enables itself to correct wrongs in the pursuit of a fair, just society. Whatever mistakes the United States makes in its foreign policy, America still endeavors to infuse its foreign policy with these values. When America does not live up to these values, it is less safe.

The experience of the Iraqi prison Abu Ghraib is instructive. After the United States invaded Iraq in 2003, it used Saddam Hussein’s jail as a place to torture Iraqi prisoners. The torture of prisoners – the picture of a US soldier holding a naked Iraqi on a leash, for instance – became international symbols that shattered America’s image as a global defender of human rights.

These illegal acts hurt US national security. Abu Ghraib was used as a rallying cry by terrorist groups who were fighting American troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. As one US military interrogator wrote: “I learned in Iraq that the No 1 reason foreign fighters flocked there to fight were the abuses carried out at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo … The number of US soldiers who have died because of our torture policy will never be definitively known, but it is fair to say that it is close to the number of lives lost on September 11, 2001.” [...]

As George Takei – who was imprisoned by the US government in an internment camp as a child during the second world war – pointed out, not even those Japanese-Americans imprisoned during the war were separated from their parents. In America today, border agents reportedly told parents their children were getting bathed and then never came back, evoking Nazis taking away children in death camps and telling people being led to the gas chambers that they were going to take a shower.

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Bloomberg: The Macron-Merkel Euro Plan Is Released. Here's How It Stacks Up

While the two sides agreed to set up a euro-zone budget and beef up the role of the European Stability Mechanism -- the euro-area bailout fund -- they postponed decisions on some elements which could prove consequential. Chief among them: specifics on the size and conditions of the euro-area budget.

“There is a general feeling that there is some momentum, not towards a complete reform package but towards progress,” said Nicolas Veron, a senior fellow at Brussels-based think tank Bruegel. “It’s a political fact that what you have in the German Bundestag and in Italy has created a less favorable environment.” [...]

According to a roadmap endorsed by Macron and German Chancellor Angela Merkel, the budget should promote competitiveness, convergence and stabilization in the euro area, with resources coming from national contributions, Europe and revenue from taxes including a financial transactions tax or a levy on digital companies. The budget aims to help investment in innovation and human capital while other options examined include allowing nations in trouble to suspend their contributions, or establishing a European unemployment stabilization fund. [...]

In the roadmap, France and Germany agree to maintain a decision-making process where national government have a say. This seems to be a win for Germany, even though it should happen “while ensuring an effective, credible and rapid decision-making of the ESM backstop to fit the timing of a resolution case.”

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