Should Denver Vote to Decriminalize Psychedelic Mushrooms?

In 2012, Colorado was one of the first states that made recreational marijuana legal. Now it looks as if Colorado is making headlines in the United States' drug policy. Next week, on May 7, the City of Denver is going to vote on the Psilocybin Mushroom Initiative (Initiated Ordinance 301). Essentially, the ballot initiative is to determine whether psilocybin mushrooms, more colloquially known as psychedelic mushrooms, should be decriminalized to the lowest law enforcement priority possible. This is in contrast to current law that states that possession of psilocybin is considered a felony.

Much like with marijuana use, the word "psychedelic" invokes images of the hippy counterculture of the 1960s and the "Summer of Love." As such, there are those who are instinctively against the use of psychedelic mushrooms. Conversely, there are those who are instinctively for all drug legalization while simultaneously being against the War on Drugs. With regards to marijuana use, time, research, and evidence have proven the naysayers wrong. Looking at Colorado's marijuana laws at five years, it looks like marijuana legalization has done more good than harm. Although marijuana legalization seems to be beneficial in net, we should not automatically assume the same outcome would happen with psilocybin mushrooms. After all, different drugs have different effects and outcomes, which is in part why the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) schedules drugs. Psilocybin mushrooms are currently ranked by the DEA as a Schedule I drug, a scheduling that is inappropriately applied to marijuana. The question to answer here is whether psilocybin mushrooms get a similarly unjustifiable reputation like marijuana or not.

Psilocybin mushrooms, also known as psychedelic mushrooms, magic mushrooms, or shrooms, are fungi that produce auditory and visual hallucinations followed by perceived changes in time and space. Emotionally speaking, the experience varies, from depression to hilarity to relaxation. Environment helps set the tone for the trip. The feeling of psilocybin mushrooms is subjective, and is variable from user to user. The underlying question here is the level of harm that psilocybin mushrooms cause, both to the user and others.

Let's start by saying that there are real risks, much like with any other substance. There is a real chance of the hallucination becoming so real that it could cause the user to do something life-threatening. There is also the possibility of causing real psychological damage, especially if one is prone to psychotic conditions. It is why it is highly recommended that psilocybin mushrooms are taken in a safe, supervised setting.

That being said, research has found psilocybin mushrooms to reduce anxiety and depression, especially in cancer patients (Griffiths et al., 2016; Cahart-Harris et al., 2016; Grob et al., 2012).  There have been other studies showing psilocybin mushroom use is safer than other substances, including such licit substances as alcohol and tobacco (e.g., Morgan et al., 2013; Nutt, 2010). The 2017 Global Drug Survey states that magic mushrooms are the safest in terms of requiring the lowest rate of emergency medical treatment. A series of studies in the December 2016 issue of The Journal of Psychopharmacology show just how much potential there is to its benefits. Even more indicting and damning is that last year, researchers at Johns Hopkins found such minimal harm that they went as far as saying that psilocybin mushrooms should be at a much less stringent categorization of Schedule IV (Johnson et al., 2018), a classification that applies to prescription sleeping pills and other substances for low abuse potential.

While psychedelic mushrooms are in the initial research stages, they are promising enough where the FDA decided in 2018 to expedite its development and review of a psilocybin-based drug. What research is showing is that psilocybin is a relatively non-addictive and is not particularly toxic. It is also showing an ability to treat anxiety, depression, and other ailments (e.g., tobacco addiction). The research does not provide justification for criminal proceedings for possession or usage, certainly at the level of felony. Think of how time and money could be spent better than chasing psilocybin mushroom users. Given where the research is taking us, the citizens of Denver should vote "Yes" on the Psilocybin Mushroom Initiative come May 7th.

Warren's Student Debt Forgiveness and Free College Tuition Plan Would Worsen Higher Education

Senator Elizabeth Warren (D-MA) is getting ready for the 2020 presidential election and positioning herself as a populist who is out there to help hard-working Americans. This was made clear when she proposed the wealth tax earlier this year. Now, Warren is building on the tax plan with the college plan she announced last week. Her plan can be divided into two main sections: student debt forgiveness and free college tuition. We will scrutinize the two sections separately.

Student Debt Forgiveness

Part one of Warren's plan is to cancel up to $50,000 in student debt for the 42 million Americans with student debt. The plan starts to phase out if a household makes over $100,000, and offers no debt cancellation for those making above $250,000. Warren's argument is that because student debt delays certain life events (e.g., starting a business, buying a home), the government should step in to forgive the debt. Essentially, Warren wants to remove a major financial burden so people can better live the American Dream. I like the fact that Warren puts a cap on the forgiveness, and I like the fact that she has come up with a detailed plan instead of some pie-in-the-sky thinking like certain peers of hers.

That being said, Warren's plan runs into problems (please read my analysis on student debt forgiveness from seven years ago). College graduates on average make an average of $1 million more than those with high school degrees (Georgetown University). As of 2018, 32.5 percent of Americans have a Bachelor's degree or higher (Census). As the libertarian Reason Magazine and the conservative American Enterprise Institute argue, Warren's plan would be a subsidy to those who are better off that is paid by those without a college education. 

[Other factors I considered seven years ago were the fairness to those who managed to pay their student loans (myself included), the fact that those indebted were forced to take out the loans, why student loans should get preference over other loans, or how it would affect lending to future students.]

But I want to consider something else here today: the dropout rate. Why does this come into play? Because only about 49.1 percent of full-time, first-time college students graduate from a four-year institution within six years. That figure is a lower 39.8 percent for two-year institutions. This is significant for two reasons. One is that college completion is a major determinant in whether going to college ends up being a good investment. The first reason leads into the second reason, which is that there are many people who drop out of college with nothing to show for it except debt and foregone time that could have been used developing workforce experience. 

The reality about dropouts is further illustrated by student loan demographics. According to the Federal Reserve, the average debt is $32,000, whereas the median is $17,000. In layman's terms, this means that half of those in debt have $17,000 or less. This statistical distribution means that those owing a ton of money is less common than perceived (see below). There are those who have a large amount of debt, but those large amounts tend to be caused by graduate school loans. The issue I take with Warren's plan is that it does nothing to address the dropout rate, a phenomenon that makes it more difficult for people to pay back many of the smaller loan balances. 

Free College Tuition

The second component of Warren's plan is to eliminate the cost of tuition and fees at every two-year and four-year public institution. Free college tuition is in part to make sure that indebtedness is never a problem again, and in part to provide the American people with what she perceives as a public good and a right. There are multiple problems of trying to provide "free" college tuition, a topic that I covered in 2015. 

One of my bigger gripes about free tuition being presented as a solution is that it drives up the cost of college. In addition to my 2013 analysis about artificially low interest rates for student loans, there is a Federal Reserve Bank of New York research paper (Lucca et al., 2015) and a National Bureau of Economic Research paper (Gordon and Heldund, 2016) amply illustrating how federal subsidies are the primary culprit in the skyrocketing college tuition costs since the 1980s (also see Warshawsky and Marchand, 2017). And for added measure, here is another National Bureau of Economic Research paper (Murphy et al., 2018) showing how ending free college in the United Kingdom actually allowed for more students to attend college. My questions to Senator Warren are the following: "How is doing more of the same going to make college cheaper?" "How does subsidizing incentivize students to make smarter choices about what to study in college or even if they should go to college?" "How do these subsidies create better schooling, especially considering so many are dropping out already?"

Conclusion

None of this gets into the effects of a wealth tax (see my January 2019 analysis here), how this would not be a one-time occurrence, or how public schooling would cost the taxpayer more than what her wealth tax would earn in revenue. What I will end with is this: I will give Warren the benefit of the doubt by saying that she is not proposing this plan as political pandering, but rather because she legitimately wants to fix higher education. Even so, Warren's plan is not about fixing the system so much as it is about expanding federal government control in higher education. Her plan does not address the moral hazard of forgiving student debt, nor does it make the case of how higher education is going to improve as a result of throwing more money at the problem. Yes, there are problems with higher education affordability, but Warren's plan does not do any favors for tertiary educational attainment.


4-24-2019 Update: Centrist think-tank Brookings Institution shows just how regressive the loan forgiveness proposal is.

4-26-2019 Update: The American Enterprise Institute points out how the U.S. already has a loan forgiveness program, one that is arguably more generous than Warren's proposal.

4-30-2019 Update: The libertarian Cato Institute lays out five reasons why Warren's plan is problematic. 1) It's unfair. 2) There is no student loan crisis. 3) Misdiagnosis of the problem. 4) We don't need that many people with a college degree. 5) There is no indication that student debtors would use their economically more productive.  

Why We Should Get Rid of Solitary Confinement

This past Friday, the New York state assembly picked up enough votes to pass the Humane Alternatives to Long-Term (HALT) Solitary Bill. As is alluded by the bill name, the bill addresses the issue of solitary confinement. Solitary confinement is a type of imprisonment in which a prisoner lives in a single cell and has little to no outside contact, as well as additional security measures and strict contraband measures. According to Yale Law School, a minimum of 61,000 prisoners are in solitary confinement at any given time. Proponents claim it is a valid security measure, whereas opponents claim that it is a harmful measure with few to no desirable effects. Which version is correct?

First, a bit on the history of solitary confinement. Solitary confinement was used in the 1700s by the Quakers (of all people) to encourage repentance and rehabilitation. This practice caught on in the colonial era, and was abandoned in the early 20th century because it was deemed unethical and lacking efficacy. The "tough on crime" mentality combined with the opinion "nothing regarding rehabilitation works" allowed for solitary confinement to make a comeback.

Does solitary confinement help with prison violence rates? The main argument used in favor of solitary confinement is for safer security in prison, both for the prisoners and for the prison staff. A 2016 report from the National Institute for Justice (Frost and Monteiro, 2016) concluded that "there is little evidence that administrative segregation has had effects on overall levels of violence within individual institutions or across correctional systems (p. 3; also see Labrecque, 2015; Briggs et al., 2006)." The NIJ report continued by saying that "it is virtually impossible to find empirical evidence supporting its utility or efficacy (p. 4)." As a matter of fact, there is some evidence suggesting that solitary confinement increases recidivism and violence (Gordon, 2014).

Does solitary confinement cause harm? While there is some skepticism on the harm of solitary confinement (Morgan et al., 2016), the short answer to this question is a resounding "yes" (Frost and Monteiro, 2016, p. 3; also see Morgan, 2017). Solitary confinement causes heightened anxiety, irrational anger, greater confusion, and greater sensitivity to external stimuli as a result of sensory deprivation (e.g., Shalev, 2008; Smith, 2006; Grassian, 2006; Haney 2003). Suicide rates are much higher among those in solitary confinement (Kaba et al., 2014; Patterson and Hughes, 2008; Way et al., 2005). Those who are mentally ill or members of the LGBT community are more susceptible to greater harm while in solitary confinement.

Conclusion: Canada's top court ruled last month that solitary confinement over 15 days is cruel and unusual because based on the evidence, it is. Not only does solitary confinement cause harm without the intended benefits, but it costs about an extra $20,000 per prisoner per year as regular imprisonment. I hope that countries continue to limit or even eliminate solitary confinement, much like we should remove any other relics institutionalized during the "Tough on Crime" era of the 1980s.

For more on alternatives to solitary confinement, visit the websites for the Vera Institute, American Civil Rights Union, and the American Bar Association. 

How Is Myanmar's Economy Shaping Up for 2019?

Myanmar is mainly in the news for its internal ethnic conflict and humanitarian abuses. Much less frequently covered is its economic outlook, which might be in part because its economy is the 70th largest in the world. Whatever the reason, I would like to give it some coverage here, especially in light of the IMF's Article IV Consultation on Myanmar that was released last week.

While one could think of economic health and civil liberties as separate, the fact of the matter is there is some linkage. Yes, there has been some progress on refugee repatriation, although freedom of movement of returnees has been limited. This stalled progress decreases positive foreign sentiment, which has an impact on foreign investment in Myanmar (IMF, p. 4). Not only has manufacturing declined since mid-2018, but so have tourist receipts and consumer goods (IMF, p. 5). In spite of some of the shorter-term issues, the IMF is still optimistic about longer-term outlook because of demographics and its commerce with China, India, and Japan (IMF, p. 6).

The World Bank had similar mixed outlook per its December 2018 Myanmar Economic Monitor. The World Bank has concerns with declining foreign direct investment along with global risks being entangled with domestic risks. Nevertheless, services sector liberalization and the loosening on foreign bank lending provides World Bank with a more optimistic medium-term outlook. Even so, Myanmar is dealing with an agricultural sector with stunted infrastructure (which is significant because nearly 70 percent of Burmese work in that sector), and its garment industry might lose the European Union's generalized scheme of benefits (GSB) preference, which would be significant since its productivity in the garment sector was reducing its deficit. Growth in the tourism and transportation sectors have also slowed for Myanmar.

As some additional notes, the Asian Development Bank is anticipating 6.6 percent GDP growth for Myanmar, which is higher than its Southeast Asian peers. Oil and gas reserves at Myanmar's offshore banks are now approved for commercial activity. Myanmar also launched its updated Companies Law in August 2018, which had not been updated for nearly a century. This Law will allow for easier foreign capital flow.

If we're looking strictly at GDP growth, things look good for Myanmar. However, an economy is more than its GDP. With a developing economy that could be easily shaken by global events, I am concerned about such potential issues as Brexit. It makes prognosticating an overall direction more difficult. If Myanmar can get past its internal conflict and improve growth in key sectors, I think that Myanmar can expect an increasingly healthy economy.