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Buy American Pot: A Special Message From The AMGA

Thu, 19 Nov 2009 08:17:00 EST

We all know that a lot of people are harmed by prohibition, but who benefits? Strangely enough, some of the biggest beneficiaries are the bootleggers. Sure, they take a big risk, but black marketeers don't have to pay taxes, they're protected from foreign competition, and they benefit from artificially inflated prices. Talk about protectionism.

What kind of message would an honest American Marijuana Growers Association have for us? "Thank you for your support of marijuana prohibition and buy American pot!"

"Buy American Pot" PSA was produced by Paul Feine, Alex Manning, and Hawk Jensen.

The farmer is played by Alexandra Fulton, who also has a pages on Facebook and IMDB.

For downloadable versions and embed codes, scroll down.

Visit Reason.tv's YouTube channel here.

Second Life

Wed, 10 Sep 2008 18:00:00 EDT

Drew Carey takes us on a guided tour of Second Life (SL), a virtual world with more than 500,000 residents.

But SL isn’t your typical virtual world. Unlike other popular massively multiplayer online role-playing games, like EverQuest and World of Warcraft, there are no defined roles or objectives in SL. Just like in real life, SL residents determine their own goals and decide for themselves how best to achieve them. Moreover, virtually everything in SL was created by the residents themselves using tools provided by Linden Lab, the company that launched SL in 2003.

SL is based on a simple set of institutional arrangements that would make F.A. Hayek proud. In essence, the people who own the property in SL make the rules. The result is a spontaneously ordered world in which residents are free to fly, teleport, build, trade and interact with others without interference from the state.

Recently, Linden Lab—the SL equivalent of a state—has begun acting more and more like a real life government by restricting activities such as gambling. But open source competitors based on the SL platform are currently in development. so better virtual worlds offering even more freedom are just around the corner.

Former Seattle Police Chief Norm Stamper on the High Costs of the Drug War

Fri, 15 Aug 2008 09:00:00 EDT

Norm Stamper is a cop who saw it all during his 34 years on active duty. As police of Seattle from 1994 through 2000, he was in charge during violent World Trade Organization protests in the Emerald City.

Stamper, who holds a Ph.D. in leadership and human behavior from United States International University, has emerged as one of the most thoughtful and outspoken critics of the war on drugs, which he believes causes untold misery, undermines effective law enforcement, and doesn't begin to pass any sort of cost-benefit analysis. As important, the libertarian Stamper believes that the drug war—and other wars on the behaviors on consenting adults—does great violence to the idea that we own our bodies.

Stamper is the author of the Breaking Rank: A Top Cop's Exposé of the Dark Side of American Policing (2005) and now works with Law Enforcement Against Prohibition (LEAP), a nonprofit created by former cops to "reduce the multitude of unintended harmful consequences resulting from fighting the war on drugs and to lessen the incidence of death, disease, crime, and addiction by ultimately ending drug prohibition."

For an audio podcast version, go here.

James P. Pinkerton: Libertarianism in 2058

dan.hayes@reason.org (Dan Hayes) gillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) — Wed, 21 May 2008 11:55:00 EDT

How the Rand Era gave way to the Surveillance Era—and what we can do about it. A speculative flight into the future.

This approximately seven-minute interview was conducted by reason.tv's Nick Gillespie and Dan Hayes.

Read the accompanying story at Reason Online now.

Drug Education with Ali G

paul.feine@reason.tv (Paul Feine) — Wed, 14 May 2008 00:00:00 EDT

Before he was Borat, comedian Sacha Baron Cohen was Ali G. In this clip, Ali G indulges in a bit of drug education.

Cuban Protest Rap

paul.feine@reason.tv (Paul Feine) — Mon, 21 Apr 2008 13:59:00 EDT

"Of course all the hospitals in Cuba are free,
But who do they treat better, the officials or me?"

Merry Christmas To All...

gillespie@reason.com (Nick Gillespie) — Mon, 24 Dec 2007 15:09:00 EST

No Christmas is complete without a nod to the (in)famous 1977 Bing Crosby holiday special featuring David Bowie. Their joint rendition of "Peace on Earth/Little Drummer Boy" is the stuff of legend and probably did more to close the generation gap than a thousand encounter sessions.

The phony patter ("...I'm sure glad you came by to work on the pianer today...") between Der Bingle and the Androgynous One--then at the height of his Twiggy Stardust look--is priceless and, if I'm remembering correctly from the Gillespie family room, left both my parents and my siblings thinking that the world had indeed gone splendidly mad. Remember folks, this was manna from heaven in the age of Carter, Son of Sam, global cooling, and the inability of the Americans to win the Little League World Series. And that's not even dealing with the omnipresent threat of a conversion to the metric system.

But the real paydirt from the Crosby special, IMO, Bowie's rendition of "Heroes," which makes everyday feel a little more like Christmas.

Kurt Loder on Technology and Freedom

Wed, 14 Nov 2007 14:04:00 EST

On Friday, October 26, reason Editor-in-Chief Nick Gillespie interviewed Kurt Loder for the conference Reason in DC.

A legend for his work in Rolling Stone and at MTV, Loder is an outspoken libertarian--and a harsh critic of the nanny state in all its manifestations.

In this wide-ranging conversation, Loder discusses technology, freedom, the coming collapse of traditional news media (and why that's a good thing), the misguided (and ultimately ineffective) attempt to shut down free expression, and much more.