Tangle - The government moves to reclassify cannabis.

Episode Date: May 2, 2024

Reclassifying marijuana. On Tuesday, Attorney General Merrick Garland submitted a proposal for a White House review to reclassify cannabis as a less dangerous controlled substance, moving it from a Schedule I drug to Schedule III. You can read today's podcast⁠ ⁠⁠here⁠⁠⁠, our “Under the Radar” story ⁠here and today’s “Have a nice day” story ⁠here⁠.You can watch our latest video, Isaac's interview with former Congressman Ken Buck (CO-04) ⁠here⁠.Check the next episode of our new podcast series, The Undecideds. In episode 2, our undecided voters primarily talk about Trump’s legal troubles. How do they feel about his alleged crimes? How would him being convicted - or exonerated - change the way they vote? What about his claims he should have immunity as president? You’ll hear how they consider these major themes of the race, and also what they made of Haley dropping out and Biden’s State of the Union Address. You can listen to Episode 2 ⁠⁠here.⁠⁠Today’s clickables: Quick hits (1:23), Today’s story (3:23), Right’s take (6:34), Interview with Dr. Jeffrey Singer (8:58), Left’s take (19:00), Isaac’s take (22:39), Listener question (27:51), Under the Radar (31:04), Numbers (31:44), Have a nice day (32:51)You can subscribe to Tangle by clicking here or drop something in our tip jar by clicking here. Take the survey: How do you think marijuana should be federally controlled? Let us know!Our podcast is written by Isaac Saul and edited and engineered by Jon Lall. Music for the podcast was produced by Diet 75. Our newsletter is edited by Managing Editor Ari Weitzman, Will Kaback, Bailey Saul, Sean Brady, and produced in conjunction with Tangle’s social media manager Magdalena Bokowa, who also created our logo.--- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/tanglenews/message Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. yourself from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca.

From executive producer Isaac Saul, this is Tangle. Good morning, good afternoon, and good evening, and welcome to the Tangle podcast, a place we get views from across the political spectrum, some independent thinking, and a little bit of my take. I'm your host, Isaac Saul, and on today's episode, we're going to be talking about the DEA reclassifying marijuana as a Schedule III drug. We have a guest coming in today to talk a little bit about his piece. So you're going to be hearing from Jeffrey A. Singer from the Cato Institute. And as we talked a little bit about in one of the previous episodes, we're experimenting a little bit with this new format.

One of the big pieces of feedback we got from folks is that it made more sense for me to read the reader question responses as well as my take, which I'm going to do today. So with that, I'm going to pass it over to John, who's going to bring us in with the introduction of the story and the quick hits and all that good stuff. You'll hear from Dr. Singer, and then I'll give you my take. Thank you, Isaac, and welcome, everybody. Here are today's quick hits. First up, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is increasing pressure on Hamas to seal a ceasefire deal, saying the window is closing for an agreement. Hamas is seeking assurances that

the deal will completely end Israel's offensive in Gaza. Number two, police entered UCLA's campus this morning amid reports of multiple acts of violence at pro-Palestinian encampments. Videos on social media showed pro-Israel protesters lobbing fireworks into the encampments and fights breaking out. UCLA canceled all classes on Wednesday. Meanwhile, Columbia University arrested over 100 people and blamed outside agitators for escalatory tactics. Number three, the Fed held interest rates steady for the sixth straight time, citing a lack of progress against inflation. Number four, Johnson & Johnson has proposed paying $6.5 billion over 25 years to settle thousands of lawsuits that its baby powder and talc-based products caused ovarian

cancer. And number five, Arizona state lawmakers passed a law that repeals the Civil War-era ban on nearly all abortions. Governor Katie Hobbs is expected to sign the bill today. After years of talk at the federal level in a historic move, the U.S. Drug Enforcement Administration is moving toward reclassifying marijuana as a less dangerous drug. Right now, marijuana is a Schedule I drug right up there with heroin. The DEA wants to reclassify it as Schedule 3 controlled substance like ketamine. For Oregon, that could mean big changes in how the state's existing marijuana businesses function, especially when it comes to money. On Tuesday, Attorney General Merrick Garland submitted a proposal for a White House review

to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous controlled substance, moving it from a Schedule 1 drug to a Schedule 3. The reclassification would not legalize cannabis for recreational use, but would allow for the drug to be prescribed and serve as recognition that it has less potential for abuse than some of the most dangerous drugs in the U.S. Since the passing of the Controlled Substances Act in 1970, the government has defined Schedule I drugs as having no accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse, classifying cannabis with drugs like heroin and LSD in the most dangerous group of controlled substances. Schedule III drugs like anabolic steroids and

ketamine can be prescribed for medical use, but they are still considered controlled substances that the government recognizes have a potential for abuse and cannot be trafficked across state lines or used recreationally. Initially, the push to tolerate the drug's usage was a fringe issue on the left, but bipartisan interest in legalizing or decriminalizing marijuana has grown over the years. 38 states have legalized marijuana for medical use, while 24 have legalized it for recreational use over the past decade. The industry is estimated to be worth $30 billion, and classifying cannabis as a Schedule III drug could ease the tax burden on businesses while making it easier to research and cultivate. The reclassification does not take effect immediately. Instead, the White House recommendation will kick off a lengthy review process.

In 2022, President Biden pardoned thousands of people convicted of marijuana possession under federal law and called upon regulators to review the drug for reclassification, saying, it doesn't make sense that the government controls marijuana more tightly than Schedule II drugs like cocaine or fentanyl. Even as federal and state regulation of marijuana changes, important limitations on trafficking, marketing, and underage sales should stay in place, Biden said. Too many lives have been upended because of our failed approach to marijuana. It's time we right these wrongs. Many skeptics opposed the change, citing the

Obama administration's decision not to reschedule the drug after a 2016 review. In March, Republican Senators Mitt Romney of Utah, Jim Risch of Idaho, and Pete Ricketts of Nebraska signed a letter urging the Drug Enforcement Agency not to reclassify marijuana. Just last month, researchers found that daily marijuana use is associated with a 25% increase in the risk of heart attack and a 42% increase in the risk of stroke, they said. Other studies have linked marijuana use with serious psychotic consequences, including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder. Critics also question whether the Biden administration is making the move in the interest of public health, noting the political popularity of the measure among younger voters,

at a time when the president trails former President Donald Trump in the polls. 70% of Americans supported legalizing marijuana in a 2023 Gallup poll, a record high. Today, we're going to take a look at some of the responses to the idea of reclassifying marijuana from the right and the left, and then Isaac's take. We'll be right back after this quick commercial break. First up, we'll start with what the right is saying. The right mostly opposes the move, arguing it will degrade public health.

Some suggest a reclassification is only happening to help business interests. Others support the change and say the government should fully decriminalize cannabis possession. In Newsweek, Jake Novak said, Marijuana's reclassification is wrong. America has recently been feeling the ill effects of one of the biggest bait-and-switch scams in our history. That is, the packaging of new marijuana laws as if they were just about decriminalization when they have really been about the government taking an active role in marketing a drug it once severely restricted, Novak said. Actual public health is clearly not much of a consideration in this move, because the

relaxation of marijuana restrictions has already caused some serious health care complications. There's something else at play here as well that's just as disturbing as the public health dangers and economic letdowns associated with state-sanctioned and promoted marijuana businesses and use. You'd have to be blind not to notice the extreme cynicism and low bar set for a society by a government that seems to think the best way to placate voters is to give them legal pot, legal sports betting, and universal basic income. Somewhere along the line, our politicians and even top private industry leaders have abandoned any semblance of promoting an aspirational society. It's the Roman bread and circuses all over again. In City Journal, Charles Fane Lehman wrote,

Big business stands to gain the most from the change of marijuana's legal status. While legalization supporters have cheered the change, its impact will be slight. The primary beneficiaries will be states' illegal marijuana businesses, which will see up to $2 billion in tax relief. In its haste to appease the pro-marijuana base, the administration has done nothing to advance the justice it claims to believe in and everything to advance its interest in big business, Lehman said. Marijuana will remain about as legally controlled as it was

before rescheduling. Rescheduling would be a major boon to an industry that has struggled to get off the ground, and marijuana stocks surged on news of the DEA's move. The law currently imposes often substantial tax burdens on state marijuana businesses, Lehman wrote. No one should be confused by what the change means. The Biden administration is trying to sell its marijuana policy as part of a broader racial and social justice agenda, but what rescheduling really means is more money in the pockets of drug peddlers. That's nothing to cheer about. For the Cato Institute, Jeffrey A. Singer argued, beer, wine, whiskey, cigars, and cigarettes are not on the DEA's list of controlled substances. Neither should cannabis

be. Isaac had a chance to sit and talk with Jeffrey about his article today. Dr. Jeffrey Singer from the Cato Institute, thank you so much for coming on the show. I appreciate it. Thank you for having me. So you wrote an excellent piece here sort of reflecting on what this potential rescheduling of cannabis marijuana means for the country. And I think you had kind of a unique position from a lot of the pieces that I read. And maybe we should just start there. If you could give me just a quick minute or two summary of your position and kind of what you're seeing right now. Sure. Well, first of all, I think marijuana should be legal, both recreationally and medicinally. But the way our law on drugs works is that the Drug Enforcement Administration is actually empowered to decide how to categorize different controlled substances. as Schedule 1, which means no currently accepted medical use and high potential for abuse,

along with marijuana or psychedelics like MDMA or psilocybin, heroin, and a bunch of other commonly known illicit substances. The Department of Health and Human Services recently recommended to the DEA that they reclassify marijuana as Schedule 3, which is a lower probability of abuse and has medical use. Drugs that are on Schedule 3 today include Tylenol with codeine, anabolic steroids, ketamine. These are Schedule III drugs. This is being touted as a big deal, but it really isn't because the only good thing about it is that the DEA is finally recognizing what we've known for since 2800 BC, which is cannabis has a lot of medicinal uses. In fact, in the early 20th century,

it was recommended as the drug of choice for the treatment of migraines in the medical literature. So it's good to see that law enforcement is finally starting to accept the fact that marijuana has medical use. But it still doesn't solve the problem because by making it Schedule 3, and this, by the way, there's no guarantee that the DEA will make it Schedule 3, but it sounds like they will reschedule it. They could decide to make it Schedule 2, because this isn't a decision that's made by medical experts. This is a decision that's made by cops. So the cops takes the recommendation of the HHS, but it decides what it wants to do. So by making it Schedule 3, that still means that you would have to get a prescription to get marijuana.

Now, that's somewhat helpful because right now 38 states allow medicinal marijuana. But in the other states, you'd be able to now get a prescription to get marijuana for medicinal purposes, presumably. But what about if you want to use it recreationally? It's still federally illegal to possess or sell marijuana for recreational use. So that means that all it really does is it makes it a little easier for medicinal users, and it makes it easier for clinical researchers to do research now because they don't have to get permission to use a Schedule I drug from the DEA to do clinical research. So that'll be easier.

a Schedule I drug from the DEA to do clinical research. So that'll be easier. And it'll probably be a little easier for retailers of medicinal marijuana to take advantage of tax deductions that legal businesses take advantage of. But this isn't what needs to be done. What needs to be done is it needs to be de-scheduled. You know, there are a lot of drugs that right now that are much more dangerous than cannabis. For example, alcohol has actually has currently accepted medical uses. I'm sure everybody's familiar with alcohol being used for medicinal purposes.

And there's some research suggesting moderate intake of alcohol might actually be helpful to the cardiovascular system. But it has a high potential for abuse. And I don't need to get a prescription from a doctor to go to my corner liquor store to buy a bottle of wine or beer or bourbon. Tobacco, which has no medicinal purposes, but does have a high potential for abuse and cause a lot of physical harm. By the way, alcohol can cause a lot of organic damage, whether you're talking about cirrhosis or cardiomyopathy or cancers or encephalopathy. But none of these drugs require a prescription to use recreationally. And I'm not suggesting they should, but I'm suggesting that cannabis also shouldn't require a prescription to use recreationally. It's not nearly as harmful to the body as alcohol or tobacco, and it doesn't have the potential for abuse that alcohol has or tobacco has.

Yeah, there's such a thing as cannabis use disorder. Some people can use it unwisely, but we're adults, and we don't tell adults how to use a lot of things. And the government has no business telling adults what they can and cannot do because the government is concerned that they may not use it wisely. So while it's an improvement over the current situation, where right now marijuana is Schedule 1, it's only a slight improvement. We should not be in the business of scheduling marijuana at all. It should be made available for anybody to use who's an adult. I'm not saying that children should be able to use it. I'm not saying there shouldn't be restrictions like there are with alcohol, for example, restricting use while under the influence,

like driving a vehicle or something like that. But for personal use, the government has no business telling adults what they could put into their body. So I think for the most part, I'm pretty aligned with your position here. I guess maybe the retort that you might hear from critics of legalizing marijuana and one that is a bit resonant for me is, you know, we've seen the effects of tobacco and alcohol being totally legalized. There's a high cost on our healthcare system.

You know, we have lots of people who are alcoholics. We have people who are, like you said, abuse these drugs. So I think the counterpoint would be, we have some research that suggests there are some dangers to cannabis use. And we know that, you know, while it's probably much fewer than tobacco or alcohol, there are still people who abuse it or get addicted. So why throw another thing out there that's totally recreationally legal that could have some dangers or downside from a health perspective? Okay, well, the answer to that is that there's very few things in life that don't have

some dangers associated with them. And if we're going to get the government into deciding what we can and cannot do based upon what politicians and law enforcement decide is in our best interest, then we don't live in a free country. And you could use that same logic to reinstitute alcohol prohibition. Alcohol prohibition is responsible for 88,000. I mean, alcohol is responsible for 88,000 deaths a year. Why don't we just bring back alcohol prohibition? That worked great back in the 1920s and 30s, didn't it? We learned from that mistake, but we don't seem to learn anymore because we continue repeating mistakes. So you could just use that same logic to go back to banning alcohol. And in fact, automobiles could

be dangerous. There are some people who abuse them. They get into car accidents. Maybe we should ban driving of automobiles or at least, especially if children get behind the wheel of a car, they could end up crashing it. Maybe we should ban all people driving cars because children can crash cars. I'm curious, you mentioned a few of the upsides, I think, of this. It sounds like you're taking the position that maybe this isn't as big a deal as some people are making that to be, you know, it'll make it a little bit easier to research. There'll be some, you know, potential lifting of tax burdens for businesses. I'm curious if there's any potential downsides of changing the scheduling, maybe some unintended

consequences that people might not be aware of, or any risks you see about a move like this? I can't see any risk, except that it may, the only risk I can think of is complacency, that a lot of politicians may say, okay, we fixed that problem, now let's move on to something else because they didn't because federally it's still against all you can be put in a cage if you are found using this plant by federal law enforcement. The only reason why we're not seeing that is because obviously prosecutorial discretion, federal law enforcement's got scarce resources and they don't want to spend their time locking up people for using a plant that they don't approve of. And it's pretty difficult because in a lot of states, I think 24 so far, as far as the state's concerned, you can use that plant. They're not going to lock you up. So it's up to federal law

enforcement to come into those states, like my state of Arizona, and lock you up for using that plant. So the only downside I could see is that this doesn't do anything about recreational use. But because a lot of the press is referring to it as some sort of breakthrough, this could end up kind of setting back the movement to legalize recreational cannabis because everybody would think, well, we already took care of that. We moved it to Schedule 3. No, you didn't. You still said you need to get a permission slip from another adult to be able to go and have a medical reason to be able to get marijuana. And I don't need a permission slip from another adult to go to my liquor store and buy a bottle of wine. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of

Willis Wu, a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th,

only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. cell from the flu. It's the first cell-based flu vaccine authorized in Canada for ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur, and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca. All right, Dr. Jeffrey Singer, he is from the Cato Institute. You can find his work at cato.org. That's C-A-T-O dot org. Dr. Singer, thank you so much for coming on the show. I appreciate it. All right, that is it for what the right is saying, which brings us to what the left is saying.

The left supports reclassifying cannabis and hopes it foreshadows a broader federal decriminalization push. Some suggest the move could be a political win for Biden and Democrats. Others worry that cannabis laws will continue to be unevenly enforced across the country. The Los Angeles Times editorial board called the move a welcome step toward decriminalization. That the Justice Department plans to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug is most welcome, but very, very late in coming, the board wrote. It's still far too little. Americans have scoffed at marijuana prohibitions for decades, recognizing the race and class

bigotry inherent in targeting the plant, and the scary nonsense spouted by government-promoted experts about its supposedly demonic consequences, reefer madness, including, ostensibly, rape, kidnapping, and murder. Federal law lags woefully behind state laws, technically subjecting users to criminal prosecution and jail, and preventing producers and sellers from fully participating in the federally regulated banking system. Reclassifying cannabis as recommended months ago by the Department of Health and Human Services won't remove its criminal status,

but it could pave the way for Congress to act. In any free society, respect for the law and the justice system is essential, and it is undermined by outdated prohibitions and punishment that strike a large swath of citizens as random and groundless. In MSNBC, Zeeshan Aleem wrote, The Biden administration is doing the rarest of things, rational drug policy. It's a rare move of rational drug policy at the federal level, and it should help pave the path for safer,

more informed marijuana use. It speaks to how much attitudes towards marijuana have changed in the U.S. in recent years and could be a political win for Biden, Aleem said. The restrictions were justified in part by the absurd circular reasoning of Schedule I classification. Since marijuana is officially deemed medically useless, the high regulatory bar for research has blocked the capacity for scientists to ascertain many of its medical benefits. Given that marijuana has already been legalized or made available for medical purposes in many states, we desperately need more science-backed information about safe usage, short-term risks, and long-term risks as legalization increases usage, Aleem wrote. Some 20 years ago, a Democratic president rescheduling marijuana would have been received as a radical policy decision.

Today, the rescheduling of marijuana looks overdue and reasonable, and likely constitutes a minor political win. In Newsweek, Matthew Galt said, Reclassification is not enough. The rescheduling is good, but I worry that the few red states where weed remains forbidden will double down on failing policies. I worry that marijuana will become another wedge issue, like abortion, used by conservative lawmakers to play to their base and harm the public, Galt wrote. The widespread effect of rescheduling marijuana will not be evenly distributed. Most blue states already enjoy the benefits of pot decriminalization. 38 states have some form of medical marijuana policy, and 24 allow you to smoke recreationally. The rescheduling will, hopefully, lower the frequency of DEA raids and allow marijuana

to finally stop being an all-cash business. By now, the problems of the war on drugs broadly, and the criminalization of marijuana specifically, are widespread and well-known. Making it legal and safe for adults to smoke weed is overwhelmingly popular with the American public, and most people don't want cops wasting time busting people for smoking. And now we'll toss it over to Isaac for his take. All right, that is it for what the left and the right are saying, which brings us to my take. what the left and the right are saying, which brings us to my take. So first of all, let me start with a little bit of a personal point here. I was a habitual cannabis user for most of my early 20s. I smoked pot basically every day. And as I've confessed in the past, I even spent a

couple semesters selling weed for extra cash when I was in college. I was young, dumb, arrogant, and stoned enough I didn't really realize what I was doing was risky at the time. I was very lucky not to go to jail, which allowed me to realize I was basically a worse version of myself when I spent part of every day being high. Having been on both sides of cannabis use, I've come to view the legalization of weed much more skeptically than I used to. I wrote about this for Tangle a few years ago, but the gist of my position is this. Nobody should ever go to jail for using marijuana, and pot should be decriminalized nationwide right now. But recreational legalization genuinely worries me. Based on what

we do know about cannabis, about 10 to 30 percent of users become addicted, roughly 4 million people had a use disorder in 2015, and the average potency of today's cannabis products is more than three times higher than it was in 1995. As the saying goes, this isn't your parents' weed anymore. But what really concerns me is what we don't know. Research is still sparse compared to alcohol or tobacco, largely because cannabis is a Schedule I drug, as Zeeshan Aleem said under what the left is saying, but several studies have linked marijuana use to schizophrenia, depression, and other psychiatric disorders, especially when heavy use begins as the brain is still developing, that's up to the age of 25. And when regular users stop using, these studies have observed

classic withdrawal symptoms like irritability, mood swings, anxiety, decreased appetite, restlessness, and sleep disturbances. all this is to say i think fully legalizing cannabis will lead to more people using it which will open a pandora's box of other problems that we might not be totally prepared for given just how often most of the country downplays or laughs off the risk of cannabis use i was also moved by jake novak's piece under what the right is saying in particular particular, this line, quote, Novak is overreaching a bit here. Some candidates have campaigned on it, but the government isn't doling out UBIs, and it's not as if Americans are lazily rotting away, if anything, most of us are

overworked and underpaid. But I think he's onto something. I can't quite put my finger on exactly why, but the idea that we are just giving in to the vices of society does actually resonate with me. And yet, on the whole, I'm also willing to say that I think this is a good change. More than anything else, our drug policy needs to be tied to reality, and the fact that cannabis has been scheduled as a drug similar to LSD or heroin for this long while alcohol and tobacco are unscheduled is confounding, frustrating, and deeply silly. Changing the schedule of cannabis will help us research the drug more, which is something I think needs to happen. It will further cement the lack of criminal enforcement against users,

which should have happened a long time ago, and will continue to destigmatize it in a way that levels it with alcohol and tobacco, which seems imminently rational. I think all of that is necessary, and this is a step in the right direction. Simultaneously, this might just not be a big deal at all. Jeffrey Singer of the Cato Institute, under what the right is saying, made that point cogently, arguing that the only thing that would actually constitute a major policy change is descheduling and fully legalizing marijuana. As you heard in today's podcast, Singer offered a great counter to my fears about the possible health risks of societally normalized cannabis. We could basically just apply that same argument to crack down on alcohol right now,

but we know how alcohol prohibition went. And he's right. Generally speaking, we should always be skeptical of strict government regulations or prohibitions. I still have reservations about how safe cannabis is, and whenever it does become fully legal, which I think it will, I suspect we're going to see some unintended consequences. But it's long been absurd to treat it any differently than alcohol and tobacco, to throw people in jail for it, or to hamstring the entire industry and medical research by treating weed like it's heroin. So Biden is right to pursue this change, and given the public support for legalization, he's also representing the will of the vast majority of

Americans. We'll be right back after this quick break. All right, that is it for my take, which brings us to your questions answered. This one's from Bob in Point Blank, Texas. Bob said, I see professional protest instigators being involved in the riots or protests at Columbia University, egging on and encouraging student and non-student protesters. And I wonder, what benefit is it to that professional to incite these riots? Who benefits from the trouble they are causing and who is financing their salaries? Okay, so great question. This was actually, as you probably heard,

part of our quick hits today. But the idea behind protest instigators is that individuals opposed to what protesters are rallying for pay or recruit people to join the fray, escalating the violence and giving the protesters a bad image. In this instance, the most ardently pro-Israel people would be paying agitators to join pro-Palestinian protests to make them appear less organized and more violent. The irony is that once caught, these infiltrators end up making their own movements look worse. So that's the general idea. But protest instigators or professional agitators or whatever else you want to call them are usually not the ones most responsible for what happens at mass protests. A lot of the people who by and

large side with those who are a part of well-known protests that turn violent, the Charlottesville rally, the George Floyd protest, January 6th, and the current campus protests, excuse the worst actions of the most fringe elements of their own political movements by blaming bad faith instigators. It is possible that some people you agree with just go too far. That doesn't mean that professional agitators aren't real, or that they aren't showing up at any of those events. For instance, we know that there were FBI informants at the Capitol on January 6th. Again, they weren't responsible for most of the damage done, but they were there. The same is true with Antifa or anti-fascist protesters in Charlottesville and white supremacists

in the George Floyd protests. And the same thing appears to be true with campus protesters. An anti-antisemitism organization offered to pay people to infiltrate the protests at Columbia, though I haven't seen any proof that pro-Israel activists are causing a disruption there. At UCLA, though, there are videos of pro-Israel protesters throwing fireworks into encampments and beating pro-Palestine protesters with sticks. Again, we don't know whether these people were paid or not, and this isn't the same as an agitator being inside the pro-Palestine movement to make them look bad, but there are troubling signs of escalation. And of course, a Jewish organization paying people to infiltrate a pro-Palestinian protest

only serves to make people who are sympathetic to Israelis look worse, and frankly, feeds into the worst kind of anti-Semitic tropes, but I digress. Conversely, it seems worth noting that there are also professional protest consultants showing up at campus protests, which New York City Mayor Eric Adams recently warned about. All of this is why I warned people last week to be discerning about these campus protests and what exactly they were seeing in videos. All right, that is it for our reader question today. I'm going to throw it back to John for Under the Radar section. Thank you, Isaac. And now to our Under the Radar story. Former President Donald Trump has made a

major reversal, imploring Republican voters to vote early by mail and via absentee ballots. Trump has long railed against any early or mail-in voting, insisting it was totally corrupt, as recently as two months ago. But now, Republicans are ramping up state-level efforts to encourage early voting. Absentee voting, early voting, and election-day voting are all good options, Trump posted on Truth Social this week. Republicans must make a plan, register, and vote. Axios has the story, and there's a link in today's episode description. All right, next up is our numbers section. The first documented case of cannabis use listed in the Emperor Shenong's Pharmacopoeia is 2800 BCE.

The percentage of U.S. adults who say cannabis should be legal for medical use only is 32%, according to Pew Research. The percentage of U.S. adults who say cannabis should be legal for medical and recreational use is 57%. The percentage of U.S. adults who thought cannabis use should be legal in 1969 is 12%, according to Gallup. The number of people in the U.S. who used cannabis at least once in 2019 is 48.2 million. That's according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The percent increase in drug trafficking arrests related to cannabis at Los Angeles International Airport in 2019 is 166 percent, the year after

California legalized the recreational use of cannabis. The approximate amount that state legal cannabis companies paid in access taxes specific to Schedule I and Schedule II drugs in 2022 is $1.8 billion, according to Whitney Economics. All right, and last but not least, our Have a Nice Day section. In a turn of bad luck, a truck transporting 102,000 young salmon to a hatchery in Oregon overturned on the road and the giant fish tank it was carrying burst open. In an almost unbelievable turn of good luck, however, the large, and the giant fish tank it was carrying burst open. In an almost unbelievable turn of good luck, however, the large majority of the small fries rode the wave of water out of the tank and into Looking Glass Creek, the waterway which connects with the hatchery they were

traveling to. Good News Network has this story, and there's a link in today's episode description. All right, everybody, that is it for today's episode. As always, if you'd like to support our work, please go to retangle.com and sign up for a membership. We'll be right back here on Monday. From Isaac and the rest of the crew, have a great weekend, everybody. Peace. Our podcast is written by me, Isaac Saul, and edited and engineered by John Wall. The script is edited by our managing editor, Ari Weitzman, Will Kabak, Bailey Saul, and Sean Brady. The logo for our podcast was designed by Magdalena Bokova, who is also our social media manager.

Music for the podcast was produced by Diet75. And if you're looking for more from Tangle, please go to readtangle.com and check out our website. It was the season of chaos and all through the house, not one person was stressing. Holla differently this year with DoorDash. Don't want to holla do the most? Holla don't. More festive, less frantic. Get deals for every occasion with DoorDash. Based on Charles Yu's award-winning book, Interior Chinatown follows the story of Willis Wu,

a background character trapped in a police procedural who dreams about a world beyond Chinatown. When he inadvertently becomes a witness to a crime, Willis begins to unravel a criminal web, his family's buried history, and what it feels like to be in the spotlight. Interior Chinatown is streaming November 19th, only on Disney+. The flu remains a serious disease. Last season, over 102,000 influenza cases have been reported across Canada, which is nearly double the historic average of 52,000 cases. What can you do this flu Thank you. ages six months and older, and it may be available for free in your province. Side effects and allergic reactions can occur and 100% protection is not guaranteed. Learn more at flucellvax.ca.