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Gustin Reichbach in The New York Times on medical marijuana Reichbach, a judge on the New York State Supreme Court has lived three and a half years with pancreatic cancer, and he describes how his pain and nausea made him turn (illegally) to marijuana. "This is not a law-and-order issue; it is a medical and a human rights issue," he writes. "When palliative care is understood as a fundamental human and medical right, marijuana for medical use should be beyond controversy." The New York State legislature is considering a bill allowing for medical marijuana, and he urges them to pass it. "Given my position as a sitting judge still hearing cases, well-meaning friends question the wisdom of my coming out on this issue. But I recognize that fellow cancer sufferers may be unable, for a host of reasons, to give voice to our plight."
George Will in The Washington Post on the college loan debate Both Barack Obama and MItt Romney supported extending a lower rate on federally subsidized student loans, a measure that would cost the government $60 billion over a decade. George Will calls this an example of the "disastrous" bipartisanship that usually results in expanded entitlements. "[I]f Washington is feeling flush enough to spend another $60 billion on education in a decade, it could find more deserving people to subsidize than a privileged minority of college students who are acquiring credentials strongly correlated with higher-than-average future earnings." Most taxpayers aren't college graduates and suffer a much higher rate of unemployment, but they "will pay $6 billion a year to make it slightly easier for some fortunate students to acquire college degrees."