From the Archives: March 2023

15 years ago
March 2008

“Today, workplace drug testing is a billion-dollar industry. It has spawned a thriving anti-testing industry and a whole new crime. In Indiana, just one owner of a whizinator — a ridiculously complicated but allegedly effective device consisting of a fake latex penis, a harness , artificial urine, and heating pads can carry up to 180 days in jail and a $1,000 fine. (The law hasn’t stopped people from buying the $150 unit. The company that makes the uriginator says it has sold more than 300,000 of them since 1999.) In 2004, a South Carolina man served six months in a state prison for selling his clean urine on the Internet.”
Thanks Greg
“Golden Age”

20 years ago
March 2003

“Indeed, a wholesale crackdown on illegal immigration, taking up scarce resources, could hinder rather than help efforts to keep potential terrorists out of this country,” according to some estimates. [immigration analyst Daniel] Griswold, ‘We spend $3 billion a year to keep Mexican workers out of the United States. I’d rather spend that money on keeping terrorists out of the Middle East.’

Given the realities of the global economy and the US labor market, an influx of immigrants to this country will be a reality for the foreseeable future. Easing legal access for those seeking to better their lives is a far more likely solution than entry [Michelle] Malkin suggests attack. Also, it’s far more likely than imagined to deport the 9 million to 11 million illegal immigrants already here.”
Cathy Young
“Guilty by association”

30 years ago
March 1993

“The first lesson that every private-school choice advocate needs to learn is that public money rarely comes without strings. The funny thing is that most already understand this to some degree—they know that public schools have become top-heavy with political burdens like bureaucracy, social work, curriculum standards, and complex teacher-credentialing requirements. Yet proponents often fail to see how a voucher program, which at least indirectly subsidizes private education, could eventually turn private schools into quasi-public institutions. Experience both in the United States and abroad suggests this. that a private-school choice plan would not necessarily resemble the free-market treatment envisioned by many of its proponents.”
John Miller
“Good Choice, Bad Choice”

35 years ago
March 1988

“Through the federal dole campaign, laws ensure high salaries for consultants, staff members and various hanger-ons. It’s ironic that the same good-government folks who decry huge campaign spending, help those who make them possible.

And [Federal Election Commission] The money serves as a loan guarantee for campaigns like Chrysler. As Gary Hart makes abundantly clear, deficit spending is a way of life for politicians — and not just with the federal budget. Candidates borrow against expected matching funds, which they can get to pay off lenders even after dropping out of the race. And to ensure that no candidate takes full responsibility for their debt, the law prohibits them from spending more than $50,000 of their own money to pay their bills. Now this is a law we can hope will never be repealed.”
Virginia Postrail
“Take the Money and Run”

40 years ago
March 1983

“For eight years, people in Alaska have been allowed to smoke marijuana, and it’s difficult, if not impossible, to find any data to support the most dire predictions. One is less aware of the presence of marijuana in Anchorage than in most major cities in the rest of the state. Complete strangers call me Houston. , offered to sell marijuana in Honolulu and Seattle—but never on the streets of Anchorage or Fairbanks. Despite private legalization, public demonstrations are negligible.

There has been no increase in automobile deaths or plane crashes since then Ravin; In fact, those rates are stabilizing or declining. There are no unexplained epidemics of infectious diseases, birth defects, or infant mortality. Alaska’s crime rate—violently high since the arrival of the first immigrants—is rising at a much slower rate than before the decision was made, and more closely reflects national norms now than it has since such statistics were first collected.”
Michael Dunham
“When the Smoke Clears”