Support for Legalizing Marijuana Continues to Grow
Oct 19th, 2009 • Posted in: Statline
For more information, see this week’s Research Report.

For more information, see this week’s Research Report.
by Rushworth M. Kidder
LAKE WORTH, Florida
“What do you think of ethics awards?”
The question popped up at a meeting of community leaders here in Palm Beach County the other day. If each year we recognized an individual or organization of outstanding integrity, I was asked, wouldn’t that help promote ethics, especially when our community needs visible moral role models?
The questioner was right about the need. Headlines in the local paper, the South Florida Sun-Sentinel, sadly refer to this place as “Corruption County,” and for good reason. Five local politicians — three former county commissioners and two West Palm Beach city commissioners — have been sentenced to prison terms recently, brought down by an FBI operation launched several years ago. The area’s former congressman, six-term Republican Mark Foley, left office in 2006 over a sex scandal involving teenage pages working at the Capitol.
What’s more, convicted financier Bernie Madoff played out his giant Ponzi scheme on investors who lived in the same exclusive Palm Beach neighborhood where he had a home. And last week Florida governor Charlie Crist called for a statewide grand jury to investigate what he called “a culture of corruption,” predominantly in South Florida. At his press conference, he noted that he has suspended or fired 31 public officials since he took office early in 2007.
To their credit, the citizenry here is exercised over these matters — part of the reason this community meeting was convened. Are they fighting a hopeless battle? I don’t think so. History is on their side. In the nineteenth century, when New York City fell into the clutches of Tammany Hall, it took 80 years to break the corruption of the Democratic Party’s political machine. By the end of the twentieth century, Hong Kong took only several decades to do it: After a siege of corruption so notorious that firemen at burning houses refused to turn on the water until the owners paid a bribe, an Independent Commission Against Corruption, set up in 1974, helped Hong Kong become one of the cleanest jurisdictions in the world. And just this year, former Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich was thrown out of office in a matter of months over his efforts to sell the Senate seat vacated by Barack Obama to the highest bidder.
All of which should make the case for ethics awards. Shouldn’t the investigators, reformers, and leading citizens in these cases be honored? Shouldn’t those with the moral courage to stand up and fight be celebrated? Shouldn’t a thoughtful award committee be able to determine the best candidates?
In theory, yes. But before rushing into it, the good citizens of Palm Beach County might look across the state to Hillsborough County and its county seat, Tampa. There, a moral courage award sponsored by the county commissioners and named for Ralph Hughes, a prominent local anti-tax campaigner, has just come a cropper. After his death, the IRS billed his estate for nearly $70 million in unpaid levies, and the U.S. Department of Justice is suing the company he owned to recover $300 million in back taxes. Perhaps because this embarrassing story was featured in a page-one Wall Street Journal story several weeks ago, the county won’t be making an award this year.
The problem with such awards is that ethics is not an inoculation, but a process. It’s something you measure over time. And that measurement can be difficult. To be sure, community leaders may engage in specific acts of undeniable moral courage. In a given instance, they can speak truth to power, defend noble but unpopular causes, or publicly announce their own mistakes. But what if, after they do so, they descend into blatant moral idiocy? Does their later history invalidate their earlier integrity? Not unless new facts have come to light. Then don’t they still deserve the award? That depends on the purpose of the award. If the honoree is plagued by subsequent moral failings, how effective will the award be in inspiring a new generation? Should we hold up as a moral exemplar someone who, one cold winter night, stood up for the homeless — only later to become a notorious wife-beater?
The problem is that we can’t — and shouldn’t — compartmentalize ethics. There’s no such thing as “political ethics” that is separate from personal ethics or business ethics or legal ethics. There’s only ethics. It’s part and parcel of everything we do. Most awards in the business or community arenas don’t have to rise to that high standard. They can focus just on leadership or excellence in innovation or skill in athletics or the arts. Yet even there, ethics is inherent in every award. Should a baseball Hall of Fame recipient be removed if future investigations discover that he excelled only because he used illegal steroids? Should we honor a CEO of the Year if we later learn she cooked the company’s books to win the prize? Should a highly praised new author be admired if he’s later found to have plagiarized? No in each case, we say — not because these people didn’t have outstanding records, but because the ethical lapses compromised everything they did.
Ethics awards are inviting, to be sure. And I suspect, with immense care, they can be properly done. But I have one request of any award committee. First, go see the movie The Informant! (the punctuation is part of the title), based on the true story of Mark Whitacre, a top corporate executive at agribusiness giant Archer Daniels Midland. Was he a whistle-blower and a reformer — or a mole and a con man? When lying becomes so subtle, what does it mean to say, “There stands a noble life”? If you’d given him an award, at what point would you wish you hadn’t?
In questions of awards, the old Russian adage still rings true: “Trust, but verify.”
©2009 Institute for Global Ethics
Find this and previous weeks’ commentaries online as a podcast titled Ethicast™ now available on iTunes. Subscribe today!
“For a long time, matters that should have been investigated were just ignored, so we’ll have to see what type of accountability we have now.”
– Fred Wertheimer, former president of Common Cause and current president/CEO of Democracy 21, talking to the New York Times about the slow pace and absent punishments by congressional ethics committees.
The Times notes that the House and Senate both rushed to embrace strict ethics enforcement two years ago after the Jack Abramoff scandal. “Since then, however, no member of Congress has been censured, the toughest punishment short of expulsion, despite a number of recent scandals involving sexual impropriety, financial dealings and conflicts of interest. The record illustrates how Congress has struggled to police itself after years in which its ethics committees were often derided as ineffectual.”
The last formal censure in Congress came in 1990, notes the paper, despite the gravity of the Abramoff affair and other scandals involving members of Congress, including Larry Craig (R-Idaho), Randy Cunningham (R-Calif.), Tom DeLay (R-Tex.), John Ensign (R-Nev.), Mark Foley (R-Fla.), William Jefferson (D-La.), Charles Rangel (D-NY), and David Vitter (R-La.).
Source: New York Times, Oct. 17.
For more information, see related Newsline Commentary, Oct. 12.
U.S. Congress casts an eye on bonus payouts at AIG; British regulator warns against return to high-flying compensation practices; President Obama rails against health insurance industry; Japan’s economic head says there will be no “aping” of U.S. business practices on his watch; Nigeria’s banks are in the midst of crisis thanks to a huge roll of deadbeats, say press reports
VARIOUS DATELINES
The week’s top ethics news dealt with a variety of global issues revolving around banking, business, and finance. Among the stories:
Sources: Washington Post, Oct. 17 — Telegraph, Oct. 16 — Times of London, Oct. 15 — ABC, Oct. 15 — Christian Science Monitor, Oct. 15 — BBC, Oct. 15.
For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Oct. 12 — Related Newsline story, Sep. 21 — Related Newsline story, Sep. 14 — Related Newsline story, Aug. 24 — Related Newsline Commentary, July 13.
Filmmaker alleges some British tabloids were ready to buy what they thought was private medical information on movie stars; Boston hospital bans social networking because of privacy concerns; Canadian government shelves plans to expand privacy protections, according to report
VARIOUS DATELINES
The ethics of privacy captured headlines worldwide last week. Among the stories:
Sources: Canadian Press, Oct. 15 — Reuters, Oct. 15 — InformationWeek, Oct. 15.
For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Oct. 12 — Related Newsline story, Oct. 5 — Related Newsline story, Sep. 28 — Related Newsline story, Sep. 21 — Related Newsline story, Sep. 14.
Researchers take an interesting view of how to convince people to protect others and themselves from the spread of swine flu
LONDON
A potentially severe public-health issue was coupled with moral debate over one of the most mundane of all actions last week — and the conclusion came down to an examination of the effectiveness of public shaming.
The issue is washing one’s hands after using the restroom.
TIME magazine reports that a recent study tracking hand-washing habits in England found that only a third of men and two-thirds of women washed their hands with soap and water.
But the study didn’t stop there: Researchers posted various signs on an electronic display at the entrance to restrooms in an effort to gauge the most effective way to promote hygiene.
Overall, the most persuasive message prompting hand washing was, “Is the person next to you washing with soap?” reports National Public Radio.
After that, the effectiveness of messages was found to vary between men and women. Women responded better to gentle reminders such as “Water doesn’t kill germs, soap does,” reports the CBC. Men were more strongly persuaded by messages that prompted disgust, including, “Soap it off or eat it later.”
According to the U.K. Guardian, there’s a potentially deadly serious side to the study. Health officials all over the world are stepping up efforts to promote hand washing in order to prevent the spread of the H1N1 flu virus.
Authors of the study, faculty from the London School Tropical Medicine, write that hand washing with soap is the most cost-effective method of disease control. “It could save more than a million lives a year from diarrhoeal diseases, and prevent respiratory infections — the biggest causes of child mortality in developing countries,” they write in the American Journal of Public Health, according to the Guardian.
Incidentally, the results were monitored by internet sensors attached to the faucets and soap dispensers. No cameras were placed inside the restrooms.
Sources: TIME, Oct. 15 — CBC, Oct. 15 — NPR, Oct. 15 — Guardian, Oct. 15.
For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Aug. 24 — Related Newsline story, Aug. 10 — Related Newsline story, July 20 — Related Newsline story, July 6 — Related Newsline story, May 4.
In other news from ethics and education: Singapore focuses on medical ethics, and an Indian conference looks at business-ethics curricula from the viewpoint of a spiritual guru
VARIOUS DATELINES
Several reports from the world press last week focused on aspects of ethics education. Among the coverage:
Sources: New York Times, Oct. 15 — AsiaOne, Oct. 15 — Times of India, Oct. 11.
For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Oct. 5 — Related Newsline story, Sep. 28 — Related Newsline story, Sep. 28 — Related Newsline story, Sep. 21 — Related Newsline story, Sep. 14.
Protests over blogging rules, a commercial that some say ridicules a political candidate for his weight problem, and a campaign that encourages consumers to brag about their sexual conquests raise issues and eyebrows
VARIOUS DATELINES
Advertising and ethics had some uneasy encounters last week. Among them:
Sources: Philadelphia Inquirer, Oct. 16 — San Francisco Chronicle, Oct. 15 — Newark Star-Ledger, Oct. 15 — AdWeek, Oct 15.
For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Oct. 12 — Related Newsline story, Oct. 5 — Related Newsline story, Aug. 10 — Related Newsline story, May 18 — Related Newsline story, Apr. 20.
Are insurance companies who say they won’t pay avoiding responsibility? Should homeowners confess to having the problem and risk not having policies renewed?
NEW YORK
The Wall Street Journal reports that at least two Florida insurance companies have found themselves in an ethical crossfire after dropping policyholders who filed claims linked to allegedly defective drywall imported from China.
Federal and state agencies are probing the circumstances surrounding the drywall, examining allegations that the Chinese product emits fumes that corrode wires and plumbing and creates health problems, the Journal reported.
One insurance company contacted by the Journal said the firm had not paid any claims for drywall because builder defects and pollution are excluded from coverage under the terms of its policies.
A spokesperson said other provisions of the policies require that coverage not be renewed if problems such as corrosion are not fixed, because they could lead to further damage.
The case touches on three ethical areas: the circumstances surrounding allegedly defective Chinese products, whether insurance companies should be obligated to pay and continue coverage, and the question of whether homeowners should own up to the problem by reporting it.
David Durkee, an attorney for some of the affected policyholders, put it this way in an interview with the Journal: “If you go ahead and disclose and do the honest thing, you are subject to possible cancellation or nonrenewal. It is truly a cruel predicament.”
Source: Wall Street Journal, Oct. 14.
For more information, see: Related Newsline story, Mar. 2 — Related Newsline story, July 13 — Related Newsline story, May 11 — Related Newsline story, Mar. 16 — Related Newsline story, Aug. 25, 2008.
“Majority in the West favors taxing marijuana sales to boost state revenues,” poll finds
From Gallup:
“Gallup’s October Crime poll finds 44% of Americans in favor of making marijuana legal and 54% opposed. U.S. public support for legalizing marijuana was fixed in the 25% range from the late 1970s to the mid-1990s, but acceptance jumped to 31% in 2000 and has continued to grow throughout this decade.
“Public opinion is virtually the same on a question that relates to a public policy debate brewing in California — whether marijuana should be legalized and taxed as a way of raising revenue for state governments. Just over 4 in 10 Americans (42%) say they would favor this in their own state; 56% are opposed. Support is markedly higher among residents of the West — where an outright majority favor the proposal — than in the South and Midwest. The views of Eastern residents fall about in the middle.
“The new findings come as the U.S. Justice Department has reportedly decided to loosen its enforcement of federal anti-marijuana laws by not pursuing individuals who buy or sell small amounts of the drug in conformity with their own states’ medical marijuana laws. This seems likely to meet with U.S. public approval, as previous Gallup polling has found Americans generally sympathetic to legalizing marijuana for medical purposes. In 2003, 75% of Americans favored allowing doctors to legally prescribe marijuana to patients in order to reduce pain and suffering.
“The highest level of support for decriminalizing the use of marijuana today is seen with self-described liberals, among whom 78% are in favor. In contrast, 72% of conservatives are opposed. Moderates are about evenly divided on whether the use of marijuana should be legal, although they tilt against it (51% vs. 46%)….
“Public mores on legalization of marijuana have been changing this decade, and are now at their most tolerant in at least 40 years….”
For the full release from Gallup, Oct. 19, click here.
“Peace is not merely a vacuum left by the ending of wars. It is the creation of two eternal principles: justice and freedom.”
– James T. Shotwell (Canada-born U.S. history professor and diplomacy advocate, 1874-1965)
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