Charles Lynch in limbo

It's almost exhausting but certainly pleasing to have more developments in the drug law reform area going on than I can keep up with. It will be fascinating to see how Charles Lynch's case turns out. He's the Morro Bay CA medical marijuana dispensary operator who was scheduled to be sentenced Monday after being convicted on five counts that could carry a sentence up to 100 years -- but the judge postponed sentencing and requested written clarification of the new policy announced by AG Eric Holder to the effect that the feds will stop going after patients and providers in states with medical marijuana laws. This will force the Justice Dept. to put some flesh on those bones. Some of the best coverage of the case has been done by Reason.TV, especially this short documentary featuring Drew Carey, and this, this and this. Register editorial will run tomorrow.

R.C. Hoiles and the prospects for liberty

Here's a link to the piece I wrote for Sunday's Register, to commemorate what we call Founders Day at Freedom Communications -- R.C. Hoiles was born on Nov. 24. I tried to put the remembrance in reasonably current terms, noting that in part because so many choose to blame the financial crisis on the "deregulated" free market, and an administration explicitly determined to have a more activist government is coming into power, the prospects might seem somewhat bleak. But by comparison to what R.C. faced in the 1930s and 1940s, when there were no libertarian think tanks and precious few academics, our resources are much greater.

Hope you enjoy it and find it informative. Leave comments, here or there.

Reason's 40th anniversary

I am very much lo0oking forward to the Reason Foundation's 40th anniversary dinner tomorrow night (actually, it's Reason magazine's 40th -- the Foundation wasn't formed until later, 1978 if I'm not mistaken). I broke out my tux tonight to make sure it's in good shape. Bob Poole, Manny Klausner and Tibor Machan, the three who took over the magazine from Lanny Friedlander early on, are all friends of long standing. I've spoken at a couple of Reason events, attended many more, and was the Washington correspondent for a while in the late 1970s. I've never met Jeff Flake, the congressman from Arizona who is the featured speaker, so I'm looking forward to that as well. Of course I'll see a lot of old friends, and look forward to meeting some new ones.

Reason will give a special award to the Dave Threshie and Dick Wallace families, in recognition of the fact that they have kept Freedom Communications in the family and determined to continue propagating libertarian ideas during a really tough time for the newspaper business. Doing so has literally cost them millions of dollars (although they're hardly hurting for money).

It strikes me as a particularly critical time for the freedom movement. Although the financial crisis was sparked almost exclusively by the government, there's a widespread notion out there that it was the result of excessive deregulation; that comes from the Republicans talking incessantly about deregulation but never doing it when they have power; they get the reputation without the reality. We have our work cut out for us reminding peoiple of reality, and the outcome is far from certain.