Despite the fact that Dewey spent much of this episode running around convinced that he’d lost his kidneys and Raylan shot a woman—”I can’t believe you shot me,” she protested before dying. “I can’t believe so either,” a drug-befuddled Raylan told her—it struck me as a warm and loving episode of the show, as close as Justified will ever get to doing a Valentine’s Day-themed episode.

First, let’s take Raylan and Winona. He’s coming home late to her, but he’s developed, if not a feminist consciousness about how little work he’s doing to get ready for their new life, a conscience about it. “Seriously. You’re seven weeks pregnant. Ready to move. I haven’t done anything to line up a place for us. I’m just out there running and gunning,” he castigates himself. I’m almost sorry Winona lets him off the hook, telling him, “Alright, you’ve convinced me. I’m angry, but I’m still not going to fight with you. I’m done thinking that I could change you. And I’m done trying to convince myself that I could ever feel about anyone the way I feel about you.” But it’s interesting to see Raylan seriously consider changing his life on his own, and not because, as Art suggested, his woman is just telling him that he should. Fatherhood is a serious thing, and I’m glad the show respects Raylan, and us, enough to show him doing some independent thinking on the subject.

Then, there’s Raylan relationship with Dewey, which ends up being critical to finding the man who cut him up. Dewey’s misadventure is as tragicomic an exploration of the changing mechanisms of American commerce as anything I’ve ever seen on television. Who knew the rise of credit cards could put such a hit on small-timers? “I don’t have time for that! I need cash! Where do people use cash?” he wails to the appliance store salesman, before complaining to a stripper that “Don’t tell me guys pay you by credit card? I saw some girl on television who said she could make $3,000 a night on the pole. Given she’s a nine and you’re a six if I’m feeling generous, but I figured you’d be good for a grand or so!” “It’s 10 o’clock in the morning,” one of the girls points out. Dewey reminds me of the characters on Raising Hope, to a certain extent: he’s not very smart, and he does some bad things, but he’s not unworthy of our affection, or Raylan’s. I thought the single line by the cop that “He’s your fugitive. Knock yourself out,” was a lovely summation of the reasons Raylan is both successful and entangled here in Harlan.

And speaking of entanglements, gosh do we have a lot of them coming at us. First, it’s clear that Limehouse kept Mags’ money—and it’s less clear that he can keep his people on lockdown. “The only way I can see him finding out from this end is if someone were to tell him,” he declares of Dickie Bennett. “I’ll stop him. Besides, I heard they fixing to send him back to Trambell.” Then, Quarles first attempt at forging an alliance with Boyd gets him a lecture about Carpetbaggers’ history in Harlan, which is not uniformly positive. But it’s hard to imagine he’ll leave satisfied with a bourbon.

The candidate also said that the parent and child unjustly felt entitled to get life-saving care at an affordable rate:

GOP contender Rick Santorum had a heated exchange with a mother and her sick young son Wednesday, arguing that drug companies were entitled to charge whatever the market demanded for life-saving therapies.[...]

“People have no problem paying $900 for an iPad,” Santorum said, “but paying $900 for a drug they have a problem with — it keeps you alive. Why? Because you’ve been conditioned to think health care is something you can get without having to pay for it.”

The mother said the boy was on the drug Abilify, used to treat schizophrenia, and that, on paper, its costs would exceed $1 million each year.

Santorum said drugs take years to develop and cost millions of dollars to produce, and manufacturers need to turn a profit or they would stop developing new drugs.

Santorum proceeded to lecture the mother and suggest she should be grateful to the drug companies for saving her son’s life. “He’s alive today because drug companies provide care,” Santorum said. “And if they didn’t think they could make money providing that drug, that drug wouldn’t be here.” He also claimed it would “freeze innovation” if pharmaceutical companies were required to offer their drugs at a reasonable price.

Although Santorum has been a vocal opponent of health care reform, his callous reaction is somewhat surprising given that he himself is the father of a daughter with a rare genetic disorder. But if the Colorado mother thought Santorum might be sympathetic to families in similar situations who happen to be less wealthy, she was sadly mistaken.

The average Medicare enrollee will save approximately $4,181 from 2011 to 2021, while those with high prescription drug costs could save as much as $15,710 over the same period. Those with low drug costs should save roughly $2,964:

The report identifies three other sources of savings for Medicare recipients: 1) premiums for Part B physician and certain other services are expected to increase at a slower rate, 2) beneficiary copayments and coinsurance under Part A and B will increase more slowly because the Affordable Care Act slows the rate of growth in payments to hospitals and other providers, and 3) offer seniors preventive services at no additional cost.

Yesterday, the administration announced that a growing number of seniors are enrolling in Medicare Advantage plans and are paying lower premiums as compared to last year.

– Fatima Najiy

Before plunging into what looks to be a tremendously exciting season of Justified, a thought: why is it that our great prestige television about cities that aren’t New York, Los Angeles, or Washington, DC has to be about the drug trade? Baltimore is defined by the drug trade in The Wire. We see Albuquerque largely through the lens of people who participate in the meth trade, or who are trying to shut it down in Breaking Bad — the city’s geography is bounded by the houses of the participants, Los Pollos Hermanos, the laundry, and Hank’s office. And Justified gives us a Kentucky populated by a colorful variety of narcotics wranglers. The Sopranos is a notable potential exception, though drugs are certainly part of the mix, and there’s an extent to which the show is about New Jersey’s relationship to New York.

I understand why we tell stories about criminal enterprises in general and drugs in particular. Cops and robbers, chase and race are both classic storytelling models. And the networks and problems of production, trade, and distribution make for fascinating character and power relationships between criminals and present substantial challenges for law enforcement officers. But are drugs really so psychically important to our country that they deserve this level of attention? I know I’m not alone in considering the War on Drugs both an over-investment and a failed strategy. And while I appreciate living in a neighborhood that isn’t blighted by drug-linked crime, I’m also not exceptionally concerned about Marlo Stanfield or Walter White showing up and upsetting that balance. So is this pattern just a result of the structural rewards of telling drug stories? Or do we see something rotten at the heart of America, a blight worse than the troubles we identify in our great cities?

I wanted to start on that note because I appreciate the way the show used Quarles’ arrival in town to set up a running conversation about real estate, and by extension, territory and a sense of home. When he first showed up, I actually assumed he was talking about the city of Detroit, rather than the criminal enterprise based there that he happens to represent. It quickly becomes clear that it’s not, but I like the idea of Detroit as a criminal conspiracy, the city’s profound troubles providing opportunities for men like Quarles to rise. “You picked a shitty time to get into commercial real estate, and now you’re under water. Detroit did not make an investment. It made a loan,” he warns. “Things are getting tough all over. So if you can’t have the money here by tomorrow, I trust you tell me right now.” He makes good on the threat by the end of the episode, but he’s set a theme that persists for the rest of the episode. There’s Boyd and Raylan fighting over Raylan’s broken promise, with Raylan spitting, “You think we’re in the holler? I’m a deputy U.S. Marshal.” Geography will reach out to pull you back, if you let it. And Raylan and Winona, they lie in bed after making love for the first time since Raylan was shot, property and geography become a proxy for talking about commitment. “Maybe we need more room,” Raylan proposes, baby planning. “After all the time I’ve spent redecorating?” Winona asks, a prickliness that’ll come up again when Raylan tentatively proposes naming their baby Felix, like the cat. “It’s sweet. It’s sweet that you think you have a say in the name,” she tells him.

Those twitchy power dynamics are all over the episode, and make for some of its best moments. “Didn’t wear your suit,” Raylan observes as he meets Boyd in the conference room. “Why do you say that as if I’ve only got one suit and not the whole closetful?” Boyd complains. And they poke at each other over the question of asset forfeiture. “How sizeable, Raylan?” Boyd asks.”Well over 10 dollars,” Raylan tells him. “If I had that kind of money, I’d be in Mexico by now,” Boyd tells him. One of the reasons things get so nasty is because the stakes are smaller than they are in Albuquerque, but the people involved need the money and the assertions of power more. When Ava clocks Devil with the frying pan and is told she didn’t have to, she forcefully asserts that it is, “Otherwise I wouldn’t have done it.” Duffy slaps back at Raylan by treating him like a low priority, saying, “I would love to be of more help but I’ve got to get back to watching women’s tennis.” And Fletcher Nix, who on another show would be a great season-long villain, projects his air of menace in Raylan’s house in part by playing naive. “I look like I know anything about watches?” he asks Raylan. “I could take those off your hands. Give you $20 a piece for them,” Raylan plays along, a little bit classy and a little bit cheap. But he beats him by playing very, very cool. It’s going to be a terrific season.

Gary Mitchell

The state Constitution says, “No person hereafter convicted of [an] infamous crime, shall be eligible or capable of holding any office of trust or profit in this Commonwealth.”

“I can run, I can win, and citizens can elect me, but the state will not allow me to take oath. Who runs the law? I thought the Constitution was for the people and by the people, and the people have spoken,” Mitchell said.

The state Supreme Court has ruled that any felony is an “infamous crime.”

Mitchell appealed to Lawrence County Judge John W. Hodge last Friday, noting that he had applied for clemency with the state Board of Pardons. He asked the judge to dismiss or stay the state’s attempt at his removal until the board rules on his request. Hodge rejected his request within less than an hour of hearing his argument.

Voters who elected Mitchell are incensed by the decision. “They took his money and then when he wins, which I don’t think they expected him to, they won’t let him serve. That’s not right,” said the Rev. Linda Martinez. Indeed, such an denial of office flies in the face of rehabilitation and pushes an overly targeted group of people further away from participation in the democratic process. After all, 13 percent of adult African-American men like Mitchell are currently prevented from voting — let alone from holding office — because of a previous conviction.

Mitchell promised to pursue his right to serve: “It doesn’t make me bitter, but it does rile me up for a fight.”

Smith, whose given name is John Andrew Smith, first told the officer he had not consumed any alcoholic beverages.

“I asked him again, and he stated he had consumed a single beer at Hal’s. I noticed also that Mr. Smith’s eyes were watery, and I asked him to exit the vehicle, which he did,” Kramer said in the report.

Smith told the officer he’d had the beer 45 minutes earlier, and the officer asked him to blow into a hand-held “intoximeter”. The officer said the lawmaker refused, stating he would prefer to go to a clinic or the hospital to get tested.

The officer said Smith finally agreed to blow into the device. The report stated that Smith blew a .091., which is above the legal limit of .08.

Smith is a sponsor of Georgia House Bill 464, which would “require random drug testing” for citizens on public assistance. In response to Smith’s legislation, State Rep. Scott Holcomb introduced a bill last month that would require all state lawmakers to be subject to random drug testing.

Random drug tests for recipients of public assistance are very likely to be found unconsitutional.

Over at my own blog, I review the fifth season premiere of The Game, which aired last night on BET:

“If Mara Brock Akil and BET want to make a black nighttime telenovela where the cast never interacts with one another, where the relationships established in the first three seasons are thrown out in favor of separate, unconnected, over-the-top storylines for each of the five leads, then it should decide on what kind of show that is and settle on a consistent tone.

Because I do think the ship has sailed on any hope that The Game will be the show that folks wanted to be brought back. I think the audience has accepted it (and, likely, moved on). The producers should commit to it.”

It just seems odd to me that fans resurrected a show – a black show – only to have the producers of that show gut everything about the show that made fans want it back in the first place. And by “odd,” I mean “wrong.”

The Game was a sitcom with real heart and humanity in its first three seasons. It was a show that was incredibly funny, but also managed to create six characters that struggled and matured in believable ways over the course of those seasons. The plotting always flowed from the characters.

But on BET, the show is shallow and tonally inconsistent, and most of the characters have been flattened. It uses a drug-addicted model to ineffectively humanize and save Malik Wright, but doesn’t even bother to make her a three-dimensional character that the audience can care about. It reduces one of its most intriguing and sympathetic characters, Tasha Mack, to the very thing – ghetto fabulous loudmouth – she was initially created to subvert, even as it finds new and intriguing ways of deepening self-hating, cheap Jason Pitts (providing Coby Bell with the opportunity to prove yet again that he’s the show’s greatest, most versatile, asset). And it forgets almost entirely that the male characters are football players since we never see them at practice or in the locker room anymore.

I don’t know if BET knows that its version of The Game plays like everyone involved has contempt for the audience that saved it, but…well, it does now. This is not the show that fans wanted back and worse, in its new incarnation, it doesn’t even work on its own terms.

In the immediate wake of the laws, little evidence has emerged that they were necessary. The first round of drug tests on those participating in the job training program, in fact, yielded just a 1 percent rate of failure, the Huffington Post’s Arthur Delaney reported today:

Just 1 percent of participants in an Indiana workforce training program failed their drug tests, according to the state’s Department of Workforce Development.

The department launched its drug testing scheme last July in response to complaints from local businesses that job applicants couldn’t pass drug tests, a department spokeswoman said. But of 1,240 job applicants tested from July to December, only 13 failed the test. Three additional people refused to provide a urine sample and seven submitted urine that was too watery.

Though conservatives around the country have been pushing similar laws — Florida Gov. Rick Scott (R) signed a law requiring drug testing for recipients of welfare benefits in 2011 — and though government data suggests that those on benefits are twice as likely to use drugs as those who aren’t, outright evidence from the states has thus far yielded little evidence. In Florida, only 2 percent of welfare recipients failed the first round of tests, meaning the program isn’t likely to save much money, if any at all. If the 1 percent numbers hold up in Indiana, it isn’t likely to save a significant amount of money either, and like in Florida, the cost of the program could actually outpace the savings from it.

Meanwhile, should these laws face lawsuits, those challenges would likely succeed. As UCLA law professor Adam Winkler wrote after the Florida law passed, “Random-drug testing is what is known as a ‘suspicion-less search,’” and in most instances, courts have “generally frowned upon” drug testing that occurs without probable cause. “Indeed,” Winkler added, “courts have struck down policies just like the ones put in place by Florida.”

Gingrich’s idea for a national law came on the heels of a rash of new state legislation this year requiring welfare recipients to first submit to a drug test. The results in Florida showed just how silly the proposal is, with a mere two percent of welfare recipients testing positive for drugs.

ThinkProgress spoke with another Republican presidential contender this week, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, to get his thoughts on Gingrich’s proposal. Santorum poured cold water on the idea, refusing to support a federal requirement for drug-testing individuals who receive aid. “The states should make that decision,” said the Pennsylvania Republican.

KEYES: You talked about welfare reform a lot and your role in bringing it in the 90s. The biggest debate on it recently is whether or not we ought to be drug-testing recipients of that.

SANTORUM: As you know, my feeling was cap it, put two requirements – time limits, work requirement – and let the states make the decisions.

KEYES: So a federal drug-testing requirement is not something you would support?

SANTORUM: That’s not something…it should be a state program, the states should make that decision.

As ThinkProgress’ Tanya Somanader notes, Gingrich’s proposal “would likely run headlong into the Constitution” because “random drug testing is a suspicion-less search,” the likes of which courts have repeatedly struck down. Unfortunately for Santorum, his proposal to allow states to engage in suspicion-less drug testing is also unconstitutional.

State Sen. Tim Schaffer (R-OH)

“Implementing this bill is the compassionate thing to do. It will end the cycle of poverty by referring drug users to treatment and providing safety for children,” he told a Senate committee considering Senate Bill 69.

As written, the applicant would pay for the test, which Schaffer said can cost $15 to $35.

The bill initially would establish pilot programs in three counties, scaled back from his earlier proposal and another introduced by a Republican colleague that would have implemented drug-testing statewide immediately.

Under the bill, Ohioans who fail the drug test would be ineligible to receive cash assistance for one year and would have to complete treatment through local alcohol-and drug-addiction services. The first time Ohio Republicans pushed this idea, a Democratic legislator shot back with a proposal to test state lawmakers and statewide officeholders. While Schaffer readily admits there is no data to support the need for such tests, he insists “taxpayers should not be paying for people’s illegal drug use.”

But what lawmakers definitely should not do is introduce measures that flout the constitution. UCLA Professor Adam Winkler notes that the Supreme Court has only upheld “suspicion-less” searches like random drug testing in very limited circumstances, like in “high-risk public safety environments.” Such generic circumstances like testing federal aid recipients is seen as government overreach. Indeed, courts have rejected policies just like this one again and again.

Gingrich can't make up his mind on referendums.

Q: My question is, how would you feel about having a referendum on the ballot to legalize marijuana in the United States. To tax it, control it, sell licenses to manufacture it, and put the drug cartels out of business in Mexico?

GINGRICH: Well, I would oppose it. First of all, we don’t do things by referendum in this country. Because we are a republic, not a democracy. It’s been a very conscious design by the founding fathers. Second, I personally would be opposed to the legalization of marijuana. I think it is one of those passing fads where people don’t think through the consequences. If you legalize marijuana, as far as the drug cartels go, does that mean you’re going to legalize cocaine, which is a major source of revenue. Are you going to legalize heroin? I think what we need is a much more effective strategy of eradicating drugs in the United States in order to cut the off money that goes to the drug cartels of Mexico. I’d rather try to find a way to minimize American drug use, not find a way to legalize it and make it acceptable. That’s just my personal bias.

But Gingrich didn’t always think referendums were so un-American. In July 1995, Newt Gingrich actually endorsed a national referendum on whether illegal drugs should be legalized, as the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel reported at the time:

It appears that Gingrich is either being a hypocrite or changing his views on the fundamental nature of American democracy. Additionally, many of Gingrich’s allies in the social conservative movement are happy to use referendums to suppress gay rights.

At one point, the interviewer, Chris Moody, asked Gingrich if he still supports a bill he introduced in the ’90s that would’ve given capital punishment to drug smugglers. Gingrich responded that he does support this policy for cartel leaders and that he wants to see a new drug strategy overall. He then went on to praise Singapore for its “very draconian” approach to the drug war:

MOODY: In 1996, you introduced a bill that would have given the death penalty to drug smugglers. Do you still stand by that?

GINGRICH: I think if you are, for example, the leader of a cartel, sure. Look at the level of violence they’ve done to society. You can either be in the Ron Paul tradition and say there’s nothing wrong with heroin and cocaine or you can be in the tradition that says, ‘These kind of addictive drugs are terrible, they deprive you of full citizenship and they lead you to a dependency which is antithetical to being an American.’ If you’re serious about the latter view, then we need to think through a strategy that makes it radically less likely that we’re going to have drugs in this country. Places like Singapore have been the most successful at doing that. They’ve been very draconian. And they have communicated with great intention that they intend to stop drugs from coming into their country.

Gingrich’s endorsement of Singapore’s drug war is stunning. The country’s “drug laws are among the world’s harshest. Anyone aged 18 or over convicted of carrying more than 15 grams of heroin faces mandatory execution by hanging.” In 2005, Singapore infamously executed an Australian citizen for possession of .4 kilograms of heroin.

Gingrich’s praise of a Singapore-style drug policy is also yet another example of the GOP frontrunner’s contempt for the Constitution. In Kennedy v. Louisiana, the Supreme Court held that “[a]s it relates to crimes against individuals . . . the death penalty should not be expanded to instances where the victim’s life was not taken.” Although Kennedy left open to possibility of execution for “treason, espionage, terrorism, and drug kingpin activity, which are offenses against the State,” Singapore-style drug policy is clearly unconstitutional.

Then again, it probably doesn’t matter to Gingrich whether his proposal is constitutional or not. After all, he recently pledged to simply ignore court decisions he disagrees with.

I apologize for the delay in writing last week’s recap, but in a sense I’m glad I get to consider both of these episodes, in their predictability and very strong moments together. I also appreciate a chance to highlight Matt Zoller Seitz’s excellent essay on Boardwalk Empire‘s misplaced priorities when it comes to gender, privileging fairly conventional if convoluted gangster stories over the richer domestic dramas that the show mostly uses as pretty window dressing.

Working backwards, I agree with him that Angela’s death at the hands of Manny Horvitz, who has arrived in Atlantic City intending to kill Jimmy and shoots Louise, stealing a clandestine night with Angela, instead, was emotionally striking. Manny’s shock, and his recovery via the intensely cold like, “Your husband did this to you,” was one of the more precisely-executed emotional moments of the season. And yet, I’m disgruntled by the decision on two levels. First, it’s the equivalent of J.K. Rowling killing Remus and Tonks in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, a moment when a piece of art needs some deaths to winnow the cast and illustrate emotional costs, but its creators don’t have the guts to lower a truly devastating blow on the audience by killing a main character. Second, there’s something really distasteful about the show’s regression to the norms of the past, where gay relationships inevitably end in death. It’s of a piece, I suppose, with the show’s generally punitive attitude towards sex. But I resent both the specific decision to kill off Angela and with her, one of the show’s legitimately interesting avenues of social exploration, and the general decision to default to killing the depressed lesbian.

The decision to have one of Margaret’s daughters struck down by polio seems to come from a similarly vengeful place. Whether she needs to confess that she’s sheltering with the man who murdered the father of her children, or that she’s betraying Nucky, Margaret clearly believes her sin is responsible for her misfortune. But at least that plotline gives rise to a more interesting speculation: in living with Nucky, has Margaret lost not just the health of one child, but the moral direction of another? Teddy plays a cruel joke on her when he pretends he’s stricken, too, and earns himself a slapping for it, while a weeping Margaret tells Nucky, “God help me, but he has his father’s cruelty,” only to have Nucky insist that he just wants attention, and knowing that his sister’s hospitalized “isn’t the same as understanding” the true magnitude of what’s befallen his family. But on their father-son trip to New York, Nucky realizes that something deeper than genetics or the loneliness of a little boy may be at play when Teddy reveals that he witnessed Nucky burn his own father’s house down, a poisonous revelation that ends with a deceptively sweet, “Don’t worry, Dad. I won’t tell.” Maybe Teddy’s just a child. But maybe in Nucky’s house, he’s learned that secrets are powerful, that there is something to be earned by keeping them.

The other fascinating moral evolution — even if it’s temporary — is that of Don Pernsley from Chalky White’s tormentor to his right-hand man in organizing the black strike on Atlantic City businesses. “What if we all say, we ain’t gonna eat this slop, we ain’t gonna work for this wage?” he asks his colleagues in the kitchen of a fancy restaurant, with their support telling the manager. “We want a raise. Every single last one of us. And a lunch you’d eat yourself.” In a moment before the Civil Rights movement, before the establishment of non-violence as a core principal and tactic, there’s something striking about the flying China in the restaurant, the beautiful color of the fruits and vegetables that go flying as the workers tear the kitchen apart. The attack on the picket lines is more in keeping with the established images we have of white repression of peaceful black protestors, and it presages a day when white power brokers wouldn’t be able to crack, as Jimmy’s cronies do, “These jigaboos think they’re Moses.” “Half of them are named that anyway.” Chalky and Don may not know how to shape a narrative to their national advantage yet, but they are trampling down a path that others will follow. And it remains to be seen if Don is in the movement for the chance to do right, or to inflict damage.

And there’s the prospect of another future in a pitch Jimmy isn’t smart enough to accept. “No bottles. No barrels. A million bucks in a suitcase,” one of his confederates tells him about heroin. “You got your artist types. People uptown.” Another chimes in: “That number’s small right now, but they’re very enthusiastic.” Al Capone may complain about Jimmy “moving Chink drugs now.” But Mr. Wu and Al Swearengen seem to have seen the future more clearly half a century earlier than their dapperer counterparts in Atlantic City.

The health law relies on money from the pharmaceutical industry to close the gap in coverage:

The “doughnut hole,’’ an anxiety-inducing catch in an otherwise popular benefit, will shrink about 40 percent for those unlucky enough to land in it, according to new Medicare figures provided in response to a request from The Associated Press. [...]

The average beneficiary who falls into the coverage gap would have spent $1,504 this year on prescriptions. But thanks to discounts and other provisions in President Barack Obama’s health care overhaul law, that cost fell to $901, according to Medicare’s Office of the Actuary, which handles economic estimates.

A 50 percent discount that the law secured from pharmaceutical companies on brand name drugs yielded an average savings of $581. Medicare also picked up more of the cost of generic drugs, saving an additional $22. [...] This year, the law provides a 50 percent discount on brand name drugs and 7 percent break on generics. Next year the discount on generics rises to 14 percent. When the changes are fully phased in, beneficiaries will still be responsible for their annual deductible and 25 percent of the cost of their medications until they reach catastrophic coverage.

The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) estimates that almost 1.8 million seniors have taken advantage of the discounts in the doughnut hole, saving more than $660 million on prescription drugs.

[I]n moments of desperation, a lie can seem like the only option. Anita McLemore, a Mississippi mother of two, faced one of those unfortunate moments when filling out her application for food stamps — and now she’ll pay the price, by spending three years of her life behind bars in federal prison.

Thanks to a federal ban on food stamps for people with felony drug convictions, people like McLemore are out of luck when it comes to getting assistance with putting food on their tables. Though states can opt out of the ban, those that don’t (like Mississippi) deny food stamps even to individuals who have already served their sentences or overcome previous addictions. It’s true that McLemore’s past isn’t perfect — she has four felony drug convictions and one misdemeanor, which place her firmly in the category of people the federal government has declared unfit to receive public benefits. Hence, faced with the prospect of being unable to feed her family, McLemore lied on her application.

In a compassionate nation, the penalty for drug use is not starvation. In a just nation, the penalty for drug use is not that your two children must be hungry as well. There is no excuse for a federal drug policy that punishes anyone by taking away their ability to put food on the table — and that punishes them so severely for the crime of needing to eat.

And, unlike thousands of Wall Street bankers who helped plunge America’s economy into a catastrophic recession, McLemore actually paid back the $4,367 she received.

The report comes as a growing number of states and the federal government debate the prohibition of marijuana. Just this week, the White House rejected several marijuana legalization petitions.

Marijuana is a Schedule I controlled substance, giving the highest level of restriction possible. Painkillers like OxyCotin are Schedule II, while others like Vicodin are Schedule III. Yet while these less restricted drugs killed 15,000 people last year alone, “There are virtually no reports of fatal cannabis overdose in humans,” a widely-cited study from the National Institute of Mental Health found. Studies on animals have found lethal doses practically impossible to achieve, as a human physically could not consume the required volume.

As spelled out in the Controlled Substance Act, there are three requirements for Schedule I classifications, according to the DEA:

Substances in this schedule have a high potential for abuse, have no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States, and there is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision.

Of course, 16 states and the District of Columbia now recognize medicinal benefits of marijuana and have established safety standards. And while there is no doubt that marijuana has the potential for abuse, advocates say it is not high enough — on par with cocaine and heroin — to merit Schedule I status, and no higher than prescription drugs, the danger of which the CDC report clearly demonstrates.

In fact, when marijuana was initially classified as a Schedule I drug in 1970, its placement was intended to be only provisional pending the findings of the National Commission on Marijuana and Drug Abuse, also known as the Shafer Commission, as it was led by then-Pennsylvania Gov. Raymond Shafer (R). Two years later, the commission released its findings, concluding: “Neither the marihuana user nor the drug itself can be said to constitute a danger to public safety.” Nonetheless, the Nixon administration did nothing and let the drug remain classified as Schedule I.

In a letter sent just last week, nine congressmen, including Republican Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (CA) — called on President Obama to reschedule marijuana as either a Schedule II or III drug — the same status as Vicodin or Oxycontin. Reps. Barney Frank (D-MA) and Ron Paul (R-TX) have also introduced a bill to do just that.

Over the weekend, the Washington state Democrats’ Central Committee passed a resolution endorsing the initiative. The resolution says the state is “wasting millions of dollars” on resources that “could be directed to more important public safety priorities;” therefore, the party is endorsing the legalization of marijuana as outlined in Initiative 502:

WHEREAS thousands of Washington adults are arrested, prosecuted, and convicted for simple marijuana possession each year, wasting millions of dollars in police, court, and jail resources that could be redirected to more important public safety priorities; [...] THEREFORE BE IT RESOLVED that we, the Washington State Democratic Central Committee, endorse and stand in support of Initiative Measure No. 502 to legalize, tax, and regulate marijuana for adults 21 and over.

Earlier this year, the Washington State House of Representatives Office Of Program Research estimated that the state would save $240 million every year from marijuana legalization, both from savings to law enforcement agencies and new revenues generated by taxes.