The New York Times seems to have made up its mind: pot should be illegal. It has recently run pieces that suggest things in Colorado are going very bad indeed since the legalization of marijuana, and a first-hand scare story about a “bad trip”. Edible products seem to be the new target of choice, I guess because it is easier to scaremonger with things you eat than things you smoke.

Both pieces rely heavily on anecdotal evidence – and the former manages to even combine the observations that sales have been lower than expected, and that there is little hard data available about the effects of legalization, with various claims about the harms it has been doing.

Fortunately, Vox.com has been doing a great job reporting some, you know, actual facts about these issues. As they show, the data that is available shows what anyone who has taken the time to look into these things has known for a long time now: drug legalization makes things better, not worse.

This is old news. But wouldn’t it be nice if newspapers reported the true old news instead of harmful but “new” lies? Maybe then harebrained politicians like Chuck Schumer will stop asking, yet again, for ramping up the drug war – even though we know this is a terrible idea.