NR Mocks NY Times For Lamenting State Intervention In the Pot Industry

June 16th, 2014 4:14 PM

The new June 23 issue of National Review – in “The Week” section – has a clever takedown of a New York Times Magazine piece on marijuana. The May 14 article was headlined “Now 20% More Heady!” Online, it was "The Bud-Lightification of Bud." Somehow, marijuana makes liberal reporters fret about overregulating business.

The Times was mildly frustrated that tomorrow’s Rockefellers of weed are frustrated by the legal regime (or lack thereof) on the sale and use of joints or edible products. NR explained:

The New York Times Magazine had an article about the burgeoning marijuana industry. The article was written by an economics reporter for the paper, Annie Lowrey. She said, “Despite the potential, many investors are still hesitating at spending the money that might make joints and brownies less ad hoc, more corporate. Why spend $20 million on a grow site that might be shut down, or a new brand that might get stamped out by the next administration's Justice Department? A surfeit of laws -- and confusion between them -- is holding the market back.”

NR then unloaded the boom: “Is that so? Amazing. Maybe Lowrey can teach her paper what goes for pot goes for an economy at large.”