Colorado and Washington Got Too High: The Argument for Lower Recreational Marijuana Excise Taxes

This article discusses the tax schemes of newly legal recreational marijuana in both Colorado and Washington and how these taxes are similar to other taxes the state levies. This article then examines the policies behind the taxation of marijuana, including competing theories of taxation. Finally, this article concludes that while both states succeed in generating revenue, the taxing scheme employed fails to optimize revenue, creating deadweight loss for both the state economy and the recreational marijuana market

Colorado and Washington Got Too High: The Argument for Lower Recreational Marijuana Excise Taxes

This article discusses the tax schemes of newly legal recreational marijuana in both Colorado and Washington and how these taxes are similar to other taxes the state levies. This article then examines the policies behind the taxation of marijuana, including competing theories of taxation. Finally, this article concludes that while both states succeed in generating revenue, the taxing scheme employed fails to optimize revenue, creating deadweight loss for both the state economy and the recreational marijuana market

Period and Cohort Changes in Americans’ Support for Marijuana Legalization: Convergence and Divergence across Social Groups

We cast fresh light on how and why Americans’ views on marijuana legalization shifted between 1973 and 2014. Results from age-period-cohort models show a strong negative effect of age and relatively high levels of support for legalization among baby boom cohorts. Despite the baby boom effect, the large increase in support for marijuana legalization is predominantly a broad, period-based change in the population. Additional analyses demonstrate that differences in support for legalization by education, region, and religion decline, that differences by political party increase, and that differences between whites and African Americans reverse direction. We conclude by discussing the implications of these findings and by identifying promising directions for future research on this topic

Three and Out: The NFL\u27s Concussion Liability and How Players Can Tackle the Problem

In 1952, the New England Journal of Medicine published a study stating that a player should not continue playing professional football after suffering three concussions. As players continue to get bigger, faster, and stronger, the number of concussions has increased. In response to this problem, the National Football League (NFL) commissioned a study run by scientists and NFL team doctors to determine the long-term effects of concussions. That committee determined that no long-term repercussions exist after experiencing a concussion while playing NFL football. Despite the scientific community\u27s critiques of the study, the NFL used the committee\u27s findings to create the league\u27s return-to-play guidelines, as well as other player safety rules. Further cementing skepticism of the committee\u27s findings, in 2005, Neurosurgery published an article linking concussions suffered during an NFL player\u27s career to cognitive deterioration based on autopsy results of a former player. The NFL vigorously denied the Neurosurgery article\u27s conclusions and attempted to discredit the writers. The NFL continued to use its flawed committee studies to craft league rules, despite the growing chorus in the medical community citing its flaws. Because the NFL used these findings to craft its safety rules, it exposed the players to unnecessary risk. This Note will show that the NFL acted both negligently and fraudulently towards its players, and the players should file a lawsuit in order to recover compensation for the harm that the league caused them. The players should file this suit in the district of Minnesota in order to capitalize on the district\u27s previous favorable rulings for the players in the 2011 lockout dispute with the league\u27s owners. This Note concludes that the players should succeed and win damages first for their pain and suffering, and second, to punish the NFL for its wrongful behavior

Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas (SOCAT) V5

The Surface Ocean CO2 Atlas (SOCAT) is a synthesis activity by the international marine carbon research community (>100 contributors). SOCAT version 5 has 21.5 million quality-controlled, surface ocean fCO2 (fugacity of carbon dioxide) observations from 1957 to 2017 for the global oceans and coastal seas. Calibrated sensor data are also available. Automation allows annual, public releases. SOCAT data is discoverable, accessible and citable. SOCAT enables quantification of the ocean carbon sink and ocean acidification and evaluation of ocean biogeochemical models. SOCAT, which celebrates its 10th anniversary in 2017, represents a milestone in biogeochemical and climate research and in informing policy

Baselines and degradation of coral reefs in the northern Line Islands

Effective conservation requires rigorous baselines of pristine conditions to assess the impacts of human activities and to evaluate the efficacy of management. Most coral reefs are moderately to severely degraded by local human activities such as fishing and pollution as well as global change, hence it is difficult to separate local from global effects. To this end, we surveyed coral reefs on uninhabited atolls in the northern Line Islands to provide a baseline of reef community structure, and on increasingly populated atolls to document changes associated with human activities. We found that top predators and reef-building organisms dominated unpopulated Kingman and Palmyra, while small planktivorous fishes and fleshy algae dominated the populated atolls of Tabuaeran and Kiritimati. Sharks and other top predators overwhelmed the fish assemblages on Kingman and Palmyra so that the biomass pyramid was inverted (top-heavy). In contrast, the biomass pyramid at Tabuaeran and Kiritimati exhibited the typical bottom-heavy pattern. Reefs without people exhibited less coral disease and greater coral recruitment relative to more inhabited reefs. Thus, protection from overfishing and pollution appears to increase the resilience of reef ecosystems to the effects of global warming

Global status and conservation potential of reef sharks

Decades of overexploitation have devastated shark populations, leaving considerable doubt as to their ecological status1,2. Yet much of what is known about sharks has been inferred from catch records in industrial fisheries, whereas far less information is available about sharks that live in coastal habitats3. Here we address this knowledge gap using data from more than 15,000 standardized baited remote underwater video stations that were deployed on 371 reefs in 58 nations to estimate the conservation status of reef sharks globally. Our results reveal the profound impact that fishing has had on reef shark populations: we observed no sharks on almost 20% of the surveyed reefs. Reef sharks were almost completely absent from reefs in several nations, and shark depletion was strongly related to socio-economic conditions such as the size and proximity of the nearest market, poor governance and the density of the human population. However, opportunities for the conservation of reef sharks remain: shark sanctuaries, closed areas, catch limits and an absence of gillnets and longlines were associated with a substantially higher relative abundance of reef sharks. These results reveal several policy pathways for the restoration and management of reef shark populations, from direct top-down management of fishing to indirect improvement of governance conditions. Reef shark populations will only have a high chance of recovery by engaging key socio-economic aspects of tropical fisheries