A Downside of Diversity

Sen. James G. Blaine once said, that the U.S. was long “the only country with a known birthday. All the rest began they know not when, and grew into power, they knew not how.”

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President Biden repeated a claim about turning down an appointment to the U.S. Naval Academy, where he purportedly wanted to play football, during his commencement address at West Point on Saturday.
Biden told West Point graduates that Republican Sen. J. Caleb Boggs, whom he defeated to become a U.S. senator, had "appointed" him to the Naval Academy years before they ran against each other in 1972.
The president recounted that before his interview, "I found out two days earlier they had a quarterback named Roger Staubach, and a halfback named Joe Bellino. And I said, I'm not going there. I went to Delaware. Not a joke."

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A Downside of Diversity

For the first time, the number of Americans who use marijuana just about every day has surpassed the number who drink alcohol that often, a shift some 40 years in the making as recreational pot use became more mainstream and legal in nearly half of U.S. states.

In 2022, an estimated 17.7 million people reported using marijuana daily or near-daily compared to 14.7 million daily or near-daily drinkers, according to an analysis of national survey data. In 1992, when daily pot use hit a low point, less than 1 million people said they used marijuana nearly every day.

On the regulatory side, the U.S. is about to downgrade the medical concerns for the drug from Schedule One to Three, based on the available research.

So, a question. 

The major problem holding back the successful commercialization of marijuana is its inconsistency. The industry is fragmented in almost every way. The product has no standardization, with different plants grown in different sites with different characteristics and chemical concentrations, some of which have never been examined. There are different preparations, packaging, and shipping processes. Consequently, the product is unreliable as a brand and major efforts are underway to standardize them. 

That said, how can the safety experiments on the drug be relied upon?