The EconomistJuly 13th 2019 United States 272 can afford an all-star defence team. Mr Ep-
stein is routinely described as a billionaire.
Forbes, which chronicles America’s nine-
zeroed class, says he is not and points out
that his money-management firm, regis-
tered in the Virgin Islands, produced no
public records and no list of clients. The
magazine has never included him in its list
of the 400 richest Americans. What is true
is that Mr Epstein had money for private
jets, a private island and a handful of
houses. He was also on first-name terms
with two presidents, Bill Clinton (“Jeffrey is
both a highly successful financier and a
committed philanthropist,” he once said)
and Donald Trump (“I’ve known Jeff for 15
years. Terrific guy. He’s a lot of fun to be
with. It is even said that he likes beautiful
women as much as I do, and many of them
are on the younger side,” Mr Trump told a
magazine almost two decades ago). Since
he was charged in 2006 both men have dis-
tanced themselves from Mr Epstein.
Wealth, child abuse and presidents are
powerful ingredients for conspiracy theo-
ries. The truth may be more prosaic. Mr Ep-
stein’s original defence team included Alan
Dershowitz and Kenn Starr, two lawyers
skilled in defending the indefensible. The
evidence in the original case appears over-
whelming. In an interview with the Miami
Heraldthe lead detective recounted phone
records, flight logs and instructions for de-
livering flowers to one of Mr Epstein’s
young fixations—alongside her high-
school report card. But the difficulties of
securing convictions in cases of rape or
sexual abuse are well known.
Nor is it obvious that the top federal
prosecutor who negotiated the deal, Alex-
ander Acosta, had better options available.
That may not save him. Mr Acosta is cur-
rently serving as Mr Trump’s labour secre-
tary. Democrats would now like him
ousted. Nancy Pelosi, the Democratic
speaker of the House, and Chuck Schumer,
the Senate’s minority leader, have called for
his resignation. So too have many of those
vying for the Democratic presidential
nomination. Mr Trump so far has lent his
support, saying he feels “very badly” for Mr
Acosta and noting that “he’s been a great,
really great secretary of labour”. When past
cabinet secretaries have attracted negative
headlines, Mr Trump has often started out
strongly supportive and then soured as the
withering critiques continued.
Turbulence in the Trump administra-
tion is no new phenomenon. Much of it re-
sults from a lack of due diligence. Mr
Acosta was not properly vetted until after
he was nominated for the post—following
the withdrawal of Mr Trump’s previous
nominee, Andrew Puzder, amid allegations
of domestic abuse and failure to pay taxes.
Among the portfolios Mr Acosta now over-
sees are enforcement of child-labour and
human-trafficking laws. 7
W
hen justin trudeaupromised to le-
galise cannabis use across the border
in Canada, his main reason for doing so
was to protect the young. Cannabis is bad
for the developing brain and a worrying
number of minors were taking the drug.
The counterintuitive proposal was based
on the idea that regulated sales would drive
out illegal sellers, who do not care how old
their customers are. Legal sellers, however,
will generally abide by age restrictions in
sales to keep their licence.
It is too early to tell whether Canada’s
change, at the end of last year, will have the
desired effect. Yet there is a wealth of his-
torical data in America, which has been
tinkering with various forms of liberalisa-
tion since the 1990s. Today 33 states permit
medical cannabis, and 11 have legalised rec-
reational use. The most recent legalisation
bill, for recreational use, was signed in Illi-
nois on June 25th.
Until now the evidence on youth use
was mixed. In Washington state one study
found increased use among 8th and 10th
graders after legalisation. A different study
found that use among these groups actual-
ly fell. However, a new study, in the journal
Jama Pediatrics, attempts a more compre-
hensive national analysis using data from
biennial appraisals of high-school stu-
dents known as the Youth Risk Behaviour
Surveys. It found that relatively permissive
laws were associated with a 9% decrease in
frequent cannabis use by high-school stu-
dents. There was no evidence that legalisa-tion of cannabis for medical purposes en-
couraged use among young Americans.
Although the drop is not large, it is nota-
ble given policy variation between states.
Some states will have been more successful
than others at chipping away at black-mar-
ket sales, regulating licensed sellers and
getting the message across that cannabis is
damaging to young brains. Though the
study showed only that a correlation be-
tween policy changes and a dip in teenaged
use, a causal connection is plausible.
Across the country cannabis remains a
big, and flourishing, business worth nearly
$10bn last year, and projected to rise to
nearly $45bn by 2024. Yet California has
become the first state to shrink its legal
market after legalisation. Its value went
from $3bn in 2017 to just $2.5bn last year,
according to Arcview Market Research and
bdsAnalytics.
The finding on teenaged use will put
wind into the sails of advocates for liberal-
isation. Most of the public across many de-
mographic groups supports legalising
marijuana. At the same time, business
growth is turning the pot industry into a
force in the lobbies of Washington and of
state capitols. Witness the Damascene con-
version of John Boehner. The former House
speaker, cannabis opponent and member
of the Republican Party is now a board
member and shareholder of New York-
based cannabis firm Acreage Holdings.
Earlier this year, Mr Boehner launched a
new industry-funded lobbying group pro-
moting “common-sense federal regula-
tion”. Were federal law to shift to make can-
nabis legal, his firm Acreage could
complete a lucrative sale to Canopy
Growth, a big Canadian cannabis firm. On
July 10th a Congressional committee held a
hearing on “the need for reform”. With the
promise of real jobs and investment that
could come from federal legalisation, it
could even become a vote-winner. 7Legalising cannabis seems to make it
less attractive to teenagersCannabis useUnintended, uh,
whatever, man
Less of a roll model