
Elon Musk's marijuana puff prompts safety review from NASA - Trisell
https://www.cnet.com/news/elon-musks-marijuana-puff-prompts-safety-review-from-nasa-report-says/
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leroy_masochist
I actually think that it is great that they are doing this, and I hope that
they do it as ham-handedly as possible and as publicly as possible.

Our national policy toward cannabis is making a long-overdue tack toward full
national legalization, and NASA's actions won't make a lick of difference
within that broader context. However, another issue that exists in parallel to
the broader legalization shift, where NASA is influential, is the Federal
government's stance on marijuana use by Federal employees and contractors.

It is entirely possible that a Democratic Congress will decriminalize cannabis
this spring, and several states (e.g., NY, CT) are likely to legalize soon.
Regardless of the mechanics of exactly how and in what order it happens, I
would posit that it is highly likely that 5 years from now, marijuana is going
to be basically legal in the US, with some states continuing to ban it.

In that context, the Federal government could go a lot of different ways in
terms of how it regulates its employees. It could say, "our policy matches the
Federal policy", i.e., don't break any local laws but otherwise we don't care
if you smoke weed. Alternatively, it could keep its current draconian
personnel and hiring policies....which, importantly, would not require any
action by anyone.

My personal belief is that the more widely covered egregious examples of the
cannabis ban adversely affecting outcomes (e.g., 'now NASA can't get Elon
Musk's help' is a punchy headline), the more likely it is that Congress will
feel pressure to make the Federal bureaucracy more cannabis-tolerant.

So yeah -- NASA should investigate Elon and be as dumb about it as possible.

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Trisell
Original because I missed it in reading this article.

[https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/11/20/nasa-
laun...](https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/2018/11/20/nasa-launch-
safety-review-spacex-boeing-after-video-elon-musk-smoking-pot-rankled-agency-
leaders/?utm_term=.9b71123756ef)

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fbender
Previous link:
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18498121](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=18498121)

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ecpottinger
So why are you posting old news when all this was already taken care off?

~~~
danso
The Air Force previously announced it was not taking action re: Musk’s pot
smoking [0]. The posted article is from today, and reports on actions taken by
NASA.

0: [https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-musk-air-
force/repo...](https://www.reuters.com/article/us-tesla-musk-air-
force/reports-that-musk-security-clearance-under-review-are-inaccurate-u-s-
air-force-idUSKCN1LN2OF)

