Drug watch: Weed Lobby’s Dangerous Wins

“This year’s midterm ballot measures to legalize marijuana across five different states are more evidence of the weed lobby’s advancements,” argues Mark Haskins at The Federalist. But “today, many of the arguments made by the pro-marijuana movement” — like the claim it’s “no worse than alcohol” — “have been proven wrong.” New studies “show previously unknown detrimental effects” on “the brains of young people.” And kids are showing up “in emergency rooms suffering from THC toxicity from marijuana products taken from parents and older siblings.” If “the government truly cares about a generation already faced with sinking grades, mental health issues, and a bleak future,” then “the only thing to do is step up . . . and keep marijuana on the schedule of controlled substances until reasonable people can recognize the damages caused.”

From the right: Manchin’s 2024 Trouble

Just a week after the midterms, Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin “already has a challenger” for his 2024 reelection bid, observes Katie Pavlich at The Hill: Republican Rep. Alex Mooney announced his campaign for the seat Tuesday. “Manchin publicly slammed President Biden for gleefully declaring” plans to shut down coal plants recently, but his words “rang hollow,” given that he voted for the Inflation Reduction Act — “the Green New Deal with a different title.” Indeed, the IRA is the “most significant” climate legislation in history, per Forbes, and it’ll speed up the nation’s shift away from coal. Shortly after Manchin’s vote, his approval rating in West Virginia “plummeted.”

Crypto-Biz: Why FTX Watchdogs Didn’t Bark

“In the coverage of FTX’s meltdown, many in the media have been rather slow to ask a simple question,” laments Creators’ Ben Shapiro: “Why didn’t anybody notice that Sam Bankman-Fried was one of the most obvious scam artists of all time?” Perhaps it was the $40 million he dropped into midterm elections in support of Democrats as well as the “$5.2 million to then-candidate Joe Biden during the 2020 election cycle.” Or how SBF invoked “effective altruism” — “a philosophy in which Left-wingers seek to use capitalism in order to enrich themselves, then dump the money into favored causes” — to cover his scam. This helped SBF win over government figures who’d “redraw regulations” to benefit him. Fault lies with regulators “who aren’t out to protect the public at all” but to “hobnob” with “bluewashing” con men like Bernie Madoff and SBF.

Experts: Brittney Griner’s Harrowing Ordeal

Russian penal colonies, like the one WNBA star Brittney Griner has been condemned to, “are much more brutal than American prisons,” reports Emma Camp at Reason. “With the possibility of a prisoner swap appearing more and more unlikely, Griner could very well spend nearly a decade within a Russian penal colony,” where she “is likely to be singled out for particular abuse” because of her status “as an openly gay American.” She will face “harrowing conditions,” as the colonies “are dominated by constant physical and sexual abuse” and detainees are subjected to hard physical labor and a lack of medical care. “While the U.S. State Department still classifies Griner as wrongfully detained, and previously seemed intent on a prisoner swap, hope of actually freeing the former WNBA player anytime soon is bleak.”

Eye on China: Hong Kong Now High-Risk

“Hong Kong leaders would like the world to think the financial hub is back to normal as it reopens for international business,” but, warn L. Gordon Crovitz & Mark L. Clifford at The Wall Street Journal, “business is far from usual” there since “Beijing’s 2020 National Security Law” allows “the Chinese Communist Party to stomp its boot on Hong Kong’s free society and markets.” They were two US board members of Next Digital, a company driven out of business for publishing the pro-freedom Apple Daily, “costing its shareholders their equity.” Beware: The “law’s vague crimes could apply to anyone who poses a risk to the Chinese Communist Party’s conception of national security. Most vulnerable are the approximately 1,260 American companies with offices in Hong Kong.”

— Compiled by The Post Editorial Board