Reason magazine has launched reason.tv with host Drew Carey.
Episode 1: Gridlock
Reason.tv Host Drew Carey examines the costs and consequences of traffic jams and explores several solutions that can get our roads moving. How does a speedy trip on the "Drew Carey Freeway" sound? Plus, one lucky commuter gets a helicopter ride to work, courtesy of Drew.
Episode 2: Medical Marijuana
“I think it’s clear by now that the federal government needs to reclassify marijuana. People who need it should be able to get it – safely and easily,” says The Price Is Right and Power of 10 host Drew Carey in a new Reason.tv video examining medical marijuana and the war on drugs.
One of the most outrageous consequences of the war on drugs is the federal crackdown on medical marijuana, which is used by patients to help treat the effects of cancer, glaucoma, HIV-AIDS, chronic pain and nausea, and other severe symptoms associated with serious illnesses. Medical marijuana prescribed by a physician is legal in 12 states, yet federal agents are raiding state-approved dispensaries and preventing patients from having safe access to this drug.
In Episode 2 of Reason.tv's Drew Carey Project, Drew takes a look at patients who need and use medical marijuana in California, and how the federal government is making their lives even worse.
Episode 3: National City
Reason.tv host Drew Carey visits National City, California, where the local government is taking eminent domain abuse to new lows.
Eminent domain is the constitutionally sanctioned practice of taking land for legitimate public uses. Traditionally, that's meant things like roads and schools. Over the past several decades, however, governments have gone hog wild with eminent domain, routinely condemning property and turning it over to well-connected private developers as a way of subsidizing economic development and increasing tax revenues (never mind that it doesn't always work out that way).
Officials in National City, a predominantly Hispanic community near San Diego, have pushed to bulldoze a popular athletic center for struggling kids to pave the way for private developers to build new luxury condos.
As tragic and absurd as this may sound, such outrageous affronts to property rights are an almost daily occurrence. Episode 3 of The Drew Carey Project chronicles the devastating impact of eminent domain abuse on the lives of people whose property the government can threaten to take, not for public use, but for the benefit of wealthy developers.
Episode 4: Texas Close'Em
In his Episode 4, Drew Carey goes all in to report how Dallas cops carried out a paramilitary-style raid on a poker game at the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1837, which has now been forced to close its doors.
The raid is part of a broader move by local police to shut down poker games, arrest players, and seize property - even in low stakes games benefiting charity, like at the VFW. And it's emblematic of the government's misguided war on gambling, such as the recently enacted federal ban on Internet wagering. In most jurisdictions throughout the country, consenting adults are banned from gambling -- unless of course they want to bet on low-odds games run by the government. State lotteries, that is.
Episode 5: Redevelopment
Reason.tv host Drew Carey revisits the problem of eminent domain abuse following up on his earlier video, National City: Eminent Domain Gone Wild.
The City of Los Angeles used eminent domain to take a popular Hollywood bar and numerous other small businesses so that the city could hand the land over to private developers planning to build a W hotel and million-dollar condos. Fortunately, there's a better way to revitalize neighborhoods. In contrast to Hollywood, Mayor Curt Pringle of nearby Anaheim has found a way to encourage redevelopment by working cooperatively with property owners, without using the power of eminent domain.
Episode 6: Dance Ban
In the Arizona desert, Drew Carey discovers a modern-day "Footloose" story. A few years ago, Dale and Spencer Bell built a family oriented steak house with outdoor seating, fire pits, lots of old western style, and live music. But beware if you get the urge to scoot your boots--county officials have invoked an anachronistic ordinance that bans dancing outside.
Episode 7: Living Large
To hear the Lou Dobbses and Bill O'Reillys of the world--not to mention politicians ranging from Ron Paul to Hillary Clinton--the middle class of America (however you define that term) has never had it so tough. Between credit squeezes, out-of-control immigration, rising costs of education and health care and everything else, it's all darkness out there for those of us who are neither millionaires nor welfare cases, right?
In "Living Large," Drew Carey and reason.tv examine the plight of the American middle class. What do they find? Click on the image above to find out.
Episode 8: Unlocked - Education Revolt in Watts
Vikki Reyes has had it with Locke High, the school her daughters attend in the Watts neighborhood of Los Angeles. She walked in on class one day and recalls “the place was just like a zoo!” Students had taken control, while the teacher sat quietly with a book.
Frank Wells has also had it with Locke High. When he became principal he says gangs ruled the campus. He tried to turn things around but ran into a “brick wall” of resistance from the school district and teachers union.
Locke seemed destined to languish in high crime and low test scores until Wells, Reyes, and many reform-minded teachers joined with a maverick named Steve Barr in an attempt to break free from the status quo. Their battle is just one example of the charter school education revolt that’s erupting across the nation.
Episode 9: Ogran Transplants - Kidneys for Sale
When we go to the doctor’s office for a checkup, most of us get annoyed if we have to thumb through old waiting-room magazines for a half-hour. Yet many people wait much longer for something much more important.
Sally Satel, a researcher at The American Enterprise Institute, waited for new life in the form of a kidney transplant, until an unexpected someone stepped forward. Since giving Sally her right kidney, Virginia Postrel, former editor of Reason, has thought a lot about how to increase the supply of kidneys for people like Christina Deleon. Like 75,000 other Americans, Christina has no living donor and has no choice but to endure dialysis and wait—she’s been on the list since 2003.
Postrel and UCLA’s Dr. Gabriel Danovitch take on some common misconceptions about kidney donation, but they disagree sharply on the most controversial proposal—paying people to donate kidneys.
Each year more than 3,000 Americans—a figure comparable to the death tolls from the 9/11 attacks—die waiting for kidneys. Is it time to legalize the sale of kidneys?
Drew Carey investigates what could be done to end the wait for people like Christina, and give them the freedom they deserve.