Balance Sheet.

• Author: Taylor, Jeff A.
• Position: Good and bad social policies - Brief Article

ASSETS

* Dope Decision. The Ontario Court of Appeals rules canada's pot law is unconstitutional because it does not allow for medical uses. The court declared the current drug law "to be of no force and effect" and gave Parliament a year to come up with new legislation.

* Rice Dream. Monsanto makes its patented, vitamin A-enhanced rice available to poor countries for free. Thousands of kids go blind each year due to a lack of vitamin A. But bio-engineering critics compare Monsanto to drug pushers. Whatever.

* Top Heavy. Tax-code "fairness" is alive and well. Statistics of Income Bulletin reports that the top 1 percent of taxpayers paid 33.2 percent of total individual income taxes for 1997, up from 32.3 percent the year before. The top 5 percent, or those above $108,048, paid nearly 52 percent of all income tax.

* Open Road, Lawmakers in North Carolina vow to challenge a federal mandate banning car passengers' possession of an open beer as a condition for road dollars. The Hobson's choice of changing a state law or losing $170 million in federal highway money violates the 10th Amendment, say Tarheel legislators.

* Moon Shots. The private sector aims high with trips to a Russian space station and the moon on the line. MirCorp tries to sell trips to the orbiting Mir stations while RadioShack signs up to sponsor a lunar landing. Plans are for a robotic rover emblazoned with the RadioShack logo to scamper across the moon in 2003.

* Search Function. Congress backs away from using the Methamphetamine Anti-Proliferation Act to authorize secret police searches of homes and business. Under the law, the state would have been allowed to seize or copy things, and not tell the owners about it until 90 days later--if then.

LIABILITIES

* WHO What? The World Health Organization confirms its uselessness by releasing a study placing the United States with the 37th-best health care in the world, behind San Marino...