Commentary

Even in a nation that likes its major public events with a hefty dose of superlatives (the NFL championship game isn’t the Pretty Good Bowl for a reason), the buildup to Thursday’s debate between President Joe Biden and former President Donald Trump has already produced some all-pro hyperbole. Speculation has been running rampant.

In the District of Columbia, a lie about a townhouse will cost the owner $1.8 million. The house is a former brick beauty with a corner turret, built while William McKinley was president, at 10th and C Streets NE. According to the district’s top attorney, the owner claimed for more than a decade that the house was occupied when, in fact, it was vacant and in disrepair.

Growing up in Ocean City, I was cool-adjacent. I ran a beach stand but was never a lifeguard. I drove a city bus but was never a summer police officer. So I was saddened when a colleague told me that Ocean City will end its summer police program. The final 21 temporary officers will turn in their guns and badges after Labor Day.

On June 5, Montgomery County faced something unusual but not unprecedented in our county: two confirmed EF-1 tornadoes. On June 6, MoCo 360 quoted a Montgomery County emergency management official as saying, “We had no forewarning whatsoever that the storm was coming.” I’m not sure how much warning this official expected to receive, but the county actually was well warned of the June 5 tornado threat, given the nature of tornadoes.

Not long ago, I got in the car, and a Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers tune was on the radio. I was hopeful that the next song would be another Tom Petty favorite, since it was Tuesday, and “Twofer Tuesday” has been a staple of rock radio as long as Petty himself. But the next song was Journey, and the song after that wasn’t another Journey song.

As a governor-appointed member of the Maryland Cannabis Public Health Advisory Council, many of my colleagues have asked for my thoughts on what will happen next with the rescheduling of cannabis from Schedule I to Schedule III in the Controlled Substance Act (CSA). As a physician who integrates medical cannabis into my patients’ treatments, I do welcome this change as an important step forward, but the journey is far from over.

As we enter the last summer before Sen. Ben Cardin retires from many years of distinguished service in Maryland, I am awash with memories of my short stint working for him in the House of Representatives. I was lucky to have the opportunity to closely observe a political anomaly — that rare political leader who doesn’t shed integrity the higher he climbs.