"Obamacare and Legalized Recreational Marijuana" by Dr. Gregg Davis - Professor of Economics at Flathead Valley Community College, Kalispell. A pair of issues will be addressed in this lecture. The first, Obamacare, arouses both disgust and elation in different segments of the public. The baby boomers tend to reject it because of its costs, bureaucracy, and unavoidable inefficiencies. The millennials tend to embrace it. The media firestorm was reignited this fall when MIT economist Jonathan Gruber suggested that the health care law was designed to capitalize on the stupidity of American voters. The second, legalized recreational marijuana, will center on the social experiments being carried out in Colorado and Washington and how they will serve as a living laboratory for the efficacy of this issue. Several other states appear to be on the threshold of passing similar legislation. Few issues have divided the baby boomers and millennials more than these. This lecture will explore the issues in terms of where the country seems to be heading.
Dr. Gregg Davis is professor of economics and director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at Flathead Valley Community College. He holds bachelor's and master's degrees from The University of Montana in anthropology and economics respectively, and a Ph.D. from West Virginia University in economics. He was associate professor of economics and director of the Center for Business and Economic Research at Marshall University prior to coming to FVCC in 1994. In 2009, he relocated to Missoula to become professor and director of health policy research within the Bureau of Business and Economic Research at The University of Montana. He returned to FVCC in 2013.