Ed Brayton’s usual failure to think it through when it comes to drug policy

Ed relates the sad tale of a kid who brings his parents’ pot to school and rats them out to the po-po.
It’s pretty obvious, right? Getting kids to turn their parents in to the authorities is pretty, well, 1984 . Fascist.
Yes, yes it is.
but how is discourse served by this stupid gotcha journalism of the absurd?
It is not. and this is why Ed irritates me when he spews out this nonsense without a single bit of perspective beyond the kneejerk civil liberties position.
A questioner brings the right point to the table.

So where’s the cutoff? Is armed robbery reportable but burglary not? If the parents were running a meth lab, would that be enough of a risk that you’d support the child informing? How about a marijuana operation where Mexican drug cartel personnel were in and out of the house constantly?

Exactly. What is the principle at stake here? Should children not be informing on their parents for any type of legal infraction? That actually makes sense to me as a workable principle, akin to spouses not having to testify against each other.
How would this work though? Would a bust that originates with a child of the suspect be ruled out of the courtroom evidence? That would seem to be a remedy.
Or are you asking children to pick and freaking choose what represents a beyond-the-pale crime versus a wink-wink, we-disagree-civilly-disobediently?
That is a bullshit principle, to put that sort of burden on children.
Ed, you can do better. There are complexities here in terms of the application of principle to public policy. You often do better with similarly complex issues. Just not when it comes to the drug laws that you don’t like.

Have all of the data been peer-reviewed?

Imagine this scenario, DearReader. You have submitted your manuscript and the Associate Editor who has managed the review sends you the critiques with a recommendation for “minor revisions”.

w00t! In like Flynn, amirite?

Now suppose as you are tidying up responses to the criticisms of the reviewers you find one reasonably substantive criticism that would be best addressed with the addition of another figure or two. This might even be for data that you have already, but left out of the original submission for some reason or other. You include it, package the thing up and re-submit the revised version of the paper.

The AE responds by essentially return-email that the manuscript has been accepted. Clearly, it didn’t go back out for review. This is fairly typical, btw, that an AE will make the editorial decision that all criticisms have been addressed adequately.

When it comes to new data, however? That now have not been reviewed by peers…?

Is this a breakdown in the system? Has the peer-review stamp of approval been compromised in this case? Or is this an accepted part and parcel of the peer review process which is no different from the AE accepting the paper after minor stylistic changes in presentation , the addition of a few more caveats or citations to the Discussion or toning down the ELEVENTY language in the Abstract?