Gavin Aronsen

Corporations have the green light to donate unlimited money to help fund President Obama's second inaugural festivities this January, sources close to the planning tell Politico, a break from the Obama team's decision four years ago to cap donations at $50,000 from individuals and shun corporate cash entirely in the interest of "chang[ing] business as usual in Washington."

Politico's sources say Obama will reject donations from lobbyists and political action committees, as he did for his first inauguration. Team Obama also reportedly plans to screen all corporate donations to eliminate any conflicts of interest, and considers the decision to accept the cash common sense after an election flooded with record-breaking spending:

But the sources say the new decision is driven by pragmatism: The president and his team just wrapped up the most expensive campaign in history—with costs topping $1 billion—and they've determined that their donors are simply tapped out.

The cost of an Inauguration can run into the tens of millions. Obama spent $47 million in 2009. And raising that in a matter of six weeks is too difficult without throwing open the flood gates, said the sources, who spoke on condition of anonymity.

Historically, presidents have accepted corporate cash to fund their inaugurations, and Politico's sources compared the upcoming Obama inauguration to civic events, which corporations typically help fund. But the government reform group Public Citizen is asking Obama to go back to his old corporate-money-flouting ways, noting that his January 21 inauguration falls on the second anniversary of the Citizens United decision. (In his 2010 State of the Union address Obama slammed the decision, saying it "reversed a century of law," but later reluctantly embraced the super-PACs it helped create.)

If Obama doesn't take Public Citizen's advice, it won't be the first time he's changed his tune and accepted corporate donations for an event. Obama and other top party officials said they would reject corporate money for the Democratic National Convention last September—Florida Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, who chairs the DNC, pledged to "make this the first convention in history that does not accept any funds from lobbyists, corporations, or political action committees"—but Democrats ended up taking in more than $20 million from big business.

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Spice "herbal incense": Not for human consumption (wink wink)

Yesterday, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration published a "first-of-its-kind report" finding that synthetic marijuana, commonly sold as "herbal incense" with names like K2 and Spice, was linked to more than 11,400 drug-related hospitalizations in 2010. Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa), who'd spearheaded a recent bill banning chemicals used to make fake pot, quickly responded to the news with a statement: "This report underscores that a federal ban was right to protect public safety…Still, cynical manufacturers are evading the federal ban by altering chemicals or ignoring the ban altogether. Anyone who might be tempted to try this drug should realize its use can end in tragedy, such as the loss of my constituent, David Rozga."

Rozga was an 18-year-old Iowan who may have had a history of depression and committed suicide in June 2010 after smoking K2 with his friends. Soon, reports of the dangers of synthetic pot, ranging from nausea to hallucinations and seizures, were all over the local and national news. Later that year, the Drug Enforcement Agency invoked emergency powers to temporarily ban the drug as lawmakers scrambled to outlaw it for good.

"This report confirms that synthetic drugs cause substantial damage to public health and safety in America," drug czar Gil Kerlikowske, a former Seattle police chief who came into the Obama administration as a reformer, said in a statement about the SAMHSA report. "Make no mistake—the use of synthetic cannabinoids can cause serious, lasting damage, particularly in young people."

The irony in all this, of course, is that synthetic marijuana only exists because of the federal prohibition on the real stuff. While smoking pot isn't as benign as many advocates claim, particularly when used by teens, it's still one of the safest recreational drugs. Synthetic pot, on the other hand, was largely unregulated in 2010 (as its still-legal derivatives still are), and because it only contains synthetic cannabinoids and not THC—the primary part of the cannabis plant that gets you high—it's good for passing drug tests but provides a worse high with an elevated risk of adverse effects. (The SAMHSA report says there were more than 461,000 emergency room visits in 2010 involving real marijuana. But this is a misleading statistic since it counts a patient's mention of marijuana use regardless of whether it was a factor in the hospitalization.)

Not that the prohibitionists would ever tout the relative safety of pot over its synthetic counterparts. In 2007, responding to constituents' letters asking that he support the legalization of marijuana, Sen. Grassley likened pot to rape, genocide, and counterfeit money:

After several thousand years, civilized societies have failed to eliminate murder, rape, or child abuse. Nor have they eliminated organized crime, the manufacture of counterfeit money, or genocide. But no one seriously sees these failures as justification for surrender. Illegal drug use costs society at least as much as any of these social ills. Yet we do not hear any calls to legalize these abuses. Why then should we give up? Should we surrender to the criminals, and legalize marijuana? No. Instead, we should do whatever we can to prevent criminals from gaining the upper hand, do what needs to be done to give our families, our friends, and our neighbors a safe and secure place to live.

Meanwhile, in the past month, recreational marijuana use has been legalized in Colorado and Washington. Medical marijuana is legal in 18 states and Washington, D.C., and 58 percent of voters now support legalization.

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