Prediction: Dems will make a move on federal legalization in the months before the 2024 presidential election, or at least make federal legalization a major election issue.
A lot of right wing / libertarian adjacent people were hoping Trump would come out in favor of it as a 2020 election issue, to outflank Biden on at least one issue. It didn't happen, but I bet it would have made the election a bit closer -- it would have cooled support for Biden by a lot of younger and disillusioned voters.
I predict they'll make it a campaign issue and force the Republican candidate to come out strongly against it, to try to cool support from a lot of younger and pro-legalization Republicans.
It sucks how everything is a political football instead of just doing the right thing. They had full control and could have legalized it. But no, they keep holding onto just to drag voters along every election.
It does suck, but it's what the system of democracy we currently have incentivizes.
I've kind of become a bit of a voting reform absolutist for this reason. Publicly funded elections, get rid of first-past-the-post plurality voting (and replace with approval, ranked choice, anything really), electoral college reform, Wyoming rule, etc.
If these problems were fixed, the incentives to solve the other problems are much more aligned.
I think the problem is more fundamental than that. There’s no mechanism in the system for feedback on improving the system itself because it would disadvantage the people who have been elected by the current system (since those are the people that have figured out how to exploit it the best).
The only current method would be to somehow convince the people in power that they will need to overhaul the system to stay in power in the future. But that’s not gonna happen because the existing loopholes are so massive (e.g. gerrymandering), that they can basically guarantee that anyway.
It’s also not a policy issue, and it feels weird to vote for it (or vote for people who promise it), because it’s not a direct thing that will affect your daily life and is more second order than that.
The Wyoming Rule is a proposal to increase the size of the United States House of Representatives so that the standard representative-to-population ratio would be that of the smallest state, which is currently Wyoming (copied from Wikipedia)
>They had full control and could have legalized it
That's not how the Senate works. A 50-50 "majority" is not full control.
In any case, it's pretty silly to blame the party that's on your side for not being able to overcome the bad-faith obstructionism of the opposing party. It's not about political "footballs", it's about having finite time and public attention to be able to get things done. If every single fight has to be dragged into the public to shame the other side into taking a few minutes off from looting and pillaging, then you have to prioritize and pick the optimal time for each battle.
>>In any case, it's pretty silly to blame the party that's on your side<<
Not to be a complete downer, but there is so much special interest money involved in our political system, neither the Democrats or the Republicans are on your side. They are both on the moneyed interest side. These political footballs are, for the most part, to string along voters on "hot button" issues to keep the public disinterested on the numerous things that these parties actually agree on, like expanded military spending, global expansionism, corporate tax reduction, lessening monopoly laws, reducing banking restrictions, reducing spending on interstate infrastructure, cutting education spending and restricting the ability for fair and equal elections through redistricting. All of these (and more I can't think of) are bipartisan efforts.
Sorry... I shouldn't watch the news. It's a bummer =)
If you believe in cannabis legalization, which is what this thread is about, then one party is very obviously on your side on that issue, and one is very obviously not. But sure, let's go through the list, just for fun.
> expanded military spending
Democrats don't really vote for this, certainly not to the same degree, but sure, I wish there were more difference.
Also vague, but not generally true. Democrats will vote for actual antitrust legislation; they won't vote for the Republicans using "anti-trust" as a meaningless scare-word to bash businesses they don't like for unrelated reasons.
> reducing banking restrictions
Maybe in the 90s, but not recently. Who wrote the Dodd-Frank Act, and who repealed it?
> reducing spending on interstate infrastructure
Vague, but not generally true. There are a bunch of major transportation projects (e.g. California HSR, DC's Purple Line) that have been held up for ages because Democrats will vote to fund them and then Republicans will take it away, or because it's impossible to get Republican states/counties to pay their fair share. For telecomms, Democrats will tend to push more for equitable-access programs, whereas Republicans will frame corporate tax cuts as "infrastructure spending" as long as some infrastructure-related companies benefit. Go look at the numbers and priorities in the 2021 infrastructure bill (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infrastructure_Investment_and_...), which passed on mostly party lines, and tell me the parties agree on cutting infrastructure spending.
> cutting education spending
Laughably false. Go look at the per-student education budget per state. (Federal DoE spending YoY is kind of weird because it's washed out by college loan financing; most direct spending on education is at the state level.)
> restricting the ability for fair and equal elections through redistricting
Seriously, you're going to sit there and argue, in the year 2022, that the parties are the same on election fairness? The fact that the Democrats don't aggressively gerrymander is why they don't currently hold the House - the New York legislature could have chopped up Long Island differently to stem the losses. More generally, Democrats consistently vote for protecting ballot access, against Republicans who nakedly want to make it more difficult to vote - and that's setting aside the whole armed-insurrection-to-overthrow-an-election thing, which, last I checked, 90% of the Republican party will still fall in line for.
Yes, the current fillibuster rules require a 60-40 supermajority to get anything done, but the fillubuster rule itself can be changed with a simple majority of 50%+1. But the incentive structure is not there to actually change this rule -- both parties benefit from it.
That’s also not how the Senate works. Senators are beholden to their respective constituencies, not the party of which they’re a member. A conservative Democrat from West Virginia has more job security when he runs against his party sometimes.
Blaming the party rather than individual Senators is not a helpful way of looking at the problem.
There are “kingmaker” senators in both parties that cross the aisle occasionally, that this rule benefits (and also generally their specific constituents, since their outsize influence gets them more than they might otherwise get in negotiations.)
Given that these kingmakers are what causes things to go over 50-50 they want to preserve their power.
I've decided to actually base my vote on the status quo now. I want divided government because of how radicalized both parties have become. If something is very important, it will get votes from both parties. The current status quo is better than what either party wants
If a majority of senators did not benefit from having the filibuster, they would repeal it. The minority party is for it because it blocks the majority party. Moderates are for it because it protects them from having to go on the record by voting on controversial issues.
As much as manchin likes to say, democrats do not benefit from the filibuster. Tons of Republican issues are single issue nonsense that the majority of the country would detest if passed, so republicans rely on the filibuster to just not do anything. Forcing republicans to actually pass laws would be good for democrats politically.
The filibuster continues to exist because it gives people like manchin compete power, so the most moderate of each party will always try to keep it alive.
It sucks how uneducated about basic things US voters are.
The Affordable Care Act is probably the most impactful law passed by Democrats in the recent past. In a survey of 2000 voters, a staggering thirty-five percent did not know [1] that the ACA and the colloquial "Obamacare" were the same thing. Bizarrely, an additional number didn't know that 'Obamacare repealed = ACA repealed'.
I cannot blame either party for playing political football when dealing with this sort of electorate.
"The national uninsured rate in the United States has reached an all-time low of 8%". Given this, I would say 92% US citizens don't care. Most people get insurance from work, family or are of the 120 million Medicare/Medicaid patients. On the other hand, if the US population wasn't health care insured (like Europe believes) - they would know each word of those bills.
> Given this, I would say 92% US citizens don't care.
That's what is so mind-boggling to me.
The US as a whole spends more on healthcare than any other OECD country, and the fact that most people in the electorate don't care about this is kind of depressing.
The ACA made life much, much better for people who are insured. Most of what the ACA did was tell insurance companies that they had to actually pay for things once in a while - e.g., getting rid of "preexisting condition" excuses - so that their product would be just a bit more predictable and less of a scam.
I can. People are so focused on not disenfranchising voters (like actually happened / might still happen against marginalized segments of the population), that they don't wonder, what is _empowering_ a citizen as a voter?
I DO support a basic civics and mathematics test, on a recurring basis, for voters. HOWEVER, that's only with the catch that failing or opting out of the test creates benefits designed to encourage the citizen to pass the test in the future. A benefit like, access to public education to work on that math skills and civics awareness. Or possibly someone is disabled (often silently, dementia is a real issue!) and the voter tests might be one of the places it's discovered.
A democracy is not a system of government in which the government's power derives from the people who know calculus. It a system wherein power comes from the people, period.
Also, literacy tests were ruled unconstitutional in Oregon v. Mitchell.
>They had full control and could have legalized it.
Them having full control wasn't enough.
Democrats passed it in the House and all Democratic Senators supported it in the Senate. However, Republicans killed it because Democrats wanted the Omnibus bill to pass for which support from Mitch McConnell was necessary. Mitch McConnell was opposed to this Cannabis bill.
Similar is true of abortions. The majority/control was there - more than once - and despite knowing Roe v Wade was on shifting sands the Dems refused to act. The issue empowers The Politics Industrial Complex but does little to work for We The People.
> Similar is true of abortions. The majority/control was there - more than once - and despite knowing Roe v Wade was on shifting sands the Dems refused to act.
Act how?
Unlike marriage (where the FFC clause gives Congress an explicit power), the “codify Roe” refrain was always hollow since without Roe being a 14th Amendment right there is no real Constitutional argument for authority for federal codification.
I don't know the particulars but the current POTUS did come out and promise a codified response. Other reports at the time also implied proactive action could have been taken.
This was simply yet another issue that was intentionally managed to benefit The Politics Industrial Complex.
Note: I don't consider HuffPost to be a beacon of journalism. It's simply the top of the SERP. I'm confident better have reported the same.
That’s what a democracy is. Democracies aren’t nicer places to live because our politicians are nice people. It’s because our interests happen to align with those of politicians. It’s not a bug, it’s a feature.
CGP Grey had a nice video on this, which I plagiarized for the comment above:
Really we should blame all the executive administrations for not forcing the DEA to do their job properly. Keeping cannabis as a Schedule 1 is completely scientifically unjustified. There was already an existing legal framework available to legalize the drug. But since the DEA/FDA is so corrupt, we have to fall back to checks & balances available in the states and Congress.
The DEA regularly describes it as dangerousness: “Schedule I is the most dangerous!”
But it’s not dangerousness, it’s whether there is a medical use.
Marijuana didn’t have a medical use, because it’s not very powerful. It makes you feel dizzy and hungry. If it was a drug, spinning around in circles would he schedule I.
Heroin is powerful enough to be a legit pain killer, so it’s Schedule II.
This really is a case of reporters not doing their job.
>It passed the House seven times — receiving a whopping 321 votes last year — and had enough GOP support to reach 60 votes in the Senate.
>But it did not have the support of McConnell, whose opposition kept it out of the spending bill.
>McConnell first blocked the SAFE Banking Act’s inclusion in the defense bill earlier this month, arguing that it would make the U.S. financial system “more sympathetic to illegal drugs.”
I don't think it is unreasonable for them to have blocked it, for the simple reason it would allow banks to engage in businesses that are violating federal law.
The only true policy is a coherent policy- anything else is just the whims of whoever holds executive fiat.
> Primarily, these involved deposits of traveller's cheques in euros. They had sequential numbers and deposited larger amounts of money than any innocent travelling person would need, with inadequate or no KYC [know your client] information on them and what seemed to a trained eye to be dubious signatures. "It was basic work," he says. "They didn't answer the obvious questions: 'Is the transaction real, or does it look synthetic? Does the traveller's cheque meet the protocols? Is it all there, and if not, why not?'"
Encouraging legal businesses to deal in cash outside of the standard Federal banking system (with its various AML/CTF protections) seems like it's a bad thing, at least if one believes bank compliance is an important goal.
They aren't legal businesses per federal law. Federal law needs to bring them into compliance (i.e. pot should be reclassified) and the issue goes away, because then you don't have to carve out mandates to banks to work with them.
We agree! But carve-outs for banking activity are [eta: more] politically feasible in the short term and full legalization (regrettably) seems to be much farther off. The question is whether it’s better to be consistent and risk more short-term criminal activity or to solve the immediate problem.
- a law that makes it legal and safe for banks to engage in business with corporate cannabis companies that are also legal as defined by the states that have passed their own recreational and medical cannabis laws -
- Should be denied because its currently not passed yet
- Then why does the government lie to its own people to push agendas ? Why is that allowed ?
- Oh right its because nobody knows how to read anymore. or educate themselves.
- Banks violate federal law on purpose pay a slap on the wrist fine and keep engaging in behavior that ruins the lives of millions around the world yet here you are FUCKING ACTING LIKE YOUR ABOVE ALL THIS BULLSHIT.
- " The fentanyl category of opioids accounted for 53,480 preventable deaths in 2020, representing a 59% increase over the 33,725 total in 2019. "
- " Preventable drug overdose deaths increased 34.4% in 2020, from 62,172 in 2019. In 2020, 83,558 people died from preventable drug overdoses – an increase of 649% since 1999. These deaths represent 91% of the total 91,799 drug overdose deaths in the United States, which also include suicide, homicide, and undetermined intents. "
- AND BANKS CANT TAKE CASH FROM ALREADY LEGAL BUSINESSES OK DUDE. WHATEVER YOU SAY
I think the correct strategic move would be to make it an issue in the months before the election, and try to force the R challenger to come out strongly against it. I would not expect any serious boat rocking right now due to where we are in the political cycle.
That is unfortunately not your fault. You see. There is no strategy.
So whenever good people try and come up with ideas about literally any subject. the republicans ie McConnell are ready to strike it down 100% of the time.
It doesn't matter that it has majority support. It doesn't matter if it helps save American lives. It does not matter what the logistics are or how much money is involved. It does not matter if it helps military veterans and minorities.
Every plan. Every thought. Every move. will be without fail. Denied. Denied. Denied.
That is their only play. and it will also be their downfall. much like a DDOS attack on a network. All we have to do is create a network stronger then the ones they have in play and they will cease to exist entirely. aka - voting. and with republicans saying don't vote - don't vote with mail in ballots - don't vote early.
They got absolutely destroyed pushing their own agenda. Its honestly amazing.
Actually, they made this move just recently, not tied to an election. But Republicans blocked it in Senate.
Obama was elected on his promise of "hope" and "change" and he asked his voter base what to spend his time on. The top two issues were health care and cannabis. He noped cannabis.
Perhaps making this an election issue is actually the necessary ingredient to bring republicans on board.
Difficult to see what this comment adds to the discussion. The House is divided. So unless the GOP adopts this as their issue, the next chance for change is the next election.
The Dems explicitly did not make legalization a notable part of the 2020 national campaign. They focused on making the campaign a referendum on Trump in general and COVID in particular. This was a good strategic play.
My comment is that making the 2024 election a referendum on legalization (and a few other big issues like abortion) will likely be the good strategic play. You could imagine a future, though, where they go ignore legalization and focus entirely on abortion and other issues.
But they would risk getting outflanked on legalization by a more libertarian-minded Republican, which could cost the election due to reducing turnout of young and disillusioned voters who would otherwise go Dem.
> My comment is that making the 2024 election a referendum on legalization
My take is that most people don't see cannabis legalization as an important-enough issue. It's kind of "would be nice" issue that's overweighted by issues like economy, democracy, and immigration.
I'm not in the US, but that's my only explanation for why hasn't cannabis been legalized on the federal level yet, i.e. that people simply don't care enough about it to even be a part of the discussion.
That's totally possible. There is definitely a potential timeline where it just gets basically ignored.
The big divide is really by age. Older voters (in both parties) tend to oppose it. 72% of people under 30 are pro-legalization, but only 30% of people older than 75 are. The average for all US adults is 60%.
Younger voters' low turnout messes up the calculus here. But as soon as the number of young voters you'd gain exceeds the number of old voters a candidate would lose, you'll start to see this play out, and I think we're really close to that tipping point.
Part of the problem is that for most people the subject of legalizing cannabis is considered only in the context of "more people are going to use drugs". It needs to be framed in how much it costs society to enforce those laws (both in money and freedom).
I used to hold a similar belief but my prediction was that they would do it in two parts: first decriminalize cannabis around the midterms, second, push for legalization around the 2024 election. Decriminalization could have come with talks about performing research, helping minority communities with policing, and allowing banks to work with state producers. Now I just don't think they are as good at political scheming as I thought and potentially that neither party is actually seeking a win so much as seeking drama.
> and force the Republican candidate to come out strongly against it
If the polls are to be believed, this seems an unlikely outcome. I don't see a Republican candidate doing this, but stranger things have happened, I guess.
The only thing that matters is the primary. Ignore general polls and look at the party ones to see which policies will be championed. Candidates try to back off after they win the primary but it’s usually ineffective and commonly backfires when the opponent calls them a flip flopper.
Unfortunately Biden himself has a pretty staunchly anti-marijuana track record from his time in the senate. He changed his tune somewhat when he joined the Obama admin but I don't think that push for national legalization is going to come from the Oval Office.
In some California counties, and other adjacent states with similarly-minded sheriffs, the police treat armored cars carrying funds from legal dispensaries as piggy banks where they get to take the cash and the business is responsible for proving its legality. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-01-28/marijuan...
It's also notable that they're only able to do this with the cooperation of the federal government. For the most part, asset forfeiture without due process isn't a thing in California. But it is at the federal level, so local cops can launder money by sending it to the federal DOJ, who take a 20% cut and return the rest of the money to the local police through something called the "equitable sharing program"
This is frustrating, because I think it’s a near certainty marijuana will be legalized federally. If I was a betting man, which I’m not, certainly not enough to mess with prediction markets, I’d call myself 95% certain.
All this ambiguity is just grinding inefficiency in the meantime. Look at all that states where this is legal or decriminalized:
And even in states where it’s still illegal, I really have trouble believing they are spending a whole lot of time enforcing that. States have legalized it, they have seen great tax revenue, they have not seen huge swatches of marijuana-related crimes and medical emergencies (though I admit that’s hard to pick out above the noise of all the other stuff over the past few years). It’s going to happen. Everyone knows it’s going to happen. But we have to go through this song and dance where we keep it illegal, because reasons.
We have something very close to national legalization right now. Fortunately, it seems to be flying under the radar so red state legislatures aren't acting against it.
By "legalization", I'm talking mostly about THC edibles. There are now hemp-based edibles which contain as much THC as traditional MJ edibles. Legal in all states. Achieved thanks to the Hemp Act and some creative processing of hemp.
If there are any dangerous ways to consume cannabis, then eating it has to rank highly.
Not actually seriously dangerous to one's health to eat cannabis on purpose. But extremely disconcerting and discombobulating if consumed accidentally.
Even on purpose it is easy to overdose. Not a lethal overdose but still deeply unpleasant.
Given that there are very few problems with smoking it (surprisingly, there should be, but the data is quite clear - few risks) this really demonstrates the moral depravity of drug laws.
> States have legalized it, they have seen great tax revenue, they have not seen huge swatches of marijuana-related crimes and medical emergencies.
States have seen increased theft from marijuana businesses. Both because they need to hold a lot of cash (very related to being locked out of banking) and because the weed itself has some resale value on the black market.
(I still think legalization is obviously worth it, just want to clarify that particular part of your statement.)
That is possibly selection bias. Marijuana thefts were previously not reported to the authorities, so it is difficult to estimate whether the actual number of thefts has changed.
I think right now is exactly where I want weed to be in society: a taboo, not normalized in the mainstream, you get in trouble if you’re stupid with it, but otherwise if you’re just an occasional user you can get it just fine. This is pretty much perfect to me.
What I don’t want is broad normalization of it. Maybe some cultures do just fine with that, but the trend is America has been to maximize the individual liberty without any concept of duty or decency to others, and the obvious consequence is rampant abuse and widespread degeneracy that everyone is subjected to whether they consent to it or not. In other words, I don’t think we’re mature enough as a society to have easy access to the cookie jar without deciding to eat cookies for every meal. Walk through the streets of NYC or SF to see what I mean. People don’t give a shit about anyone but themselves, and giving them more tools to be self indulgent while avoiding social responsibility + spewing externalities is just a no-go at the moment.
I imagine a world with legal weed is a lot like a world with legal porn: it’s everywhere, even children get exposed to it insanely young, people treat it like “a human right” and so fight any reasonable restrictions made to curb the broader social effects, and the externalities hit everyone whether they like it or not.
Not every vice needs to be legal. Keep it illegal and weaken enforcement. Keep it a taboo, and for those who really need it they can still find it.
And for the record: I have edibles at home. I’m not against responsible weed use at all, I just don’t think society at large will be responsible users and I don’t want to live in a society full of that. Porn went through the exact same evolution as weed is and now it’s everywhere
I find that cultures who keep things as taboo tend to create a vicious cycle of education problems. Education does not encourage, it exposes both the good and the bad. You learn the navigate the problem instead of being trapped by it. I lost many friends to alcohol/drugs when it was more taboo but easy to access.
There was an old expression "say know to drugs". I spent a lot of time as a teen reading about various drugs and their effects. Ultimately, it made me stop exploring. Otherwise I probably would have taken way more risks (which I did before discovering sites such as Erowid back then).
I have a teenager, and so far so good. Whether it's fast-food, drugs, alcohol, sex or porn, they exist. My logic usually has been: 1) wait if you can, 2) be moderate, 3) know the good and the bad, learn to set boundaries.
My main grief is with alcohol. It's glorified, associated to socializing and sports. The bad impacts of alcohol are taboo, and yet they're everywhere, but it's a big business. I like a drink now and then, with my partner or with friends, but with my partner we have a hard boundary of 2 glasses per week each, and with friends it's max 3 pints, max twice per month. Cannabis twice per month, in small quantities.
I don't really disagree but my counter argument is that I think breaking the law should be meaningful and enforcement should not be random and perhaps politically motivated. Weed in particular has been used to stop and search cars with minority populations due to the police officer claiming to smell it. Also the US has a culture of having too many laws that are selectively enforced (IMHO but I think this is widely held belief).
The big downside to porn as it stands in the US today is the fact that it is still taboo. It keeps the workers in the industry from getting proper respect and representation, so they are taken advantage a lot. IE. The problem isn't that it's legal and everywhere, the problem is that it is still taboo. Sex is such an integral part of being a human and I find our shame of it sad.
Yes, they should. We've collectively agreed that dangerous drugs should be legal (i.e., alcohol and tobacco). Making them illegal doesn't make it go away, it just fosters criminal activity.
Tax and regulate them. Educate the people about the dangers (honestly) and treat abuse as a health issue, not a criminal issue.
Not really grokking your comment, a lot of inconsistency. You point to deeper issues in American society, and you are very much fine with playing endless whack-a-mole with its symptoms manifesting left and right instead of dealing with issue like grown ups do - attack the underlying problem, instead of seeing endless spiral of growing issues that it brings.
You base this on extreme idea that when weed is legalized it will be literally everywhere, which is incorrect, outdated and the very source of utter republican clusterfuck that War on drugs was and is. Hasn't this produced enough evil in whole world so we should wise up for a change?
I do want to solve the underlying problems, of course. My point in this limited context is that until we can solve those problems, legalizing weed just compounds the issues. The underlying problems are really fkn-ing hard to solve. It's a culture problem.
I base the idea that weed will proliferate based on the trajectory of porn or alcohol: they ARE everywhere.
Checkout the Huberman episode about cannabis, specifically the part about pregnant women using cannabis during pregnancy like its no big deal. Resonates with your comment.
In the first episode of Tulsa King (which is on a streaming service, so I haven't watched any more of it), Sylvester Stallone is a mobster who gets out of prison after a long term, and is surprised to see a marijuana dealership. He realizes that they must keep a lot of cash, because banks won't deal with them.
So he sees his opportunity and becomes their "partner."
If it's a legal business, banks should not discriminate against the dealers. They're not selling fentanyl, after all.
state legality and federal legality are two different parts of the equation. A store is licensed by the state, the bank is overseen by the federal jurisdiction, which has no reciprocity with the state for marijuana.
There are also lots of references to being "raided by the feds" which I don't understand. Is it still a federal offense even though it is legal at the state level?
They’re still liable for paying taxes, which they do largely by mailing the IRS shoeboxes full of cash. By paying taxes they’re essentially admitting to a felony to the US government, which makes them trivially easy to raid.
That said, raids are relatively rare now due to executive order and the Oakland mess. In 2012 the DEA raided Oaksterdam [1] without properly notifying the Oakland PD, tying them up right as a local college was getting shot up [2]. It was a minor scandal that collapsed support for the DEA on the west coast and they haven’t done much cannabis enforcement since.
> it still a federal offense even though it is legal at the state level?
Yes, though there is a federal policy against most enforcement activity where use is allowed by state law. But, yes, its still illegal, and those making lots of money in (or even as major investors in firms in) the industry are violating the drug kingpin statute and, were the non-enforcement policy to be removed, coild suddenly find themselves facing 20+ year, or life, sentences in federal prison.
This has a significant effect on who is in the industry and how they conduct business.
The concise “yes” is correct, but a more explanatory answer might be helpful. Cannabis is still a schedule 1 substance by federal law. Almost all federal jurisdiction in state matters is derived from the interstate commerce clause in the constitution. When the first states passed legalization measures, the DOJ issued a memo (Cole) basically saying they would not intervene in states with well defined rules for tracking cannabis sales to prevent product crossing state lines. Credit card processors and most banks are either not willing or not allowed to process electronic transactions for cannabis because they do tend to cross state lines.
I don’t understand why this has been downvoted. Everything I said is both factually correct and based in experience from working in the industry for several years.
It is still a federal offence and even if there are no raids, there are indirect fights, including civil asset forfeiture or even raiding the armored transports that carry the cash from the sales. Feds are harassing the state-legal merchants by targeting the money movement at any level.
While still federally illegal, they have not done these raids regularly for years. In 2015 a judge ordered the federal government to stop going after medical places in legal states [1]. If I recall correctly the Obama Admin ordered the DEA to stop busting shops in recreational legal states too. I am unsure if the GOP's recent tenure in the Whitehouse reversed these common sense ideas.
However, federal law since 2014 has prohibited expenditures of federal funds to interfere with state medical cannabis laws, which limits what the executive can do (on its face, it only applies to state medical-use laws, though, so in principal federal enforcement against state-legal not-purely-medical marijuana might be viable.)
Worked with a cannabis client that was on Box for corporate file storage for a few years. One day all of their Box services stopped working, and we couldn't even get into the accounts to investigate.
Turns out Box realized this client was in the cannabis industry and shut their service off for violating TOS. We did get into the accounts after working with support so we could migrate, but there were no warnings. I guess reading and abiding by the TOS should be warning enough, but no one had actually read it.
The headline isn't true. Cannabis is illegal in all of America, since it's still on Schedule I at the federal level. While some states may have removed their own laws against it, that in itself doesn't make it legal there.
I've started wondering how much my views on civil ethics are influenced by (likely) having Asperger's.
I absolutely hate having a persistent divergence between laws on the books, and what's enforced. In my view, that gap exists only to be exploited by villains: both those who would selfishly break the law, and those who would capriciously enforce it. Policies like this make chumps of anyone who obeys such laws, invites tyranny, and are anti-democratic.
It took me a long time to realize that my views were in the minority. I still struggle to understand how that could be. But I think I see a trend where this correlates with Asperger's. I'm curious if others see this too.
It doesn’t require being anywhere in particular on the spectrum to hate inconsistencies and “it’s not supposed to be like that but that’s how it is in practice” unspoken policies BS. And especially selective enforcement, which I think is a symptom of corruption.
At least, I don’t think I have that, but I sure hate the unfortunate fact that the world (and this seems to be universal, not specific to any country or culture) is that way.
I don't have Asperger's but I fully agree with you. I also grew up in Scandinavia were laws are not this selectively enforced. Not saying it never happens, but most people think it is wrong.
Tangent: I also wonder if this correlates with preferring static typing over dynamic typing on programming languages. (Or maybe more generally, using strong contracts at subsystem interfaces.)
The common thread being that everyone agrees up front what the rules are, and then expects all parties to adhere to them.
The US in particular is occupied by many competing powers. No one group has sweeping control of anything; most everyone is held in a deathgrip by interests to either side of their desired positions.
From city councils to the oval office, a lot of leaders have a short list of who's approval they need and can't get to do anything at all.
Federalism invites this type of incongruity. The silver lining is that it's a game that keeps a certain type of person preoccupied so as not to pursue worse ways of exploiting the rest of us.
Not to nitpick but technically only thc is illegal federally and only in certain quantities- you can legally buy some cannabis products like cbd oil federally. In most states the rest is effectively legal even if the federal government says no but technically you are correct there.
Dispensary payment is a big opportunity in the weed tech space. Dutchie's tried to solve it with a combo of tech and lobbying,[1] cashless ATMs tried to hack around it it,[2] but it's such a weird and difficult space. It's productized social engineering around a policy that makes no sense.
All of the dispensaries in Illinois and Michigan at least are doing the cashless atm thing now. Costs $3 extra but well worth it for me, and certainly for them since I don’t think it costs them anything.
The elephant in the room is that right wing politics intersects with a certain group of people that will never ever approve liberalization of cannabis (or any drug for that matter), and will lobby hard against it.
This is not only the case for USA - but something you see in other countries.
Maybe something more specific to the US, would be the people and corporations that benefit from keeping cannabis illegal, and thus lobby equally hard against it.
Sometimes market liberalization and conservative thinking does not go hand in hand.
`Sometimes market liberalization and conservative thinking does not go hand in hand. ` I would say it never has, but that the market liberalization and social conservative wings of the larger conservative party had an uneasy truce and their ultimate goals were always in conflict. Looking at the current conservative movement in the US and how they're pushing back against capital for being "too woke" (whatever that means) it's clear (at least to me) that the market liberalization wing lost a lot of power and doesn't seem to have too much pull anymore.
There's still a chance that cannabis might trigger schizophrenia, especially among people who start very young. This is at right angles to the legalisation debate, because alcohol and tobacco are likely to be even more harmful. It remains the case that intellectual honestly about this point should not get drowned out in all the politics.
Be careful what you put in your body. Especially if the thing is some novel substance. I guess this principle applies much more broadly than to cannabis.
This is valid for alcohol too (father of ex-gf had schizophrenia triggered by alcohol binge at 18 and had to take strong meds for rest of his life, brain half vegetable). Or stressful event - we should ban those too.
In the same time we let people freely get drowned in one of strongest addictions - nicotine. Oh but we banned (in some places) advertisement for it. We even get kids get hooked on it for life too via vaping.
Your comment demonstrates a lack of reading comprehension. I don't care what we "let" people do, as I stressed in my comment. The actual point was that it's not as "safe" as many of its most blinkered advocates say it is.
While I've always supported legalisation, I'm bummed that the US is following suit so fast.
Kind of worried about the following scenario: US legalise weed with next to no regulations on e.g advertising. US consumerism/advertising + social media + lack of widespread cultural norms = massive peak in usage short term. Anti-drug lobby uses this as "proof" that legalisation is wrong, convincing enough politicians to keep Europe in the dark ages for another 20 years.
This is kind of a tangent, not so great point, but I listen to Dan Carlin who is a pop-style historian who isn't really credentialed but manages to tell history in a fun way.
One of his episodes involves a medieval Germany who has outlawed a ton of things and has tortured people hanging high in the sky off a massive church. One of his points in the episode is that if you end up making too many things illegal, people just stop caring and continue to do the illegal thing. Makes me wonder if my country's heavy handed approached just ended up making people more curious and now cannabis is very popular.
I'll have to check my receipt next time from Purple Lotus. I'll pay cash if they want to charge me for a debit card. Seems like I'm doing them a favor so they shouldn't charge me.
I think it is kind of an interesting experiment going on here.
This might inadvertently be a limit on corporate size/power, and you might get lots of smaller players competing instead of one or two big "efficient" players.
How would you deal with the currency risk inherent in dealing with cryptocurrency? Assume that the landlord, vendors, tax man, and employees all want USD from you, and do not accept cryptocurrency as payment.
Please explain how you would protect yourself from adverse price movements in cryptocurrencies as a merchant to ensure you have enough USD to pay all your obligations.
I am pro legalization, but I hate headlines like this. It's not accurate and it's not productive. Cannabis is prohibited by at least one law everywhere in the US.
How is it inaccurate? Cannabis is legal in much of the country (at the state level) and the businesses are blocked from much of the banking system because it's federally illegal.
Edit: OP, if you're going to completely change the last sentence of your post after people respond, which then changes your point, at least highlight that you've made a significant change.
Cannabis is illegal under the Controlled Substances Act everywhere within the US. The feds are voluntarily[0] turning a blind eye to states that have changed their own state laws... but federal law has not changed.
Which is why I'm specifically criticizing the framing of the headline. It's celebrating a victory that hasn't happened. A better headline would be "Most of America wants cannabis to be legal, but federal law still bans it."
I think that implying that it's "legal" in certain places, which has happened repeatedly over the last decade, is part of the problem. If everyone thinks cannabis is already legal, then who is going to push for federal legalization?
It’s not misleading. It reflects the lived experience of most Americans. That it’s “technically illegal” under federal law means nothing to anyone except — as the article points out — for the industry itself.
And since when were national laws made by consumers? Federal legalization will happen when a big industry partner wants it it be legalized and not before.
The law is inherently technical. "Technically illegal" is simply "illegal".
And it is completely false that this only affects the "industry itself". There are other federal laws that concern the rights and privileges of people who use illegal drugs. For instance, if you use federally illegal drugs, you may not legally purchase (or possess) a firearm. There are other examples in terms of employment, etc.
The law outside its application is meaningless. That’s why there’s so many “Did you know it’s illegal to wash your aardvark on Wednesday” laws still on the books.
Regarding drugs and guns — how is that enforced? Can’t see how a gun dealer would know.
Also, employers can drug test for nicotine, which is legal, and deny employmet.
I picked those examples specifically because they are enforced.
> Regarding drugs and guns — how is that enforced? Can’t see how a gun dealer would know.
All gun dealers must record form ATF form 4473 for each gun purchase, which specifically asks questions about drug use. If you say yes, you will be denied the gun. If you lie, you may face up to 5 years in prison plus $10K fines. If your state has a medical marijuana registry, this may be cross referenced. If you are later found to be in possession of a gun and marijuana (or evidence of use like a marijuana card), you are a "prohibited person" in illegal possession of a firearm. These still happen, they just get reported as "weapons charges" because that's what they are.
> Also, employers can drug test for nicotine, which is legal, and deny employmet.
Federal jobs (or federally regulated jobs, i.e. being a pilot[0]) don't ban it.
Circling back to your original point, then: the headline’s framing is misleading because it leaves out potential gun buyers and people applying to federal jobs? Seems like an awfully small minority to be concerned with in… a headline for a national newspaper. How would you write the headline?
An "unenforced" law is more dangerous than a repealed law because it provides the opportunity for selective enforcement. A perfect avenue for discrimination of protected classes, parallel construction to bypass due process, and other such abuses of people's civil liberties with impunity - all stemming from pushing people into the precarious status of "you technically violated the law but we'll ignore it as long as..."
I suspect there is also a desire to avoid creating cases that might reach the Supreme Court and challenge enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act based on several potential constitutional issues. This is a not just a fringe legal theory, but one endorsed by several supreme court justices in their dissents to Gonzales v. Raich. I think there is a good chance that if the right case made it to this supreme court, the federal government would lose.
> Relying on Congress’ abstract assertions, the Court has endorsed making it a federal crime to grow small amounts of marijuana in one’s own home for one’s own medicinal use. This overreaching stifles an express choice by some States, concerned for the lives and liberties of their people, to regulate medical marijuana differently.
> If the Federal Government can regulate growing a half-dozen cannabis plants for personal consumption (not because it is interstate commerce, but because it is inextricably bound up with interstate commerce), then Congress' Article I powers – as expanded by the Necessary and Proper Clause – have no meaningful limits.
I would also note that the Cole memo was rescinded in 2018 by Sessions and decisions about enforcement were pushed back onto federal DAs. I do not believe that Garland has reversed Sessions memo so the blind eye policy is informal.
That is also fairly bad, the justices view here seems extremely reasonable. I don't necessarily like it but legally it is pretty clear from how the US is set up that we have a strong federal overreach.
As of now, you can definitely get your daily supply of Cannabis if you want. There are a lot of little businesses that legally sell it. So these federal laws are not preventing you from exercising your legal right to get high in e.g. NY state.
I would like to get the pulse of hn on this:
What do we think if e.g. the Coca-Cola Company got in the pot business? Is the fact that these Federal constraints are keeping big business out of the pot business good or bad?
> What do we think if e.g. the Coca-Cola Company got in the pot business? Is the fact that these Federal constraints are keeping big business out of the pot business good or bad?
That's one of the biggest fears of cannabis producers in states where it's currently legal, and it's actually a reason for some of the small business not supporting federal legalization. They don't want Amazon to invest billions of dollars, completely destroying current dispensaries.
I think the problem is that in the world of billion to trillion dollar corporations, like Amazon or Wallmart, the business can't be mediocre to survive. In the past, simply being "all right" got you by, but big corporations can do "all right" products. To survive nowadays, businesses must differentiate from the corporations to survive.
For the consumers, I think corporations taking over "all right" businesses is a good thing. For the society at large..? This probably shrinks the middle class throughout the world, and increases inequality in multiple ways, e.g. the inequality between the one CEO (and upper management) and hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of employees. So I'd personally count that as a "probably pretty horrible" reality.
All of those businesses that sell cannabis are in violation of the Controlled Substances Act. They are, quite plainly, operating businesses that are illegal under federal law. The reason you don't see too many DEA raids (anymore) is that the feds don't have any money to enforce it: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rohrabacher%E2%80%93Farr_amend...
The overton window has shifted. It is no longer popular for armies of feds to raid businesses acting entirely within state laws and only performing intrastate commerce.
The President of the United States, head of Executive branch, directed with enforcement of Federal law has pardoned ALL federal marijuana convictions and doesn't plan to pursue more.
It is effectively legal federally, no matter how much that makes you clutch your pearls.
The current federal government has determined it to be an issue left to the states. Reducing the influence the federal government has in everyday American's lives, it's left the Republican party in quite an ironic situation.
Yes, you absolutely can fly with it. TSA has gone on the record, at least in local newspapers, stating that they defer to local police if they find cannabis. If it's for personal use, local PD won't do anything other than suggest you throw it away or else risk punishment if you're flying somewhere legal. I've researched this extensively before flying out of specific airports in legal states up and down the west coast and the story is always the same.
I've even had a TSA agent rummage through my carry-on in Oakland airport, pull out prerolls and buds, dig further to find the half-full water bottle I forgot I'd had, tell me they have to throw it away, and return my cannabis to me. I've flown with it entirely too many times to count, never attempting to conceal it, and have never had a problem.
The only time you're likely to run into trouble flying out of a legal state is if it looks like you're traveling with the intent to distribute.
That still does not change it to being legal, the law is still on the books, and no repeal has passed.
It is still illegal, and all it will take is someone plopping into the Exec seat and getting a hair, then it is back to square 1.
Legal exposure is kind of like HIV, herpes, or COVID. There is a big difference between "I don't have it", and "It's not an issue right now", wherein the exact state of affairs drastically effects how one moves forward.
Until it is off the books /repealed, nothing has changed in the grand scheme of things.
As one of the comments above you suggested, the overton window has shifted. And that's precisely because states have legalized it at the state level. It has become more normalized and more accepted, and it's federal legalization has earned more support because of states legalizing it. The further we dive into states legalizing it, the more pressure is put on the federal government to legalize it precisely because of these grey areas.
Because we've reached this point, you're not going to see someone come into the exec seat and target weed. It's just not going to happen. The cat's out of the bag and it's not going back in.
So yes, things have changed in the grand scheme of things. This is progress, even if it's a fucked up legal grey area.
Are you an pedantic absolutist with everything? Or just fun stuff? Nobody here is claiming you could do any of those things. 10 years ago if you told me I could purchase Cannabis in Mississippi of all places I'd laugh in your face.
Don't let perfection get in the way of progress, you claim to be pro-legalization but any conversation regarding the progress of it you only bring up the negatives and letter-of-the-law exclusions.
News flash buddy, there's lots of shit you can't fly with. Lot's of other reasons to not be allowed to purchase a gun. As well as other legal substances that will prevent you from passing federal employment drug tests (Hemp-derived CBD, Kratom). That doesn't make those things any more illegal, just a side-effect of the federal governments involvement in your life.
Coca-Cola would be an odd choice, since they don’t deal in this kind of market already. I think a better question would be, “What if Philip Morris got into the pot business?”
It would be fascinating and good for consumers because they could be held accountable for regulating an industry that is badly in need of it.
That doesn’t change my opinion of Philip Morris (or parent company Altria). Evil sons of bitches through and through.
Those businesses are not legal, since there are active law enforcement agencies active that could arrest them on sight.
They are defacto legalized, because practically those agencies won’t. But that is not the same thing.
The Supreme Court ruled back in the Great Depression days that the feds can regulate local businesses, if the goods sold are similar to goods sold that could be sold in interstate commerce.
The problem is the process of producing it (manufacture) and selling it (commerce), are inextricably tied to Interstate commerce, thanks to some stupid case about how wheat grown for intra-state non-commerce is inextricably still covered by Federal jurisdiction because that intra-state non-sale effects the interstate market.
I kid you not. Link below, read it.
The same logic that is applied to making production of fully automatic weapons for personal use a no-no in a State that explicitly allows it is the exact same legal logic that makes THC prosecutable at will by the Feds.
You can't take out one without taking out the other, because they both stem from the most abusable pieces of jurisprudence ever admitted to the U.S. code.
Enjoy. If you are a U.S. citizen, this is the case that basically gave the Feds carte blanche to drop in on anything because of whatever tenuous excuse the judges/DA's in question decided to apply to link it to Interstate Commerce.
I have come across few cases that make me scream more than Wickard v. Filburn.
What I find more riduculous than the Wickard v. Filburn case is the fact that it was partially overturned by a gun case.
> Possession of a handgun near a school is not an economic activity and doesn't have a substantial effect on interstate commerce, and therefore cannot be regulated by Congress. The Gun-Free School Zones Act of 1990 is unconstitutional.
And even more riduculous is the fact that certain justices dissented on this opinion.
Of course it’s all heavily politicized, but the federal government really loves milking the commerce clause ad absurdum.
To say that is "simply wrong" is to ignore nuance and, in point of fact, is "simply wrong". It is legal at the state level, meaning no state official will punish you for it. It is illegal at the federal level, meaning a federal official could punish you for it.
Federal law supercedes State law. That is why the Constitution is "the highest law of the Land".
It's also why so much is pushed for to be done at the Federal level, because it completely sidesteps the chance for States to make their own local laws on the matter. The danger there, is that as it turns out, different places/populations have different views on things, which often do not exactly line up with D.C.'s.
Hence why Federal overreach side of things has been a hot button topic in politics for decades.
But it doesn’t. The states are free to ignore federal law. Yes, the states can’t stop the feds from doing enforcement themselves, but it would be basically unprecedented outside of a few limited examples.
So no, the line is definitely not as clear as “federal law supersedes state law, period.” It’s a lot more nuanced than that, and in practice, in most situations it’s the state law that reigns supreme.
> The constitution is above both federal and state laws,
The Constitution is a subset of federal law
> which are much more on par than you're suggesting.
The Constitution disagrees; Art VI ¶ 2: This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.
most of these states have active efforts for legalization in at least some context, many have CBD legal but not THC (what gets you high), and at least in Kansas there is a "loophole" where hemp products can contain up to .3% THC (so just really big edibles)
"While the literature is contradictory, most studies suggest that CBD is not converted to psychotropic THC under in vivo conditions. Nevertheless, it is certain that CBD degrades to psychotropic products in acidic environments."
That’s federal law which allows the 0.3% THC by weight. Anything under 0.3% usable THC by weight is classified as a Hemp product under the 2018 Hemp Farming Act
UN has moved to stop resticting it's use for medicinal purposes, but it is still banned for private consumption. As a signatory to the UN drugs convention, US has voted againsy decriminalisation.
Welp, Canada has ignored that convention and has yet to receive the first or final steps of a UN response: a strongly worded letter.
Safe to say we can all ignore that treaty with impunity.
edit: Oh and the sky didn’t fall either. If anything, the opposite: marijuana isn’t a cool edgy thing anymore. You just do it if you want to, or don’t if you don’t.
The black market still exists, but prices have cratered, so assuming black market demand is unchanged (it’s probably lower), the criminal element has shrunk in size.
Without tone of voice, it’s hard to tell if you’re doing sarcastic finger quotes on the internet.
I wouldn’t call using the office of the privacy commissioner as cover for CSIS “resource extraction” or “financial engineering”, but I’ll give them credit, they are quite good at playing dumb.
The US is a signatory, but there is nothing in US law that makes being a signatory binding for the creation, amendment, or repeal of any US law. In fact, the opposite is true: the US explicitly maintains sovereignty for its domestic laws in the face of all UN agreements. It doesn’t need to leave the agreement.
In general the US, as the world dominant cultural, military and economic power, signs agreements to bind others, not themselves.
Didn't we fight the bloodiest war in the history of this country based on which laws (State or Federal) had primacy? And it's still not settled due to Obama's weed policies.
The "states' rights" framing of the US Civil War skips over which specific right the southerns states were willing to die for. It wasn't abstract, though it was papered over as such.
The history of later southern political leaders (e.g. Richard Russell) confirms that the fundamental issue was the enslavement (ideal, for them) or segregation and oppression of blacks in the US.
Which isn't to say that the state vs. federal power struggle of constitutional interpretation isn't still happening. These cases rise to the SCOTUS regularly. The US Civil War, however, wasn't that.
Like most complex things, there’s no one magical simple answer.
States rights was a huge deal from day one, to the point that the mostly forgotten original government of the United States was a confederation of nominally sovereign states, almost EU style. Under the Articles of Confederation, the US government was very weak.
Slavery was essential to southern land barons. It was not essential to northern industrialists, who were better off with immigrant labor. The issue at the end of the day is that Southern wealth was largely defined by chattel slaves - they were the human equivalent of industrial equipment. End of the day, it was about amoral consideration of preserving wealth above all else. (A lesson for any era certainly)
The problem was that the writing was on the wall - machines would replace slaves. But the owners of these big slave estates needed the political power to keep it going long enough to pivot to something new — the vision as I understand it was to build the west with slavery and realize imperialist visions with slavery in Latin America.
Wrapping this craven nonsense in high minded ideals was key for support and to get soldiers. Johnny Reb wasn’t dying for his slaves, for the most part these guys were victims of slavery in a sense as well as the wages for working class people were suppressed by enslaved people.
It’s important to fight lost cause bullshit. But the path to victory is rejecting the notion of slavery attacking the moral failure of slavery and association with it. Bikeshedding over trivia is like arguing with gun nerds over the nuances of firearms.
It ended up being about slavery (with the Emancipation Proclamation), and slavery was the root cause for the hatred between the states. They were also very different societies. Almost no immigrants moved to the South, for instance, and there wasn't nearly as much industry.
As another thread points out, if slavery was prohibited in all the new states from the West, it would be game over in Congress, and the slave states knew it. Hence the Kansas-Nebraska Act.
That said: "save the Union" was a much bigger motivator for Union soldiers than "abolish slavery." That's what made them volunteer.
For the Southern soldiers who mostly did not own any slaves, it was more "defending our homes and our way of life" than "states' rights."
In other words, it's more nuanced than you present.
Seems to me these aren't mutually exclusive. I find your argument to be overly concerned with injustice of slavery. No one is defending it. And the southern states absolutely did not want to adhere to the laws set by the northern states.
The context is important: southern states were fighting specifically for the right to continue to enslave people. Any argument that doesn't focus on slavery in the context of the civil war we had isn't valid, or at least is incomplete, because it elides the reason for the war in the first place.
So I've been a big fan of studying warfare in all it's dimensions throughout my life, including the causes of various conflicts, one thing I gave come to realize is that we talk about "the reason" for a war or "the cause" but there really isn't a single cause or reason, because for a war to happen you have to have thousands of people willing to march off and die and each of them have their own reasons and their own cause they were fighting for. I mean for Johnny Scott who marched off to war the reason for the war for him was to win a medal so Size Bradshaw will finally love him. Or the Crusades there were probably plenty of people who the war was about going and fighting for absolution of their sins by reclaiming the holy land.
At the end of the day there are as many causes for the war as there are people participating, there can be various factors that led to the outbreak of the war, and sometimes we are lucky and they are clear cut, but often there will be several different prominent factors and trying to attribute the war to any one of them is just historical masturbatory navel gazing, or more insidiously trying to rewrite history to fit an agenda.
So those who claim the Civil War was only about slavery are just as disingenuous as those who claim the Civil war was only about states rights. Ultimately these were both major contributing factors and trying to attach primacy to one of them is unproductive and pointless.
If you want a perfect example go ahead and tell me what caused WW1.
You're conflating a number of completely unrelated items, at least: individual motivations, catalysts, and the broad-strokes reasons a group fights in a war.
The civil war was fought because the southern states wanted to maintain their slave economy. It is as clear, cut and dried as that. Individual southerners may have fought for glory, for Suzy to love them, for money, or for any other reason, but the prosecutors of the war effort for the south did it because their economy was dependent on slaves and they wanted that to continue. It's not disingenuous to state that.
Your wrong. The Civil war was fought because the confederate states of America fired on Fort Sumter, the establishment of the confederacy the freeing of the slaves all of those happened as a consequence or prior to the actual war.
If you want to get that reductive than I am right. The Civil war happened because the Confederate States of America fired on Fort Sumter and everything else was ancillary. Just like WW1 happened because the Archduke Franz Ferdinand got assassinated.
Youre argument is overly reductive and your ignorant of history
It’s mutually exclusive because it wasn’t the internal rights of individual states that set off the civil war, but the question of which way western states would be. In other words southern states wanted to impose rules on the union outside their borders.
Florida trying to tell California what to do is by definition not a states rights issue.
Its just that the slavery explanation is factually true and the other is false, though it represents part of one sides propaganda (and more strongly that of the retrospective sympathizers of that side than the actual side, which was quite explicit about slavery specifically as the motivation.)
> And the southern states absolutely did not want to adhere to the laws set by the northern states.
To add to the sibling comments, the southern states hated states' rights when northern states were liberating escaped slaves within their jurisdiction. The Fugitive Slave Act immediately destroys any argument that the Civil War was about states' rights.
The civil war was not fought over slavery. The union chose to free the slaves because it hurt the south economically more than it hurt the north economically.
Federal laws do trump state laws in most cases, it is settled. This case is due to the fed's noninterference policy, which they chose for themselves, it's not being forced on them because of some Civil War-era debate.
The Feds don’t have the resources to handle local law enforcement, even if they wanted to. I can’t see that this is a way for either party to pick up a bunch of votes, so interest is low.
No, it isn't. The Constitution is the basis of the entire system, and it defines the powers of the Federal government. The 10th amendment says:
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people.
> Federal laws do trump state laws in most cases, it is settled.
This simply isn't true. There are areas where federal laws can contravene states laws and areas where they cannot.
Additionally, the federal laws often don't "trump" state laws, but supplement them. Generally speaking (there are exceptions), state law enforcement can only enforce state laws.
The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.
The same interstate commerce clause that the federal government interpreted as giving them regulatory authority over intrastate non-commerce, in Wickard v. Filburn.
OP said, "Federal laws do trump state laws in most cases."
That is quite properly nuanced, and "in most cases" means "those cases where the Federal law is constitutional." SCOTUS rules on that issue all the time.
I noticed there’s a huge push on this site to link Obama with negative policy’s. Look how many comments are flat out confused by the above post. It’s literally just a name drop. Like “something-something holocaust something-something George W Bush” level of criticism, not really adding anything to the conversation.
Is that why at multiple medical dispensaries, they trolled me, an autistic trauma survivor, until I raised my voice then seized the opportunity to act aggrieved? Each of them was allowing cards, and seemed uneasy about it. They seem to relish that the lack of federal recognition combined with being a state program meant that the same type of cop who used to beat down minorities at "Wetback Wednesday" in Oakland could now bring that level of (lack of) customer service to a whole new set of vulnerable people.
Solvevo Wellness, Delta 9, and Maitri Medical should all be raided the by the goddamn DEA, and I say that as someone who had nothing but pleasant experiences in Amsterdam, Denver, Las Vegas, and California when I was purchasing recreationally.
As I said when speaking with the governor's office yesterday, I am not going to renew my card lest I reward extortion and abuse that never seems to cease.
(As they say in Appalachia: fuck around and find out -- sue me for slander if you don't like what I've written, you literal gangsters.)
A lot of right wing / libertarian adjacent people were hoping Trump would come out in favor of it as a 2020 election issue, to outflank Biden on at least one issue. It didn't happen, but I bet it would have made the election a bit closer -- it would have cooled support for Biden by a lot of younger and disillusioned voters.
I predict they'll make it a campaign issue and force the Republican candidate to come out strongly against it, to try to cool support from a lot of younger and pro-legalization Republicans.