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The Effect of State Marijuana Legalizations

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Re: The Effect of State Marijuana Legalizations

#141

Post by eco »

PKop wrote: post #23
fuzzywalrus wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I wouldn't refer to the Cato Institute as anything but biased, as it's a neo-con libertarian think tank funded by the Koch Brothers but this particular study is fascinating simply because it IS a neo-con libertarian think tank funded by the Koch Brothers.

Neo-con libertarian? What evidence do you have to support the claim that Cato is neo-con? Wikipedia cites Cato as being critical of neo-con foreign policy and the Iraq War. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cato_Institute#Libertarianism.... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cato_Institute#On_foreign_poli... Do you know what neo-con means? Serious question

I'm not terribly surprised that someone would think "neo-con" and "libertarian" were near synonyms. A lot of people seem to have it in their head that libertarians are just hardcore conservatives (and for some reason think neo-con just means an extremely conservative person).

Re: The Effect of State Marijuana Legalizations

#142

Post by AstralStorm »

CWuestefeld wrote: post #75
tw04 wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was no hidden agenda. If I was trying to refute the article or the findings I would have. I think the criminalization of marijuana was and continues to be ridiculous. I was simply making the point that the Koch brothers support of marijuana should not give anyone the illusion they're fighting for the little guy.

Are you claiming that regulation exists to help the little guy, and all deregulation is the work of oppressors? Consider the work of the Libertarian Party to, for example, free people to braid hair without requiring a year of training to get a license. Or consider that big corporations love regulations as a way to put barriers in the way of competitors. That's the whole point of the economic idea of "rent seeking", a…

Ha, economists agree is the best troll I have ever heard. There are enough different schools that many economists disagree about anything.

Regulatory capture is a different beast from actual regulation. It is what happens when corporations get to stack the government against everyone else via all sorts of lobbying and economical pressure. Regulation now, that is a good thing, which happens when credible issues are detected.

Drug prohibition is more law than regulation - there was no real issue with abuse of THC originally.

If the issue was, say, low quality or highly addictive drugs, which also damage life, then the proper regulation would be to apply correct scheduling.

THC and likely MDMA should probably barely make it to schedule III. (With additional control due to abuse.) There are known medical uses of those and proper guidelines for dosage. (Former is used for pain in cancer patients and more, latter an adjunct in psychotherapy and for recurrent migraines.) Reclassified alcohol would be on the order of schedule II and tobacco as schedule I, with pure nicotine in schedule III. On the other hand, something like GHB would remain in schedule I or less likely move to schedule II, as there are much better and safer hypnotics. Etc. and more.

Instead of public safety, someone made "potential to abuse" a priority, based on no or scant data, suppositions and politics. Random crisis handling, where no crisis is present.

Making these drugs correctly and usefully regulated should be the main aim of the DEA.

Re: The Effect of State Marijuana Legalizations

#143

Post by AstralStorm »

c3RlcGhlbnI_ wrote: post #97
s_m_t wrote: post #8

New rule suggestion. You must argue at least one flaw in the study or article before pointing out the source may be biased.

Why? Many of the flaws that jump out at me are not so significant that they would be worthy of concern on their own and I appreciated other people clarifying the group's affiliations(I probably wouldn't have been curious enough to go back and read a bit more otherwise). Though honestly if this is a scientific study it is very strange that they omitted their methodology entirely(how did they select the data, how did t…

If they jump out at you, it should be trivial to argue them, right?

Thus the rule is no real obstruction to dialogue.

Lack of methodology is a valid argument, as opposed to just pointing out the funding. Why not contact them about it? Or perhaps they have used some base sources, which could be made available to make their argument even stronger when exposed.

Re: The Effect of State Marijuana Legalizations

#144

Post by refurb »

drcode wrote: post #95
zkhalique wrote: post #78

I would express the same sentiment about illegal immigrants. This is to all the people who support Donald Trump's rhetoric about deporting all 11 million undocumented immigrants. These people fled the drug gangs and violence that our war on drugs helped create (think fleeing ISIS) and came to work jobs no one else would take and make a better life for their family. Yes technically they broke a law. If you're going to…

Your argument is basically "everybody's doing it, everybody is breaking a law somewhere" and that it's OK for people to break one law because other people are breaking a different law. I think a more sensible approach than saying "lawbreaking is OK" is for the parties on Capitol Hill to forge a compromise that involves (1) easier legal immigration (2) better funding and more enforcement of existing immigration laws (…

the parties on Capitol Hill to forge a compromise

I was actually pretty impressed with the immigration reform GW Bush tried to pass, but failed. Increase enforcement along with a process to legalize the ones already here. My memory is hazy on the details, but unless you've lived illegally in the US for more than X years (those people get legalized within the US), you need to leave the country, then apply and return. Of course this is dependent on having a good enough process to let them back in (which I remember it was), but it seemed a good compromise between enforcement and increased immigration.

Re: The Effect of State Marijuana Legalizations

#145

Post by AstralStorm »

robbrown451 wrote: post #111
viraptor wrote: post #76

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> sin taxes are stupid too They do work for health benefits though. Tax on tabacco for example does limit the number of people who smoke, which does in turn limit the number of people with cancer and public spending on helping them. Same for sugary drinks tax and obesity.

Actually reducing tobacco use can increase public spending on health. Lung cancer tends to take people out pretty quickly, while those who live longer run up higher costs. (that said, I tend to be "pro sin tax")

Lung cancer caused by smoking took about a generation to show up in the statistics. That's very much the converse of "takes people out pretty quickly".

That said, most drugs that are schedule I have much more immediate side effects.

Re: The Effect of State Marijuana Legalizations

#146

Post by refurb »

mc32 wrote: post #119
prostoalex wrote: post #116

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Are you then in favor a visa-free regime between United States and other Northern/Central American countries? It just seems silly to pay for the infrastructure for visas, passport verifications and border control, and the current status quo rewards only illegal immigration path.

Indeed. People who go the regular route are punished and have to wait and wait, get denied, etc. meanwhile irregular immigrants blow right past them.

This is a really important issue. I'm sure all the folks from China and India who waited 10 to 15 years to get a Green Card will be really happy if an amnesty happens.

Some of the issue comes down to fairness.

Re: The Effect of State Marijuana Legalizations

#147

Post by IPbanned »

fiblye wrote: post #114
zkhalique wrote: post #78

I would express the same sentiment about illegal immigrants. This is to all the people who support Donald Trump's rhetoric about deporting all 11 million undocumented immigrants. These people fled the drug gangs and violence that our war on drugs helped create (think fleeing ISIS) and came to work jobs no one else would take and make a better life for their family. Yes technically they broke a law. If you're going to…

One thing I find worrying about arguments in favor of illegal immigration/very lax immigration policies is how easily it can come across as being in favor of indentured servitude and having a lower class to support the upper class. We say they do jobs "nobody else wants to do" for suboptimal wages, and they do it right because they fear what'll happen if they don't. And we proudly say that they contribute by paying t…

The comparison to slavery is apt. It's all part of a scheme to replace the empowered middle classes with powerless wage slaves. That, and to encourage violence from immigrants while taking arms and will to resist away from citizens, to necessitate the further militarizing our police force and forceful control of the population.

Re: The Effect of State Marijuana Legalizations

#148

Post by EGreg »

Kadin wrote: post #118
zkhalique wrote: post #78

I would express the same sentiment about illegal immigrants. This is to all the people who support Donald Trump's rhetoric about deporting all 11 million undocumented immigrants. These people fled the drug gangs and violence that our war on drugs helped create (think fleeing ISIS) and came to work jobs no one else would take and make a better life for their family. Yes technically they broke a law. If you're going to…

> came to work jobs no one else would take This is a particular piece of rhetoric I find distasteful. If there are jobs that are structured such that only an illegal immigrant, who by definition exists outside the normal labor pool and its protections, will take, that job should not exist in that form or at that pay rate. Full stop. So the fact that jobs that "no one else would take" exist and are being taken by ille…

I disagree, on liberal and humanitarian grounds.

These people make the risky and grueling trip to the US and try to make it as an illegal immigrant, for a reason: they feel the alternative is worse. They'd rather be picking crops and remitting money to their family back home, doing the jobs Americans don't do. You should be blaming the drug war that caused the Sinaloa cartel and others to take over entire cities, and resort to violence we now know from ISIS.

It's a bit like blaming the Koch brothers for hiring convicts for jobs because the convicts would be happy with less. When properly you should be blaming all the other employers whose refusal to hire convicts leads to them CHOOSING to take these jobs.

In short, even though I am a liberal, I recognize that these arguments about "exploitation" are myopic. They don't look 1 step beyond the "exploiter" to see whatconditions make people CHOOSE to be "exploited". Always, the real fix is to fix the conditions at large, not the employer.

So it is with the jobs that "no one wants". I would rather Mexicans come and do them for less, and American citizens get freed up to study other subjects and get higher paying jobs.

In fact I'd advocate for taxing 20-30% of the money saved from hiring overseas workers and automating jobs away and redistributing it as basic income on the federal level. That would help transition our economy from the one we had 20 years ago to one where aggregate demand for human labor has droppd by 10x.

Re: The Effect of State Marijuana Legalizations

#149

Post by IPbanned »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #107
mc32 wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A fair immigration policy for US citizens would take into account the effects of immigration on them and also take their concerns into account --with rigorous studies, not just cherry picked ones (higher income immigrants, for example, contribute more to the economy than unskilled immigrants, irrespective of country) That said, to be fair to all potential immigrants, we should grant all of them equal potential access…

Fair? You mean, maximum benefit to Americans. We're supposed to believe all people have inalienable rights to life, liberty etc. I'm willing to allow folks suffering abroad to find a haven here. That sounds fair to me.

1. America's responsibility should be to its own people, not to the entire world's.

2. Brain drain is a real problem. Letting the smartest, most motivated, wealthiest etc. migrate from the third world only exacerbates the problems at home. They're losing the people best endowed to fix their societies.

If you really want to be a philanthropist (rather than paying lip service while you profit off wage arbitrage), you can stop destabilizing every single country that isn't controlled by the Rothschilds.

Re: The Effect of State Marijuana Legalizations

#150

Post by IPbanned »

rayiner wrote: post #124
JoeAltmaier wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair? You mean, maximum benefit to Americans. We're supposed to believe all people have inalienable rights to life, liberty etc. I'm willing to allow folks suffering abroad to find a haven here. That sounds fair to me.

Whether or not people have that right outside the US doesn't mean it's our problem to enforce that right. Those people have their own countries, with their own governments organized for their benefit. As an immigrant, this is one of those things that still perplexes me about Americans despite my having grown up here. Nobody in Bangladesh thinks they should care as much about people in Africa as they do about their ow…

It's a symptom and goal of cultural marxist-induced white guilt.
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