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U.S. To End Policy That Let Legal Pot Flourish

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Re: U.S. To End Policy That Let Legal Pot Flourish

#11

Post by mmmBacon »

gervase wrote: post #7
40acres wrote: post #2

I doubt that prosecutors in liberal states with legal markets (Oregon, Washington, California, Nevada) will clamp down on the industry, in fact under certain conditions I could see them clarifying their stance and perhaps clearing confusion as to how federal law will be enforced. However, I do think that this may halt the spread of the industry into midwest and north east markets.

Note that these are federal prosecutors, not state prosecutors; they have no incentive to respect state law over federal law. In particular, if the Justice Department intended to respect states' rights, then I suspect they wouldn't have changed these regulations. Of course, this isn't an official announcement; we can save most of the hand-wringing, moral outrage, and/or smug satisfaction (depending on your views) unt…

Actually they do have incentives to care about local and state laws because they need cooperation from local and state governments to enforce the law.

Re: U.S. To End Policy That Let Legal Pot Flourish

#12

Post by scarface74 »

danschumann wrote: post #8

I think weed should be legal. I also think Sessions should enforce every law, lest he pick and choose what is illegal and what is not, thus becoming the most powerful law-maker ( or unmaker ) in the land. Passing a law is the act of the legislative, and repealing a law is too. If he does not enforce all the laws, he basically is seizing the power of congress and repealing those laws, for his term. Imagine Sessions ch…

That's nice in theory, but there are so many laws on the books and limited resources, any executive branch has to choose what laws to go after.

Re: U.S. To End Policy That Let Legal Pot Flourish

#13

Post by ythn »

goalieca wrote: post #4

So much for « states rights » > Sessions, who has assailed marijuana as comparable to heroin and has blamed it for spikes in violence Pot smokers aren’t violent people because it tends to chill you out. The growers and dealers can belong to criminal organizations and cause problems. So naturally, keeping the gangs in business by keeping pot illegal is top priority.

Gangs will always be in business even with legal pot. Just look at cigarettes and alcohol. Both those things are legal and both those things have massive black markets to bypass the heavy regulations and taxes imposed on them.

Re: U.S. To End Policy That Let Legal Pot Flourish

#14

Post by beamatronic »

olfactory wrote: post #3
40acres wrote: post #2

I doubt that prosecutors in liberal states with legal markets (Oregon, Washington, California, Nevada) will clamp down on the industry, in fact under certain conditions I could see them clarifying their stance and perhaps clearing confusion as to how federal law will be enforced. However, I do think that this may halt the spread of the industry into midwest and north east markets.

I think it may already be too established in the midwest for anything like this to threaten the spread of the legal pot industry. I suspect this is a tactic to justify Federally taxing marijuana, and would be consistent with Trump's broader approach of making tax policy tweaks that hit the bluest states and regions the hardest.

Never forget: Trump did not even want to be president, as revealed yesterday. So this is the alt-rights way of exacting revenge for 8 years of Obama, by punishing the 52% of voters who didn't vote for Trump. The right is getting their licks in while they can.

Edited for clarity

Re: U.S. To End Policy That Let Legal Pot Flourish

#15

Post by [deleted] »

danschumann wrote: post #8

I think weed should be legal. I also think Sessions should enforce every law, lest he pick and choose what is illegal and what is not, thus becoming the most powerful law-maker ( or unmaker ) in the land. Passing a law is the act of the legislative, and repealing a law is too. If he does not enforce all the laws, he basically is seizing the power of congress and repealing those laws, for his term. Imagine Sessions ch…

[deleted]

Re: U.S. To End Policy That Let Legal Pot Flourish

#17

Post by mcny »

danschumann wrote: post #8

I think weed should be legal. I also think Sessions should enforce every law, lest he pick and choose what is illegal and what is not, thus becoming the most powerful law-maker ( or unmaker ) in the land. Passing a law is the act of the legislative, and repealing a law is too. If he does not enforce all the laws, he basically is seizing the power of congress and repealing those laws, for his term. Imagine Sessions ch…

Why just marijuana? Why not every drug? In fact, why is possession of anything a crime?

We already have laws about improper storage of hazardous materials. Possession of anything should be legal. Now distribution and sale is a trickier subject but pretty easy as well. As long as you don't misrepresent what you're selling, it should be legal as well.

If we are for a small government, we have to walk the walk.

Re: U.S. To End Policy That Let Legal Pot Flourish

#19

Post by adventured »

jnagro wrote: post #6
goalieca wrote: post #4

So much for « states rights » > Sessions, who has assailed marijuana as comparable to heroin and has blamed it for spikes in violence Pot smokers aren’t violent people because it tends to chill you out. The growers and dealers can belong to criminal organizations and cause problems. So naturally, keeping the gangs in business by keeping pot illegal is top priority.

The Trump administration has also been tied to the private prison industry.

That's doesn't make much sense as a premise data wise.

The prison boom around the war on drugs overwhelmingly involved the government prison complex, from 1980 to 2010.

Clinton didn't have meaningful ties to the private prison industry (which barely existed at the time), and a frightening number of people were thrown into prison for drug crimes during his eight years.

About ~95% of all people put into prison over those 30 years from 1980 to 2010, went into government prisons.

Who benefitted? We spent over a trillion dollars on the government prison complex. Millions of government employees pocketed hundreds and hundreds of billions of dollars in cash from the scheme. It makes the private prison industry and its meager profits look hilariously tiny by comparison.

The US has about a million law enforcement related employees it doesn't need, used to prosecute the war on drugs in various ways. Those are government employees, they benefit from the government prison system, they were made possible by government laws that date back five decades or more. They cost $80-$100 billion per year. Now compare just that one section of the government prison complex, to the private prison complex money.

CoreCivic generates $200m in profit per year. That's equal to about the cost of just ~3,000 cops. The US has at least several hundred thousand more cops than it needs, due to the war on drugs. That's how truly massive the government side of this is by comparison.

Private prisons only began to meaningfully expand in the middle of George W Bush's Presidency. In the 1990s, when such an extraordinary number of people were put into prison, the private prison industry was miniscule.

Blaming any of this mess on the private prison complex, is pretty absurd given the facts of what happened in prisons and the war on drugs in the 30 to 40 years pre ~2005.

And this post is in no way arguing in favor of the private prison system, it shouldn't exist.

Re: U.S. To End Policy That Let Legal Pot Flourish

#20

Post by brightball »

danschumann wrote: post #8

I think weed should be legal. I also think Sessions should enforce every law, lest he pick and choose what is illegal and what is not, thus becoming the most powerful law-maker ( or unmaker ) in the land. Passing a law is the act of the legislative, and repealing a law is too. If he does not enforce all the laws, he basically is seizing the power of congress and repealing those laws, for his term. Imagine Sessions ch…

IMO that's the correct answer. The only reason it was flourishing was due to lack of enforcement of federal law. It needs to be addressed at the federal level or there needs to be a clear method for states to veto/nullify/ignore federal laws that they feel overreach.

I can't remember the procedure, but isn't there some method for a state to nullify a federal law that it disagrees with?

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