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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

#51

Post by SEJeff »

wildmusings wrote: post #32
grasshopperpurp wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say this as if Sessions is a good-faith actor, when clearly he is not.

I keep seeing this “good-faith” buzzword everywhere lately. It seems that the current political usage is just a way to dismiss any legitimate arguments or actions made by someone who is supposed to be a villain in the narrative.

But remember, Jeff Sessions was denied a federal judgeship in 1986 with the reason being, "He was too racist". Now how racist did you have to be in 1986 to be too racist?!

This is the same guy who in March of 1986 said he would refer to a white civil rights lawyer as (and I quote), "A disgrace to his race." He then went on to refer to the ACLU, NAACP, and National Council of Churches as communist inspired and un-american.

I'd almost argue it is hard to find anything he has done in good faith given his bias towards laws that overwhelmingly target racial minorities.

I say this as a pasty white dude who is appalled by the overwhelming amount of racism in our current executive branch.

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

#52

Post by adventured »

indlebe wrote: post #38
ythn wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

>cigarettes and alchohol have massive black markets to bypass heavy regulations. Are you speaking on the US or worldwide? A quick search doesn't produce any reliable statistics that indicate this. I have never once heard of anyone purchasing alcohol on the black market. Cigarettes, sure, but even then it's typically only very low-income folks purchasing cheap, illegal tobacco that is generally not of great quality. T…

Blackmarket alcohol is not uncommon in the US. Particularly among poor white and hispanic populations. Most cultures have their equivalent of moonshine. You can easily buy illegally manufactured alcohol in every corner of Appalachia, basically all of the south, and poorer areas of every blue state including California and New York (most of NY being rural, and not particularly affluent, there's a healthy trade in illegal alcohol there as well, it is then sold in NYC as well).

You can get hooked up with illegal alcohol in basically every liquor store in every state in Appalachia, if you know someone that works there. It's commonly sold under the table so to speak.

edit: for wherever the downvotes are coming from - yes, I do know this stuff for a fact. I grew up in Appalachia, I know for a fact that what I'm saying is extremely common, I saw just about every aspect of the illegal alcohol trade first-hand. From that I came to learn second-hand the scope and nature of it up and down the east coast of the US and other parts of the country. It's easy enough to google this subject as well if you're skeptical.

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

#53

Post by ProblemFactory »

dbingham wrote: post #22
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…

Unfortunately that's not how it works, at all. Especially when there are legal conflicts between the state and federal governments like this. There are so many laws on the books, many of them horribly outdated, and legislatures are overworked / grid locked. Often, the only way for us to have a working body of law that makes sense is for the government to simply stop enforcing the outdated ones. In the case of the Oba…

> There are so many laws on the books, many of them horribly outdated, and legislatures are overworked / grid locked. Often, the only way for us to have a working body of law that makes sense is for the government to simply stop enforcing the outdated ones.

Normalising this is a dangerous precedent. It leads to the situation where every citizen is technically a criminal according to the letter of the law, but it's not enforced as long as you don't stand out. But as soon as you annoy someone in government, they can choose to arrest and imprison you.

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

#54

Post by grasshopperpurp »

wildmusings wrote: post #32
grasshopperpurp wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You say this as if Sessions is a good-faith actor, when clearly he is not.

I keep seeing this “good-faith” buzzword everywhere lately. It seems that the current political usage is just a way to dismiss any legitimate arguments or actions made by someone who is supposed to be a villain in the narrative.

>In initiating the case, Mr. Sessions ignored allegations of similar behaviors by whites, choosing instead to chill the exercise of the franchise by blacks because of his misguided investigation. In fact, Mr. Sessions sought to punish older black civil rights activists, advisors, and colleagues of my husband, who had been key figures in the civil rights movement of the 1960s. These were persons who, realizing the potential of the absentee vote among Blacks, had learned to use the process within the bounds of legality and had taught others to do the same. Their only sin the committed was being too successful in gaining votes.

Coretta Scott King

https://www.snopes.com/coretta-scott-king-criticize-jeff-ses...

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

#55

Post by vel0city »

adventured wrote: post #19
jnagro wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 tho…

You shouldn't look at profits to gauge how big a company is, you should look at revenues. Otherwise, Amazon would until recently be considered a tiny company. CoreCivic generates around $1.7B in revenues, far greater than your $200M figure. If your ratio of 200m = 3k cops, CoreCivic would be closer to ~25k cops.

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

#56

Post by koenigdavidmj »

knieveltech wrote: post #24
sedtrader wrote: post #21

> as polls show a solid majority of Americans believe the drug should be legal I am for the legalizing of marijuana, but considering the majority of Americans live in only 9 of the states, decisions should not be made based on the "majority". Federal law based on what the majority wanted was one of the things that the framers were afraid of. 9 states should not be able to dictate what occurs in the other 41 states an…

uh uh. Quirks of population distribution should certainly not permit a minority of citizens from driving policy in directions the rest of the country doesn't want to go. One person, one vote.

California getting to decide the will of Kansas is a broken system. It feels a lot like, say, the king of England ruling the colonies without representation.

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

#57

Post by saas_co_de »

sedtrader wrote: post #21

> as polls show a solid majority of Americans believe the drug should be legal I am for the legalizing of marijuana, but considering the majority of Americans live in only 9 of the states, decisions should not be made based on the "majority". Federal law based on what the majority wanted was one of the things that the framers were afraid of. 9 states should not be able to dictate what occurs in the other 41 states an…

> this needs to be a state by state decision, not federal govt

According to the framers the federal govt has no authority at all to regulate the growing, distribution and sale of a product that takes place entirely within a state, so I do agree that this is a state decision.

But since the federal laws regulating cannabis activity within states are unconstitutional and unenforceable in the first place, eliminating or not enforcing them is merely complying with the law, not a change in law.

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

#58

Post by pfg »

saas_co_de wrote: post #42
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.

Quite the contrary. I am glad he is doing this. It is a huge tactical blunder that will force the states' rights issue into court and either result in a victory for the states or massive public discontent about federal overthrow of popular state policies. Either way the federal government is going to see their influence eroded here.

As I understand it, the Supreme Court already ruled against states' right on this matter in Gonzales v. Raich. That case was about medical marijuana, but I don't think that matters.

(IANAL.)

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

#59

Post by javajosh »

sliverstorm wrote: post #43
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…

Have you heard of prosecutorial discretion?

I think he has heard of it. He's making a case for how things should be not how things are. And his point is consistent with Socrates, who chose to live in compliance with the law even though it meant his death; and with Lincoln, who famously said "The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly." Not bad company.

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

#60

Post by seanmcdirmid »

owenmarshall wrote: post #27
brightball wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

There is a method for states to nullify federal laws they disagree with; the last time we tried it, though, the side effects were a bit undesirable.

Slavery was not against federal law when that happened. It only happened much later toward the end of the war with the 13th amendement.
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