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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

#71

Post by asdjasldkjkljd »

e40 wrote: post #48
Bahamut wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sometimes the leaks are intentional to gauge public reaction, and then actual action is taken based in part on feedback.

Leaks of this sort are almost always trial balloons. I'm sure this was an intentional leak. They're looking for a backlash, at which point they can quietly forget about it (if they don't want the fight) and pretend it never happened.

In these cases it also helps further the "fake news" narrative. I wouldn't be surprised if leaks are happening just to make the claim.

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

#72

Post by wl »

SEJeff wrote: post #35
wildmusings wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the government has some prosecutorial discretion, the legal limits of which are uncertain. But there is no legal ambiguity or conflict as to federal government's authority to enforce drug laws (as I originally read your post to suggest, though perhaps you have edited it?). Federal law is supreme and the Supreme Court has already ruled on this particular issue, going so far as to allow the punishment of someone w…

Correct, and in specific, the supremacy clause of the constitution guarantees that federal law overrules state law. I don't see any state AG's having much luck suing the DoJ against this as it is clear as mud: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supremacy_Clause

That's only half the picture. There's also the 10th Amendment, which says that powers not delegated to the feds belong to the states or the people. Federal drug laws rely on the interstate commerce power, even though they also regulate conduct that is sometimes purely intrastate and/or purely non-commercial. The most natural reading of the Constitution is that the feds have no authority here. The Supreme Court disagreed in Wickard and Raich, but Wickard was poorly reasoned rationalization for political purposes and Raich does not stand except by relying on Wickard.

I mean, for all practical purposes, the feds will do what they want. But if you're going to cite the text of the Constitution, the feds are breaking the law here. It takes case law to justify what they're doing, not just the text.

Just a thought: Why did alcohol prohibition require a constitutional amendment but drug prohibition didn't?

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

#73

Post by adventured »

vel0city wrote: post #55
adventured wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

The profit motive is a common argument about the private prison complex, which is why I used the $200m. I believe it was very justified as the reference point.

That $200m goes to the shareholders, owners, in theory. That's the profit motive sum in their business.

I don't disagree that also referencing the $1.7b in sales is relevant. It's just as tiny looking when stacked up against the monster that is a million unnecessary government employees costing $80-$100 billion each year, that exist solely due to the war on drugs.

I'd like to see someone tabulate up the total cost of all reasonably unnecessary government employees, related to prisons and law enforcement, dating from 1980 to 2010, the prime years of the prison population boom (during which the private prison complex was an averaged single digit fraction of the whole thing). What do we suppose that would come to? $2 trillion inflation adjusted?

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

#74

Post by hnal943 »

zeveb wrote: post #61
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…

I agree regarding enforcement of every law, but I would also point out that the federal drug laws — like other laws still on the books which are not enforced — are unconstitutional, and thus that he has a responsibility given his oath of office to refrain from enforcing them.

No. The executive branch does not have the power to strike down laws it sees as unconstitutional. That is the power of the courts. The executive should follow the laws as written.

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

#75

Post by djsumdog »

mcny wrote: post #17
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.

> In fact, why is possession of anything a crime?

Child pornography. Do you want possession to not be a crime?

This is one of the most fascinating cases since it is one of the core limitations of free speech. Richard Stallman actually has some very interesting and very controversial arguments about this in regards to speech.

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

#76

Post by saas_co_de »

ProblemFactory wrote: post #53
dbingham wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 no…

> Normalising this is a dangerous precedent

Not really, and even if so, we are a few centuries too late to do anything about it.

Having unenforceable laws in a necessity of how the legal system works. If a law is ruled to be unconstitutional it does not magically get removed from the books. That requires legislative action, but why waste time in the legislature on something with no practical effect?

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

#77

Post by throwawayjava »

adventured wrote: post #52
indlebe wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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 ille…

> Blackmarket alcohol is not uncommon in the US.

But large criminal syndicates funded by blackmarket alcohol are very much a thing of the past. At least in the USA.

I guess I technically know quite a few people who make "black market" whiskey. It's not legal to distill without lots of licensing and these people do sell bottles to friends and friends-of-friends.

But it's Really Hard to understate the difference between poor folks running cottage industries around moonshine and the sprawling violent criminal enterprises that flourished around the alcohol trade during prohibition.

(e: also, illegal alcohol isn't just a poor person thing. Plenty of wealthy folks illegally distill, they just normally aren't motivated to sell.)

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

#78

Post by wildmusings »

throwawayjava wrote: post #63
wildmusings wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the government has some prosecutorial discretion, the legal limits of which are uncertain. But there is no legal ambiguity or conflict as to federal government's authority to enforce drug laws (as I originally read your post to suggest, though perhaps you have edited it?). Federal law is supreme and the Supreme Court has already ruled on this particular issue, going so far as to allow the punishment of someone w…

The fist portion of parent's post is perhaps controversial, but it's not necessarily mistaken. The scope of the executive's power to purposefully under-enforce laws is a bit of a constitutional conundrum. Even among the cases on this topic that have made it to SCOTUS , the opinions were pretty well split and no clear doctrines were handed down. Also, most historical examples of this use of executive power were not te…

Yes, the limits of prosecutorial discretion are legally murky. What I'm referring to is the legality of enforcing a valid federal law that conflicts with a state law; there is no question whatsoever that the federal law is supreme and may be enforced.

As for grand-standing state AGs, that's not just a red state thing. A few examples come to mind from recent months alone. Look at the Washington State AG, filing all sorts of clearly losing political lawsuits, e.g. suing a motel for sharing guest-list information with the federal government, on the theory that it violates state consumer protection law. Or look at the various state AG's who are hopelessly suing over the net neutrality repeal. These are losing cases, filed as a red meat for their electoral base.

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

#79

Post by Clubber »

SEJeff wrote: post #35
wildmusings wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the government has some prosecutorial discretion, the legal limits of which are uncertain. But there is no legal ambiguity or conflict as to federal government's authority to enforce drug laws (as I originally read your post to suggest, though perhaps you have edited it?). Federal law is supreme and the Supreme Court has already ruled on this particular issue, going so far as to allow the punishment of someone w…

Correct, and in specific, the supremacy clause of the constitution guarantees that federal law overrules state law. I don't see any state AG's having much luck suing the DoJ against this as it is clear as mud: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Supremacy_Clause

Yes, but constitutionally, does the federal government have the power to make pot illegal. They certainly didn't in the early 1900s when they first tried, thus their stamp act work around.

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

#80

Post by dragonwriter »

“Legal” is incorrect in the headline, as there is no “legal pot” in the United States (well, aside from very narrow research, etc., allowed by the feds, which is not the focus of this policy.)

The fact that states don't have espionage laws covering everything in the federal espionage act doesn't mean that those states have “legal espionage”.

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