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America Is Giving Away the $30B Medical Marijuana Industry

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Re: America Is Giving Away the $30B Medical Marijuana Industry

#21

Post by ShorsHammer »

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #11
Stratoscope wrote: post #2

> Since 1970 marijuana has been a DEA Schedule I substance, meaning that in the view of the federal government, it’s as dangerous as LSD, heroin, and Ecstasy, and has “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.” > Every year the percentage of Americans who favor legalization of marijuana climbs. Last year it topped 60 percent for the first time. A remarkable 94 percent support medical use. At t…

Direct democracy for every issue individually is not the best overall system. It prevents the political favor-trading between representatives which has a valuable purpose - that is, voting against your immediate interest on topics unimportant to you in exchange for votes for your important interests. If every vote is independent and there's no way to coordinate things, then you can't do something like getting nationa…

I disagree, direct democracy has none of these problems in Switzerland. It's very easy to find flaws in systems not implemented.

People will make bad decisions and societies in general will fuck up, but that is part of the process and voters will adjust accordingly.

Methodical and sound polling on a single issue routinely comes within %'s of actual votes. Yet there are numerous issues overwhelmingly favoured in society which politicians knowingly ignore.

Re: America Is Giving Away the $30B Medical Marijuana Industry

#22

Post by [deleted] »

ThrustVectoring wrote: post #11
Stratoscope wrote: post #2

> Since 1970 marijuana has been a DEA Schedule I substance, meaning that in the view of the federal government, it’s as dangerous as LSD, heroin, and Ecstasy, and has “no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for abuse.” > Every year the percentage of Americans who favor legalization of marijuana climbs. Last year it topped 60 percent for the first time. A remarkable 94 percent support medical use. At t…

Direct democracy for every issue individually is not the best overall system. It prevents the political favor-trading between representatives which has a valuable purpose - that is, voting against your immediate interest on topics unimportant to you in exchange for votes for your important interests. If every vote is independent and there's no way to coordinate things, then you can't do something like getting nationa…

[deleted]

Re: America Is Giving Away the $30B Medical Marijuana Industry

#23

Post by ocdtrekkie »

mulmen wrote: post #16
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was, in fact, chosen by the people in accordance with our voting system. Both parties win with it, and nobody who's won ever tries to change it... leaving suggesting it's "unfair" to the realm of people who are just upset that they lost. I definitely would like to see it improved, I think the two party system sucks, and our voting system guarantees it, and the fact that my vote doesn't count for much because I liv…

The two party system moves slowly which at times like this looks like a feature to me. In a parliamentary system it is easier for extreme views to advance their agenda.

This is probably the one big upside to our system being glacial. I am glad Obama couldn't do more than he did, and the damage Trump could do with less controls is terrifying.

Re: America Is Giving Away the $30B Medical Marijuana Industry

#24

Post by [deleted] »

Consultant32452 wrote: post #18
twright0 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Both parties win with it As far as I can tell from Wikipedia, only five elections have ever been won by someone lacking a plurality of the popular vote. Three of those cases happened before 1900. If we look only at the more modern examples, the Republicans have won the presidency but lost the popular vote twice (2016 and 2000) and the Democrats have never done this. In fact, this is a true statement over all of tim…

Our electoral college and Senate system is designed to occasionally let the minority get stuff they want. The coastal cities have all the money and all of the media, they aren't hurting for power. The slight tip to the "flyover" states is an attempt to balance the mega-steamroller of coastal wealth and power.

[deleted]

Re: America Is Giving Away the $30B Medical Marijuana Industry

#25

Post by JumpCrisscross »

jriot wrote: post #8
GuiA wrote: post #6

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I still have to regularly remind people that Trump did not win the election with a majority of votes. I am flabbergasted by how frequently I hear Americans say of Trump "... well he was chosen by the people".

Are aware Lincoln didn't win the election with majority of votes?

> Lincoln didn't win the election with majority of votes

He did, however, win the popular vote in both the 1860 and 1864 general elections (39.8% to the runner up at 29.5% and 55%, respectively) [1].

[1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electoral_history_of_Abraham...

Re: America Is Giving Away the $30B Medical Marijuana Industry

#26

Post by ThrustVectoring »

cinquemb wrote: post #20
ThrustVectoring wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Direct democracy for every issue individually is not the best overall system. It prevents the political favor-trading between representatives which has a valuable purpose - that is, voting against your immediate interest on topics unimportant to you in exchange for votes for your important interests. If every vote is independent and there's no way to coordinate things, then you can't do something like getting nationa…

I think it is theoretically possible to build systems where you can coordinate things on independent issues (and for bringing up and addressing questions) on a direct level. I don't think there is much incentive to build such systems now outside of say voting systems for user feedback/issues on product systems (which also have lower barriers as for the ultimately philosophical issue on deciding who is allowed to vote…

I'm not sure what sort of mechanism you're thinking of. My example has a majority preferring X & Y over ~X & ~Y, but with simultaneous majorities preferring ~X over X and ~Y over Y. This is fundamentally tricky to resolve. And furthermore, the power to propose "X & Y" is incredibly useful, since you get to shape the negotiation options for compromises. Even with a direct democracy system, you'd still want to be able to vote in or out some kind of elected representative for proposing various bills.

Re: America Is Giving Away the $30B Medical Marijuana Industry

#27

Post by lacker »

kiliantics wrote: post #3

Now that there are some people who are surely becoming considerably rich from the sale of cannabis in the US, it's strange that they aren't pushing for this kind of research to be allowed - i.e. out-lobbying the anti-cannabis lobby. Is there really still that much money going against legalisation? Are the people who have been getting rich just not politically savvy enough yet? This seems unlikely because it's not lik…

Now that California has legalized recreational marijuana, research into medical marijuana is nearly pointless from a capitalist point of view. The endgame isn't anything to do with medical marijuana at all. It's that recreational marijuana steadily advances across the country. Whoever wins the California recreational market will have the advantage in that game.

Re: America Is Giving Away the $30B Medical Marijuana Industry

#28

Post by Simon_says »

twright0 wrote: post #12
ocdtrekkie wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

He was, in fact, chosen by the people in accordance with our voting system. Both parties win with it, and nobody who's won ever tries to change it... leaving suggesting it's "unfair" to the realm of people who are just upset that they lost. I definitely would like to see it improved, I think the two party system sucks, and our voting system guarantees it, and the fact that my vote doesn't count for much because I liv…

> Both parties win with it As far as I can tell from Wikipedia, only five elections have ever been won by someone lacking a plurality of the popular vote. Three of those cases happened before 1900. If we look only at the more modern examples, the Republicans have won the presidency but lost the popular vote twice (2016 and 2000) and the Democrats have never done this. In fact, this is a true statement over all of tim…

Yea, and that's not a statistical fluke, either. So long as the political allegiances are close to what they are today, a Democrat will never win without the popular vote. Via our electoral college system, a vote in a lower-populace state will have more power. There's a lot of low populace flyover states that consistently vote Republican. So a Republican winning the popular vote almost automatically leads to them winning the electoral college.

Re: America Is Giving Away the $30B Medical Marijuana Industry

#29

Post by Clubber »

>But there’s just something wrong with the DEA. I don’t know what else to say. … Somehow, marijuana’s got a bad name. And it’s tough to let go of.

The thing that is wrong is the DEA (and state and local police) justify their high salary and high headcount with the War on Drugs. The vast majority of busts on the WoD is from pot.

https://www.bjs.gov/content/dcf/enforce.cfm

In pure weight of seizure, pot accounts for 90% of all drugs seized, and the vast majority is simple possession. It's fairly simple politics. If the demand for drug fighting just lost 90% of it's target, why do we need so many drug fighters? In terms of a real war, if an army just decimated 90% of it's enemy, it's time to send some troops back home.

I understand the pushback from officers, and I don't like seeing people lose their jobs, but throwing people in jail for a now highly tolerated substance isn't worth supporting those jobs. They've had that deal for 50 years now, that market is about over, but like anyone in that position, they will have to leave kicking and screaming.

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