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US House passes federal cannabis decriminalisation bill

bbc.co.uk

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Re: US House passes federal cannabis decriminalisation bill

#41

Post by CameronNemo »

lhopki01 wrote: post #27
nip180 wrote: post #15

2/3 of Americans support legalizing cannabis. I don’t understand why this bill is so bipartisan among politicians if so many citizens support it.

Because Republicans don't need 50% of the support. They need way less because of imbalances built into the system. If your core support still does not support legalizing cannabis then it's not worth it to do it.

For some hard numbers, as of 2018 15.95% of the US population lived in the 25 least populous states and elected half of the US Senate.

To block an conviction of an impeached president or a constitutional amendment, only 34 senators (17 states) are needed. As of 2018, that was as little as 7.32% of the US population.

If you care to do the math yourself, this is my source: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_pop...

And some python to help once you have lines to summarize: sum(map(float, open('foo').readlines()))

Re: US House passes federal cannabis decriminalisation bill

#42

Post by pwagland »

tnorthcutt wrote: post #34
huntermeyer wrote: post #19

> It includes measures to expunge the federal criminal records of those charged or convicted for non-violent cannabis offenses I feel this line is what'll cause the bill to not pass in the Senate. I don't see why the removal of cannabis from the scheduled drugs list needs to be coupled with criminal record expungement. Do one. Then move to do the next. Is this how things are usually done?

Yes, often even intentionally to reduce the changes of a bill passing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wrecking_amendment

I assume that you mean "reduce chances of the bill passing", adding this rider would increase the changes if the bill passes!

Re: US House passes federal cannabis decriminalisation bill

#43

Post by door99 »

t-writescode wrote: post #30
minikites wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Senate is an incredibly un-democratic institution and a truly massive barrier standing in the way of a functioning government. Mitch McConnell alone can dictate Senate business at his whims.

It is democratic, just not the sort one might expect. It’s a democracy of the states. That’s by design. The House is an approximate democracy of the people in the states (with some weighting so that the most populous states don’t have a complete monopoly) and the senate is a democracy of the states. Together they form an approximate republic of the country’s opinion... in an ideal world.

Yeah, It’s a terrible design.

Re: US House passes federal cannabis decriminalisation bill

#44

Post by toomuchtodo »

mattacular wrote: post #25
meddlepal wrote: post #6

It won't pass the Senate floor. Absolutely pointless.

Of course it won't pass. But it isn't pointless - this is theater intended to distract from the utterly disastrous covid stimulus talks that have seen the dems lose more and more ground on a potential deal.

Dems are being held hostage by Republicans who don't care one bit about passing necessary amounts of stimulus (Fed chair Powell has said, paraphrased, "No amount is too much at this point" [1]). Dems need those senate seats in Georgia to break the gridlock caused by Senate Republicans. This will help those efforts (encouraging voter turnout), as does Trump telling his base to not go out and vote [2].

[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=powell+stimulus+too+much

[2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/30/us/politics/georgia-repub...

Re: US House passes federal cannabis decriminalisation bill

#46

Post by bryanlarsen »

nip180 wrote: post #15

2/3 of Americans support legalizing cannabis. I don’t understand why this bill is so bipartisan among politicians if so many citizens support it.

2/3rds of old white men don't support it, and that describes most politicians.

Re: US House passes federal cannabis decriminalisation bill

#47

Post by dwiel »

minikites wrote: post #20
meddlepal wrote: post #6

It won't pass the Senate floor. Absolutely pointless.

The Senate is an incredibly un-democratic institution and a truly massive barrier standing in the way of a functioning government. Mitch McConnell alone can dictate Senate business at his whims.

He is a convenient scape goat for all the other Republican senators. They could replace him if they really wanted to, but they dont.

Re: US House passes federal cannabis decriminalisation bill

#48

Post by tzs »

ocdtrekkie wrote: post #3

In a very partisan vote that will not survive the Senate. Apart from virtue signalling, why bother? We are post election, so it doesn't even help us decide how to vote. Trying this after January at least might've made more sense. It's frustrating we see full House votes on pointless partisan efforts when there are issues like infrastructure that both parties could and should agree on and progress in.

> It's frustrating we see full House votes on pointless partisan efforts when there are issues like infrastructure that both parties could and should agree on and progress in.

The House passed a big infrastructure bill in July. They've also already passed several other bipartisan bills.

These mostly just die in the Senate because McConnell does not even allow them to come to a vote. His Senate is mostly focused on confirming judges.

There are literally hundreds of bills that have passed the House that are completely stalled in the Senate.

Re: US House passes federal cannabis decriminalisation bill

#49

Post by nickysielicki »

nip180 wrote: post #15

2/3 of Americans support legalizing cannabis. I don’t understand why this bill is so bipartisan among politicians if so many citizens support it.

There is just a lot of hand-wringing about the right way to do it. Both parties want to earmark the potential tax income for their special interests. Biden is pushing for meaningless rescheduling instead of outright legalization because those breaking federal drug laws are not legally allowed to own guns, and marijuana is the most used drug outside of alcohol in this country, and they like the way that plays out where millions of pot users have to choose between getting high and having their second amendment rights.

Re: US House passes federal cannabis decriminalisation bill

#50

Post by itronitron »

claudeganon wrote: post #37
mumblemumble wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wild accusation: Follow the money. There are a lot of people making a lot of money off of private prisons, generally in red states.

Alcohol manufactures have also dumped massive amounts of money in lobbying against marijuana decriminalization because they don't want the competition.

And before that they went after Absinthe >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absinthe#History

Absinthe makes you crazy and criminal, provokes epilepsy and tuberculosis, and has killed thousands of French people. It makes a ferocious beast of man, a martyr of woman, and a degenerate of the infant, it disorganizes and ruins the family and menaces the future of the country.

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