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Cannabis is legal in most US states but federal laws block businesses from banks

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Re: Cannabis is legal in most US states but federal laws block businesses from banks

#161

Post by kapildev »

scifibestfi wrote: post #56
gamegoblin wrote: post #16

Prediction: Dems will make a move on federal legalization in the months before the 2024 presidential election, or at least make federal legalization a major election issue. A lot of right wing / libertarian adjacent people were hoping Trump would come out in favor of it as a 2020 election issue, to outflank Biden on at least one issue. It didn't happen, but I bet it would have made the election a bit closer -- it wou…

It sucks how everything is a political football instead of just doing the right thing. They had full control and could have legalized it. But no, they keep holding onto just to drag voters along every election.

>They had full control and could have legalized it.

Them having full control wasn't enough.

Democrats passed it in the House and all Democratic Senators supported it in the Senate. However, Republicans killed it because Democrats wanted the Omnibus bill to pass for which support from Mitch McConnell was necessary. Mitch McConnell was opposed to this Cannabis bill.

Link: https://thehill.com/policy/finance/3782514-marijuana-advocat...

Re: Cannabis is legal in most US states but federal laws block businesses from banks

#162

Post by mjevans »

quadrifoliate wrote: post #103
scifibestfi wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sucks how everything is a political football instead of just doing the right thing. They had full control and could have legalized it. But no, they keep holding onto just to drag voters along every election.

It sucks how uneducated about basic things US voters are. The Affordable Care Act is probably the most impactful law passed by Democrats in the recent past. In a survey of 2000 voters, a staggering thirty-five percent did not know [1] that the ACA and the colloquial "Obamacare" were the same thing. Bizarrely, an additional number didn't know that 'Obamacare repealed = ACA repealed'. I cannot blame either party for pl…

I can. People are so focused on not disenfranchising voters (like actually happened / might still happen against marginalized segments of the population), that they don't wonder, what is _empowering_ a citizen as a voter?

I DO support a basic civics and mathematics test, on a recurring basis, for voters. HOWEVER, that's only with the catch that failing or opting out of the test creates benefits designed to encourage the citizen to pass the test in the future. A benefit like, access to public education to work on that math skills and civics awareness. Or possibly someone is disabled (often silently, dementia is a real issue!) and the voter tests might be one of the places it's discovered.

Re: Cannabis is legal in most US states but federal laws block businesses from banks

#163

Post by sgjohnson »

salawat wrote: post #151
sgjohnson wrote: post #138

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Just because there’s a jurisdictional overlap doesn’t make it illegal at state level.

Federal law supercedes State law. That is why the Constitution is "the highest law of the Land". It's also why so much is pushed for to be done at the Federal level, because it completely sidesteps the chance for States to make their own local laws on the matter. The danger there, is that as it turns out, different places/populations have different views on things, which often do not exactly line up with D.C.'s. Henc…

But it doesn’t. The states are free to ignore federal law. Yes, the states can’t stop the feds from doing enforcement themselves, but it would be basically unprecedented outside of a few limited examples.

So no, the line is definitely not as clear as “federal law supersedes state law, period.” It’s a lot more nuanced than that, and in practice, in most situations it’s the state law that reigns supreme.

Re: Cannabis is legal in most US states but federal laws block businesses from banks

#164

Post by saiya-jin »

ogogmad wrote: post #155

There's still a chance that cannabis might trigger schizophrenia, especially among people who start very young. This is at right angles to the legalisation debate, because alcohol and tobacco are likely to be even more harmful. It remains the case that intellectual honestly about this point should not get drowned out in all the politics. Be careful what you put in your body. Especially if the thing is some novel subs…

This is valid for alcohol too (father of ex-gf had schizophrenia triggered by alcohol binge at 18 and had to take strong meds for rest of his life, brain half vegetable). Or stressful event - we should ban those too.

In the same time we let people freely get drowned in one of strongest addictions - nicotine. Oh but we banned (in some places) advertisement for it. We even get kids get hooked on it for life too via vaping.

Re: Cannabis is legal in most US states but federal laws block businesses from banks

#165

Post by [deleted] »

chiefalchemist wrote: post #99
scifibestfi wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It sucks how everything is a political football instead of just doing the right thing. They had full control and could have legalized it. But no, they keep holding onto just to drag voters along every election.

Similar is true of abortions. The majority/control was there - more than once - and despite knowing Roe v Wade was on shifting sands the Dems refused to act. The issue empowers The Politics Industrial Complex but does little to work for We The People. https://freakonomics.com/podcast/im-your-biggest-fan/

[deleted]

Re: Cannabis is legal in most US states but federal laws block businesses from banks

#166

Post by p0pcult »

neuronexmachina wrote: post #69
Doubtme wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cannabis banking came up on this 1.7 trillion dollar bill that just got passed. It wasn't included thanks to Republicans.

I hadn't heard about that, found more info here: https://thehill.com/policy/finance/3782514-marijuana-advocat... >It passed the House seven times — receiving a whopping 321 votes last year — and had enough GOP support to reach 60 votes in the Senate. >But it did not have the support of McConnell, whose opposition kept it out of the spending bill. >McConnell first blocked the SAFE Banking Act’s inclusion in the defens…

The pocket veto is a ridiculous thing.

Re: Cannabis is legal in most US states but federal laws block businesses from banks

#167

Post by robocat »

loeg wrote: post #145
perardi wrote: post #141

This is frustrating, because I think it’s a near certainty marijuana will be legalized federally. If I was a betting man, which I’m not, certainly not enough to mess with prediction markets, I’d call myself 95% certain. All this ambiguity is just grinding inefficiency in the meantime. Look at all that states where this is legal or decriminalized: https://disa.com/maps/marijuana-legality-by-state And even in states wh…

> States have legalized it, they have seen great tax revenue, they have not seen huge swatches of marijuana-related crimes and medical emergencies. States have seen increased theft from marijuana businesses. Both because they need to hold a lot of cash (very related to being locked out of banking) and because the weed itself has some resale value on the black market. (I still think legalization is obviously worth it,…

> States have seen increased theft

That is possibly selection bias. Marijuana thefts were previously not reported to the authorities, so it is difficult to estimate whether the actual number of thefts has changed.

Re: Cannabis is legal in most US states but federal laws block businesses from banks

#168

Post by kmonsen »

shkkmo wrote: post #110
kube-system wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Cannabis is illegal under the Controlled Substances Act everywhere within the US. The feds are voluntarily [0] turning a blind eye to states that have changed their own state laws... but federal law has not changed. 0: https://www.justice.gov/iso/opa/resources/305201382913275685...

I suspect there is also a desire to avoid creating cases that might reach the Supreme Court and challenge enforcement of the Controlled Substances Act based on several potential constitutional issues. This is a not just a fringe legal theory, but one endorsed by several supreme court justices in their dissents to Gonzales v. Raich. I think there is a good chance that if the right case made it to this supreme court, t…

That is also fairly bad, the justices view here seems extremely reasonable. I don't necessarily like it but legally it is pretty clear from how the US is set up that we have a strong federal overreach.

Re: Cannabis is legal in most US states but federal laws block businesses from banks

#169

Post by wonderwonder »

wyldfire wrote: post #119
gamegoblin wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the current fillibuster rules require a 60-40 supermajority to get anything done, but the fillubuster rule itself can be changed with a simple majority of 50%+1. But the incentive structure is not there to actually change this rule -- both parties benefit from it.

> both parties benefit from it. Is that really the case? It is a bias towards the status quo. Regardless, IMO the constituents represented by those parties don't benefit from it.

I've decided to actually base my vote on the status quo now. I want divided government because of how radicalized both parties have become. If something is very important, it will get votes from both parties. The current status quo is better than what either party wants

Re: Cannabis is legal in most US states but federal laws block businesses from banks

#170

Post by mgbmtl »

eldritch_4ier wrote: post #147
perardi wrote: post #141

This is frustrating, because I think it’s a near certainty marijuana will be legalized federally. If I was a betting man, which I’m not, certainly not enough to mess with prediction markets, I’d call myself 95% certain. All this ambiguity is just grinding inefficiency in the meantime. Look at all that states where this is legal or decriminalized: https://disa.com/maps/marijuana-legality-by-state And even in states wh…

I think right now is exactly where I want weed to be in society: a taboo, not normalized in the mainstream, you get in trouble if you’re stupid with it, but otherwise if you’re just an occasional user you can get it just fine. This is pretty much perfect to me. What I don’t want is broad normalization of it. Maybe some cultures do just fine with that, but the trend is America has been to maximize the individual liber…

I find that cultures who keep things as taboo tend to create a vicious cycle of education problems. Education does not encourage, it exposes both the good and the bad. You learn the navigate the problem instead of being trapped by it. I lost many friends to alcohol/drugs when it was more taboo but easy to access.

There was an old expression "say know to drugs". I spent a lot of time as a teen reading about various drugs and their effects. Ultimately, it made me stop exploring. Otherwise I probably would have taken way more risks (which I did before discovering sites such as Erowid back then).

I have a teenager, and so far so good. Whether it's fast-food, drugs, alcohol, sex or porn, they exist. My logic usually has been: 1) wait if you can, 2) be moderate, 3) know the good and the bad, learn to set boundaries.

My main grief is with alcohol. It's glorified, associated to socializing and sports. The bad impacts of alcohol are taboo, and yet they're everywhere, but it's a big business. I like a drink now and then, with my partner or with friends, but with my partner we have a hard boundary of 2 glasses per week each, and with friends it's max 3 pints, max twice per month. Cannabis twice per month, in small quantities.

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