US drug control agency will move to reclassify marijuana • Hacker News Board

Re: US drug control agency will move to reclassify marijuana

#441

Post by AnthonyMouse » Tue, Apr 30, 2024, 10:44 PM UTC

kstrauser wrote: post #431

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does that matter? You can convert Bitcoin into cash. But then you can do that in an undisclosed location at your leisure instead of keeping a mountain of cash in your publicly advertised storefront location and becoming a huge robbery target. Also, it doesn't seem like it would be that hard to find someone to accept it as payment, since they can convert it to cash too. And the sort of landlords/suppliers/employe…

All of the legit Bitcoin-to-cash orgs will report that to the IRS, and then you're back to square one: what do you do with that wad of cash? Orgs that don't report to the IRS probably aren't giving you a good exchange rate, and you're still left holding the bag afterward. If you're going through all that hassle, it's much easier just to be a cash-only business in the first place.

> you're back to square one: what do you do with that wad of cash?

Keep it in a safe somewhere undisclosed instead of a retail storefront everybody knows is holding a ton of cash, or spend it.

The point is that it moves the cash from the publicly visible location to somewhere nobody knows to rob.

Re: US drug control agency will move to reclassify marijuana

#442

Post by leptons » Tue, Apr 30, 2024, 10:44 PM UTC

bobthepanda wrote: post #184

andrewxdiamond wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A lot of them have wiggled around this problem by offering “atms” at the cash register. You pay with a debit card, but it’s not a normal transaction, it’s an ATM withdrawal! I don’t understand how the money is vended to the business, but it keeps it out of the store

there is still a lot of cash on site due to the presence of an ATM though, and in the cash registers. the primary problem is that weed shops are incredibly attractive robbery targets due to being one of the few businesses in 2024 that handle large amounts of cash.

> the primary problem is that weed shops are incredibly attractive robbery targets due to being one of the few businesses in 2024 that handle large amounts of cash.

It's also the product that's the target much of the time - it's got no serial numbers and it's light-weight, and easy to resell.

Re: US drug control agency will move to reclassify marijuana

#443

Post by AnthonyMouse » Tue, Apr 30, 2024, 10:44 PM UTC

paulddraper wrote: post #440

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does that matter? You can convert Bitcoin into cash. But then you can do that in an undisclosed location at your leisure instead of keeping a mountain of cash in your publicly advertised storefront location and becoming a huge robbery target. Also, it doesn't seem like it would be that hard to find someone to accept it as payment, since they can convert it to cash too. And the sort of landlords/suppliers/employe…

And for all that convenience, each BTC transaction costs only $7 !

So use Bitcoin Cash or any of the other alternatives with lower transaction fees.

Re: US drug control agency will move to reclassify marijuana

#444

Post by paulddraper » Tue, Apr 30, 2024, 10:45 PM UTC

AndrewKemendo wrote: post #258

There you have it, the administrator themselves saying they believe in myths about cannabis: It’s a gateway drug; while simultaneously ignoring that the drug killing people, fent has a perfectly causal gateway drug in vicodin/percs > Jack Riley, a former deputy administrator of the DEA, said he had concerns about the proposed change because he thinks marijuana remains a possible “gateway drug,” one that may lead to t…

Vicodin/percs also require prescriptions tho.

Not so much of a gotcha.

Re: US drug control agency will move to reclassify marijuana

#445

Post by paulddraper » Tue, Apr 30, 2024, 10:45 PM UTC

paxys wrote: post #128

colpabar wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What bothers me is that all these things are only happening because it's an election year and the incumbent doesn't have great polling numbers.

Well, politicians doing what people want in order to get reelected is kinda the point of democracy.

Yeah, if only every year were election year....

Re: US drug control agency will move to reclassify marijuana

#446

Post by AnthonyMouse » Tue, Apr 30, 2024, 10:47 PM UTC

buildsjets wrote: post #430

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #414

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What does that matter? You can convert Bitcoin into cash. But then you can do that in an undisclosed location at your leisure instead of keeping a mountain of cash in your publicly advertised storefront location and becoming a huge robbery target. Also, it doesn't seem like it would be that hard to find someone to accept it as payment, since they can convert it to cash too. And the sort of landlords/suppliers/employe…

No sane person uses Bitcoin as a currency because it is a fundamentally unsound ponzi scheme for suckers. I don't want my salary to be subject to the vagaries and manipulations of the Bitcoin exchange rate.

If you don't want to hold Bitcoin or be exposed to price changes, you can set your hourly rate in dollars, be paid at the current exchange rate and immediately convert it back into dollars. The advantage of this over being paid in physical cash is that it's electronic and then you're not carrying two weeks salary in physical cash on your person for somebody to mug you.

Re: US drug control agency will move to reclassify marijuana

#447

Post by andrewxdiamond » Tue, Apr 30, 2024, 10:47 PM UTC

czscout wrote: post #419

andrewxdiamond wrote: post #417

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nope. ATM withdrawal. My bank even reimburses the ATM fee associated with it

An ATM withdrawal with a credit card is a cash advance.

Oh my bad, read the question wrong. They just don’t support CCs. Debit only

Re: US drug control agency will move to reclassify marijuana

#448

Post by paulddraper » Tue, Apr 30, 2024, 10:47 PM UTC

ugh123 wrote: post #304

America should have a long hard look at why it takes so long to do something that would have been considered "reasonable" by most of the country 15 years ago.

But that's factually untrue.

Gallup polled support for legalization being in the minority, as recently as 2010. [1]

Now factor in the demographics of voters vs adults in general, and the timeline is the opposite of surprising.

[1] New High of 46% of Americans Support Legalizing Marijuana https://news.gallup.com/poll/144086/new-high-americans-suppo...

Re: US drug control agency will move to reclassify marijuana

#449

Post by leptons » Tue, Apr 30, 2024, 10:50 PM UTC

ncr100 wrote: post #75

mannyv wrote: post #56

One major effect of this is that weed stores will be able to use banks and payment processors legally once the regulators catch up.

THEREFORE they will be able to move CASH money out of their stores TO BANKS, resulting in fewer "smash and grab" incidents ... aka, "Hyundai meet storefront of weed shop." Looking forward to this, silly to see so many Kia "boys" being used for gross violence crimes when regulation changes could lessen it. > https://www.king5.com/article/news/crime/seattle-pot-shop-cr... for example

First line in your link:

>"The owner says around $15,000 of products and items were stolen from the store."

It doesn't mention anything about cash.

"Smash and grab" in weed shops doesn't usually have much to do with having piles of cash sitting around (though I'm sure that might happen too) - it's the product that thieves want to steal because it's got no serial numbers, it's pretty light-weight and easy to run out with thousands of dollars worth of product, and it's easy to resell.

If there's any cash in the register that's often secondary to grabbing a few pounds of high-quality product. 3 pounds of high quality weed can be valued at $20k. I doubt there's that much in the cash register at the end of the day, and good luck getting into the safe. It's much easier to run out with 3 pounds of weed.

Re: US drug control agency will move to reclassify marijuana

#450

Post by tstrimple » Tue, Apr 30, 2024, 10:50 PM UTC

cogman10 wrote: post #407

dingnuts wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the wording of the questions aren't good, but the states that have recently banned it certainly seem to be catering to the 13% who say illegal under all circumstances, due to the extremeness of the actual laws passed before Roe was overturned I would have considered myself pro life because I don't believe in late term abortions, but with the new legal landscape I've become effectively pro choice because the new laws…

> pro life because I don't believe in late term abortions So something that you'd probably be interested in are the turn away studies. https://www.ansirh.org/research/ongoing/turnaway-study The studies ask questions of people seeking abortions who ultimately can't because the law prohibits their abortion (usually because they waited too long). One interesting finding of this study is that a big reason people wait too…

> One interesting finding of this study is that a big reason people wait too long is because getting to an abortion clinic is just too hard. In the Roe world, in some very large states like Texas there were just 1 or 2 abortion clinics for the entire state.

This is part of the strategy against abortion. Make unreasonably short abortion windows (six weeks is often before many women even determine that they are pregnant) coupled with restrictive regulations designed to make the process as difficult and long as possible including multiple visits and mandatory waiting times. Throw on top of that the attacks on the few places which provide these services and you've got a situation that makes it extremely difficult for anyone not wealthy to get a legal abortion.