Cannabis needs to be reclassified. I think this is the right thing to do, actually, but only if it came at the same time as reclassifying. This is a drug market that should be regulated, but not class 1.
Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill
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Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill
#32The alcohol lobbyists did this. > And in a letter Monday obtained by MJBizDaily, representatives from major alcohol lobbies urged senators to thwart Paul’s efforts. > His “shortsighted actions could threaten the delicately balanced deal to reopen the federal government,” a Nov. 10 letter from the American Distilled Spirits Alliance, Distilled Spirits Council, Wine Institute, Beer Institute and Wine America reads. htt…
The wealthy weed stock / dispensary people wanted it as much as anything else. Note many of the senators voting against the amendment to fix it, were pro-marijuana senators from legal weed states.
Hemp was a way for mom and pops to get in the game because the regulatory overhead was much lower. They were small private operators that could enter with low start-up costs, in a free-market like environment.
No one could have seriously thought it was going to last. The likes of Philip Morris type enterprises who pay a gazillion dollars for state dispensary licensing, state chain of custody, zoning, permits, state testing, etc are not going to just let some guy in his basement start shipping out THCa hemp with nothing more than a couple hundred dollars in capital and a Square terminal, no they're going to call on their contacts to ban it.
History shows us time and time again the state will destroy the free market and create regulations that don't actually help people but rather ensure the barriers are such that their wealthy friends will capture almost all the profits.
Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill
#33[deleted]
Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill
#34The Senate is fundamentally a ridiculous way of representing 350 million people and we’re going to continue to get absurd unrepresentative outcomes for as long as it remains a relevant body. There’s no getting around this and it will structurally just get worse and worse. Simply no way something like it exists 200 years from now, it is probably the biggest flaw in the US political structure right now.
My pet view is that the fundamental flaw in the Constitution is its decreasing ability to enable coordinated change as population grows and more states enter the Union. Thus, change becomes progressively more difficult over time, whereas changes are increasingly necessary as time passes. Yes, one of its main goals was to make change difficult. But political-party and legislator capture of the system has taken hold (e…
I can’t imagine the framers of the Constitution envisioned having 50 states, either.
26 Senators is a substantially different shape of legislative body than the current 100.
Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill
#35The Senate is fundamentally a ridiculous way of representing 350 million people and we’re going to continue to get absurd unrepresentative outcomes for as long as it remains a relevant body. There’s no getting around this and it will structurally just get worse and worse. Simply no way something like it exists 200 years from now, it is probably the biggest flaw in the US political structure right now.
Having the house capped is also ridiculous. My rep is also the rep for 750k+ other people. One person cannot represent a district that size appropriately at a federal level. They also cannot really respond to constituents properly either when they have that many.
For 2020 it was 761,169 and Wyoming, Vermont and Alaska have less population than that. They still get a Member and then they get two Senators. And they get three electoral votes.
Yeah, it's pretty messed up.
Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill
#36The Senate is fundamentally a ridiculous way of representing 350 million people and we’re going to continue to get absurd unrepresentative outcomes for as long as it remains a relevant body. There’s no getting around this and it will structurally just get worse and worse. Simply no way something like it exists 200 years from now, it is probably the biggest flaw in the US political structure right now.
Things would work if we weren’t so damn tribal and if extremists on both sides weren’t the ones defining the discussion.
Here is a video for us: https://youtu.be/mRtGg9F5xyA
Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill
#37Earlier quoted context omitted.
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many non-slavery parliamentary societies have bicameral legislature, why do you think that is considering they never considered counting their slaves...?
Not a historian, but some possibilities:
- some governments were explicitly modeled on the US system
- others were influenced by the US system as they moved from e.g. monarchies
- most countries have some sort of caste system that established interests want to preserve
Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill
#38The Senate is fundamentally a ridiculous way of representing 350 million people and we’re going to continue to get absurd unrepresentative outcomes for as long as it remains a relevant body. There’s no getting around this and it will structurally just get worse and worse. Simply no way something like it exists 200 years from now, it is probably the biggest flaw in the US political structure right now.
The senate kind of makes more sense the bigger the country is. You need something that essentially represents each whole state as a unit. This is also why they originally weren't directly elected.
When you consider that the OG federal government mostly dealt in issues that were common to the states or very clearly interstate the reason they chose the architecture they did for the senate seems even more sensible. They were meant to bicker about sending Marines to the desert and settling Ohio, not about how individuals could use certain plants (seems like a fitting example considering the source here) or the minutia of exactly what sort of infrastructure ought to get federal subsidy.
Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill
#39If you're anywhere near Cherokee, North Carolina ... it's definitely worth the drive / prices.
These natives certainly know what they're doing with their dependant-domestic sovereign nation.
Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill
#40One thing I think most Americans can agree on is that Congress is utterly useless.
We need to be careful with that sentiment. It plays into the hands of those who want to give the President and the current Supreme Court all the power. Congress was set up in the Constitution to be the branch that represents the people. It's supposed to be fully independent and wield the most power.