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Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

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51–60 of 583 posts

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#51

The 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…

This wasn't "suposed" to be an issue because the federal government was only really supposed to meddle in things that were obviously common issues or flagrantly interstate.

But now that it's in the business of taking everyone's money via income tax and then dolling it back out to the state to spend with strings attached (which is basically how the bulk of the non-entitlements, non-military money gets spent) the minutia of federal regulation matters far more.

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#52
post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

many non-slavery parliamentary societies have bicameral legislature, why do you think that is considering they never considered counting their slaves...?

Non-proportionately? For example the Netherlands has a senate but the weight of senators per province is set by population. They don't let Saba have equal powers with Utrecht, which is exactly what the American system does. Other Anglosphere countries — all of which have exceptionally bad forms of government due to the legacy of England and the early influence of the United States Constitution — have upper houses that do not have America's weird geographic correspondece.

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#53
post #17

The 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.

But 5,000 representatives can't run a country, either.

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#55

Even the legal weed state senators were voting for this. It is mostly about shifting profits from mom and pop, low regulation hemp industry to wealthy corporations that own dispensaries that have gargantuan regulatory costs that gatekeep out most the competition. This ensures profits are captured by the wealthy rather than small family type setups. Wealthy former hemp companies will shift to the "legal" weed market,…

Corporations are eroding democracy with their powerful lobbies. They have too much money and influence. And yet too much of the electorate has been convinced it's good for the economy to just let them and the super rich have free reign.

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#57

The 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…

So the senate is sort of a house of lords?

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#58
This is a weird one. It absolutely should not be haphazardly added as a rider. The 0.4 per container is also insane. But, this really was an unintended loophole of the 2018 farm bill. Most plants grow THCa, which turns into Delta-9 when heated. They were ignorant and straight up forgot to specify anything except Delta-9.

Cannabis is a bioremediator and absorbs basically every environmental toxin from the ground (pesticides, heavy metals, etc.). Extraction (for CBD and THC oil) increases the concentration of any present toxins.

The only way you know of the problem is by thoroughly testing every batch. Pesticides that are safe at low levels can get concentrated and become really problematic at high levels.

States where marijuana is legal require all of this testing, so the products are much safer. Hemp-derived THC does not require these tests. (Same is true for CBD, but that's a while other conversation...)

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#59
post #28
post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Always amazes me that we allow multiple bills to be packaged together. Needs to be one bill = 1 vote. Not hundreds/thousands of pages of bills no one will read all rushed through because funding.

To do so you need an effective bureaucracy to which the legislature can delegate authority, otherwise there are too many details to be passed in bills. But the revanchist Roberts court has said that bureaucratic powers do not exist, the executive can only do things that are expressly enumerated by Congress and Congress can delegate nothing.

>To do so you need an effective bureaucracy to which the legislature can delegate authority, otherwise there are too many details to be passed in bills. But the revanchist Roberts court has said that bureaucratic powers do not exist,

And your way would be better? All laws defined and redefined by bureaucracies in committees behind closed doors?

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#60
I've been a regular consumer of the results of this since about 2020 when I discovered it. It's been quite the journey watching the industry boom and evolve and get better and better.

I've seen an incredible incredible amount of ignorance on this topic. Prior to this, I found 1 comment on HN mentioning this last night. On reddit, it's not on the frontpage of r/politics, r/moderatepolitics or anything relevant. I can find it on r/news but like every other thread not a single person is mentioning something very factual.

Rand tried to stop this provision in the Senate. 76/100 senators voted for this ban to remain. 76 senators from across the political spectrum, from every state have decided to secretly try to destroy a $30b industry, 300,000 jobs, and a lot of lives.

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