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Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

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Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#341

Post by gsf_emergency_4 »

oblio wrote: post #301
kyrra wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The problem is that proper legislation is a balance of interests and working through the details of the policy. If you put "abortion" on the ballot, what would that mean? There are a ton of different possible policies on what is or is not permissible.

Haven't the Swiss solved this? Maybe you Americans should figure out the first step of engineering, which is to look at existing solutions and learn from them :-p

The main thing the Swiss have that Americans don't are referendums that can seriously challenge federal action. And then there are the state versions of that. And they don't have to wait for "the cycle". Or have results made null by arbitrary veto powers.

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#342

Post by hemp_is_canvas »

Animats wrote: post #337

This corrects a drafting error. There were never supposed to be be products containing THC selling in gas stations.

This kills the entire hemp flower market.

Our state similarly tried to get it outlawed by using these excuses but ignoring the many shops where they are just selling quality product, not allowing kids, etc.

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#343

Post by adrr »

whimsicalism wrote: post #4

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.

Wasn't the senate just following the ask of 39 state Attorney Generals to close the loop hole on concentrated THC products made from hemp?

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#344

Post by bickfordb »

whimsicalism wrote: post #4

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.

Since changing the constitution is difficult, maybe a reasonable remedy to this would be to significantly increase the number of states by population. In 1776 there were 13 states with a total population of 2.5M. There are now 50 states (3.8x increase), with a total population of 340M (136x increase). If we increased the number of states proportionally to the population in 1776 that would result in ~1768 states, almost one for every two counties.

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#345

Post by johnnyanmac »

mothballed wrote: post #151
adamors wrote: post #68

Earlier quoted context omitted.

8 individual democrats, the exact number needed for the vote to pass, all of whom are either out the door or safe from reelection in 2026. Quite the coincidence.

I wonder what those 8 got in return? They are going to take a lot of flack, they must have demanded something. You don't get anywhere in politics by being the type of person who would just offer something for nothing.

They either aren't rerunning or aren't on the 2026 ballot. Some are taking an exit package. Others hope this blows over when 2028 or even 2030 come for reelection.

If you believe the commentary of one of the defectors, he said (Paraphrasing) "I got my first good sleep since the shutdown began... I didn't have to worry about people eyeing me as I walked into work". So if you take that at face value it was everyday interactions that had him fold. Easier to crush the hopes of the invisible population you represent than look uncouth to your visible peers.

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#346

Post by QuercusMax »

jdc0589 wrote: post #286
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vehemently disagree. I would much rather take our most contentious issues (abortion, M4A, etc) put them on a national ballot and let the general public decide. I don't agree with everything passed on ballot in my state, but I respect that at least the majority voted for it.

I agree. I don't, and never will, trust politicians (of any party) to actually represent their constituents accurately. I understand everything can't be a direct democracy, but we need some sort of a middle ground. It's really weird to think about. I am a straight white CIS male, with no extreme political or social views, my family has been in the US for 150 years, im financially well off, and I don't feel like I hav…

why do you write 'cis' in all caps? It's not any kind of acronym, initialism, or otherwise; it's a Latinate prefix.

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#347

Post by alistairSH »

pwg wrote: post #309
Y-bar wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The distinction I think that most people from outside of the US probably don't fully understand is that, unlike in a lot of countries, each state is its own economy, government, politics, etc. rather than one sort of unified government that covers the whole country. This is exactly how I see how my country and EU works. I feel like this is something I am intimately familiar with. > Thus comes the senate, where a ma…

> What mechanism causes the senate to be more resilient to those issues than a unified Congress? The Senate is limited to two seats per state. With the current 50 states, that makes 100 members. So only 51 seats need vote against a bill they feel would harm their states. As the Senate is divided up, a very populous state (California) receives two, just like a very small state (Delaware) receives two, so each is on "e…

Don't forget the filibuster - most votes actually require 60 Senators to pass.

For most day-to-day legislation, we can have 59% in favor and still have a deadlocked Senate. The House has no means to bypass/override the Senate.

But, that's probably a whole other topic and way in the weeds.

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#348

Post by cthalupa »

pwg wrote: post #288
Y-bar wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

(Non-American here). Couldn’t it also work by guaranteeing each state X seats and then the rest Y seats are set according to census data on population? For example a single house with 100 reserved seats, and on top of that one seat per 500k citizens?

You have essentially described the current US Senate/House as it was originally set out in the constitution. One group of limited seats, with equal seats per state (the Senate). This is the "guarantee of at least X seats" to each state part. A second group with the number of seats determined directly by population (the House). This is "the rest set ... according to census data on population". One big change along the…

> One big change along the way was an amendment that capped the size of the House at 435 members to avoid it growing ever larger as the population expanded. Now the 435 are allocated to the states based on population.

Thankfully, the Permanent Apportionment Act is not actually a constitutional amendment and could be corrected with the passing of legislation rather than needing to go through a full amendment process.

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#349

Post by QuercusMax »

lazide wrote: post #312
wing-_-nuts wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Vehemently disagree. I would much rather take our most contentious issues (abortion, M4A, etc) put them on a national ballot and let the general public decide. I don't agree with everything passed on ballot in my state, but I respect that at least the majority voted for it.

You have a huge, huge misunderstanding of how direct democracy turns out. Everyone with a job gets inundated with bullshit, even eventually stops showing up (or paying attention) because it’s impossible to live and actual do that. So then you end up with nut jobs doing whatever they want while having the votes because they are the only ones who show up at 11am on a Tuesday when the daily vote is happening. Apps just…

You seem to have a very particular idea of how direct democracy might be implemented; there's no reason it has to be "show up at 11am on a Tuesday".

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#350

Post by throwup238 »

dfxm12 wrote: post #150
bakies wrote: post #31

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.

People upthread are arguing about the senate as a system, but how much does that really matter when wildly popular things, like legalizing marijuana, are not even considered by anyone in congress? A majority of Americans are in favor of this, and have been for over a decade .

The DEA started hearings on rescheduling marijuana last year. It’s currently on hold pending an appeals court case.
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