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Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

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Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#461

Post by ls612 »

linkregister wrote: post #398
missingcolours wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only indirectly (see other comment). In 2018 a provision was attached to the Farm Bill to legalize "hemp". The public and presumably the senators were led to believe this was about legalizing textiles and things like that, not drugs. It turned out that the language actually legalized delta-8 too. Many people were displeased with that outcome, because in many states it's completely unregulated with no additional taxes…

This is a perfect example of the opportunity for federalism. Any state could —and many did— close the loophole. You mentioned emergency regulation from the Texas governor. New recreational substances are discovered and introduced to market continuously. States can use their legislative authority to address them. Delta-9, Spice, and other delta-8 THC analogues have been successfully addressed by states. The side effec…

But I’m not aware of many (any?) states that chose to close the loophole with a ban. Most, even ruby red Texas, just passed a state regulatory regime that included testing and taxation, as well as a 21 year old cutoff for buyers.

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#462

Post by AngryData »

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.

I could say the same thing about the House of Reps, which has been frozen since 1929 and represents 3x more people per politician than it did then, is not equally distributed, and holds far more power and rights today than it ever did in the past.

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#463

Post by asveikau »

cthalupa wrote: post #458
asveikau wrote: post #456

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most senators who vote on this bill are not voting on the basis of the hemp thing in either direction. That's why all the headlines are about the tactic of sneaking it into a "too big to fail" budget bill.

There was an opportunity for this bit to be removed from the bill. 76 of 100 voted to keep it. This, is like, literally the entire point of discussion in this part of the thread? I don't understand where your confusion lies.

Are you saying it was an amendment? That it not what I get from this or any articles I've seen about it.

TFA:

> On Sunday, Senate leadership inserted a hemp-recriminalization clause into the must-pass funding bill

> ...

> Not a standalone bill. Not a debate on cannabis reform.

Seems like it wasn't a full Senate vote on a specific amendment, but the bill as a whole. I've elsewhere seen it stated as McConnell acting alone.

Edit: as I googled around, I found that Rand Paul attempted to use an amendment to remove the language, and it failed. But people vote on amendments for all sorts of strategic reasons. For example maybe they felt the amendment would kill the bill, because house and senate bills need to match, and the terms had already been negotiated.

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#464

Post by rootusrootus »

unethical_ban wrote: post #410
rootusrootus wrote: post #374

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> ability to overrule congress at a whim That can be stopped easily enough. The Constitution makes it clear that Congress is the ultimate source of power; the SCOTUS power of judicial review was granted to itself by itself. Congress can (and has, a few times, though not often) make legislation not subject to judicial review.

The problem is that it is far, far more difficult for the legislature to "fix" a decision by SCOTUS than it is for SCOTUS to "fix" an unconstitutional law. Supermajorities in both houses + 3/4 of the states is unlikely to ever happen again unless we face an existential threat or civil conflict.

> Supermajorities in both houses + 3/4 of the states is unlikely to ever happen

I agree, we seem to have perfected the art of splitting of the population into fairly stable tribes similar in size. Unless one side goes batshit insane (and even then, I think current evidence counters this idea) there is probably not going to be a supermajority in the foreseeable future.

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#465

Post by cthalupa »

asveikau wrote: post #463
cthalupa wrote: post #458

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There was an opportunity for this bit to be removed from the bill. 76 of 100 voted to keep it. This, is like, literally the entire point of discussion in this part of the thread? I don't understand where your confusion lies.

Are you saying it was an amendment? That it not what I get from this or any articles I've seen about it. TFA: > On Sunday, Senate leadership inserted a hemp-recriminalization clause into the must-pass funding bill > ... > Not a standalone bill. Not a debate on cannabis reform. Seems like it wasn't a full Senate vote on a specific amendment, but the bill as a whole. I've elsewhere seen it stated as McConnell acting al…

Rand Paul's vote was, like, specifically for this, and the house is clamoring for the hemp stuff even less.

This is Mitch McConnell's crusade.

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#466

Post by JumpCrisscross »

wat10000 wrote: post #442
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We just had the federal government shut down for six weeks because the Senate is broken You could turn the Senate into a purely-representative body and you'd still have the same problem. You could abolish the Senate and have a unicameral House. But then we'd never have survived 250 years as a democracy. (What do you think Mike Johnson and Trump with unilateral power would have done over the last 6 months?) > I don'…

The fact that the Senate can't pass things without a 60% majority, despite that not being a thing in the constitution, is just another facet of its undemocratic nature. The body has decided for itself, no matter what the people want or what the constitution says. And this is definitely not a necessary aspect of the system. Even if you want to argue that the Senate itself is essential, the ridiculous modern filibuster…

> body has decided for itself, no matter what the people want or what the constitution says

All representative bodies have rules. They have to in order to function. The House, like the Senate, has rules. And both of them can amend them by simple majority.

(Until recently, the public didn't have a particular opinion on the filibuster [1].)

> the ridiculous modern filibuster demonstrably is not, since it only became this way in recent decades

Sure. Agreed. I'd honestly argue the concept of shutting down the government is dumber and setting a debt ceiling for already-appropriated and spent funds is unconstitutional.

> curious what you think Johnson and Trump would have done over the last 6 months without the Senate

All the crap Trump is doing by fiat would have been passed into law. That, in turn, would strongly reduce the ability for the courts to call foul.

> if we had the Senate rules from thirty years ago the Senate wouldn't stand in their way either

The filibuster has only been invoked this session around this budget dispute.

A fundamental aspects that makes the Senate different is each Senator is elected by more people, and thus must cater to more-diverse interests, than a Congressman, and they have longer terms. That means more people in the Senate must think about how what they're doing today will look after 2028.

[1] https://navigatorresearch.org/three-in-four-americans-feel-g...

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#467

Post by harshreality »

dangus wrote: post #128
dehrmann wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> This idea that a large amount of representatives can’t govern is plainly false. Design by committee is a well-known failure mode. I'd argue that once the size of the house (or maybe one party's seats) gets past Dunbar's number, the house becomes less effective.

I’d argue the opposite. Congress could use more members so that it can have more sub-committees to craft legislation with more detail and taking on a larger number of issues with more precision. There could be sub-committees dedicated to a larger quantity of issues and addressing more industries. Your argument would be like if you were expecting Apple to only hire 100 engineers to write software for the huge product…

Very few legislators have expertise in anything except demagoguery, pandering, and graft. Having more of them to form more subcommittees to mess up more areas of the law... no thanks.

We need merit-selected technical committees of non-representatives to advise politicians and tell them clearly, in as much detail as necessary, when they're wrong on something. If the politicians don't listen, the technical committees should be independent and able to make their case on the internet and social media.

Implementing that would be difficult. The metric for merit is a challenge, and is itself easily coopted by politics. For example, China's vaunted "political meritocracy" is ultimately controlled by party leaders in the CCP, so it's basically a meritocracy for the CCP-aligned, not a meritocracy for anyone else. If a government's goals contradict facts-on-the-ground, the government will find a way to skew an "independent" technical committee to suppress those facts.

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#468

Post by pogue »

somehnguy wrote: post #411
pogue wrote: post #133

Contact your representatives and let them know this is BS. [1] When Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott was trying to ban that same "loophole" the business community had time to organize & lobby against it, but in addition, regular citizens sent in over 120k letters, there's footage of people moving boxes and boxes of letters into his office. [2] In the end, he folded and kept the law as it was despite a pretty big push from his…

It's infuriating to take the time to draft & send a thought out email to my representatives only to receive a canned email 8 months later. Most of the time the response is even something like "ok cool opinion but I believe the opposite so bummer" (obviously exaggerated but the meaning is identical). I will try a letter at some point, email feels completely useless.

Time is of the essence, so I might just have a chatbot draft me something quickly and edit it or rewrite it to more what I want to say. Just emphasize the main points that even the linked article mentions - hugely bad for business, loss of taxes, bad for veterans, people will just go back to the black market for their needs, etc. I'm kind of surprised I'm not finding sites like NORML have any of those "take action" forms on their site you just fill in and it sends it out to all your representatives automatically.

Regardless, it doesn't need to be something you spend hours pouring your heart into.

Some representatives respond differently than others. I've gotten boilerplate letters back, and I've even had phone calls back with someone from their office. It really just depends.

EDIT: It's already been signed into law, so now they have 1 year to try and remedy the situation... :(

Trump Signs Bill To Recriminalize Hemp THC Products, Years After Approving Their Legalization https://www.marijuanamoment.net/congress-passes-bill-to-recr...

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#469

Post by jjk166 »

ApolloFortyNine wrote: post #389

Where'd all this abolish the senate nonsense come from recently? I get people have been complaining about 'flyover' states for a while now, but the Republicans also have the majority in the House at the moment. At least wait until the House doesn't represent the current majority party in the Senate (like it almost certainly will again eventually) to make that argument. I'm mildly worried that it's just an attempt to…

The Senate has been nothing but a non-population-proportional version of the House since the 17th amendment. The House was supposed to give voice to the people while the Senate saw to the needs of the nation. The requirement for the house and senate to work together would balance these often competing needs. Direct election of senators is a worst of both worlds situation - democracy where some people's votes count for more than others. Since the 17th amendment was ratified, the legislature has ceded tremendous power to the executive and judiciary as it has become steadily more ineffectual, and public perception of the institution has plummeted. This has only accelerated in recent decades. Abolishing the senate is only one potential form that reform could take, but I don't know how anyone could look at the current situation and not see the need for some type of reform to get the legislative branch back on track.

Re: Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill

#470

Post by henryfjordan »

cthalupa wrote: post #443
henryfjordan wrote: post #434

Earlier quoted context omitted.

oh, I didn't know that. That's even more nefarious than I thought. Thanks for the info!

I'm not sure I understand how this is particularly nefarious. It complies with the law as written, and results in a significantly better product for those choosing to consume it.

If it was a textile-style-hemp farmer getting the last few bucks out of their crop via a loophole, that I can understand. Not great, but I can rationalize it.

Someone growing the same plant that is regulated by California but decides they don't need testing or licenses is just plain anti-social. You can't not know you're doing something wrong in that case.

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