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NY Comptroller: Legalise marijuana, tax it and end wrongheaded war on pot

theguardian.com

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Re: NY Comptroller: Legalise marijuana, tax it and end wrongheaded war on pot

#111

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

alan_cx wrote: post #52

What I want to know is why governments support all illegal drug dealing, and dont get a cut of the action themselves. The illegality is pretty much what makes it profitable. All the "war" on drugs does is keep the prices up. Mean while the government just pours our tax money down the drain, get zero in return. Legalize it and the government can tax it. Dealers get wiped out, and with them, a lot of the violence. The…

>What I want to know is why governments support all illegal drug dealing, and dont get a cut of the action themselves

They do get a cut. Property forfeiture, among other things. Right now I am reading Balko's "The Rise of the Warrior Cop" and McCoy's "The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade" You'd probably be amazed. I am.

Re: NY Comptroller: Legalise marijuana, tax it and end wrongheaded war on pot

#112

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

adventured wrote: post #78
alan_cx wrote: post #52

What I want to know is why governments support all illegal drug dealing, and dont get a cut of the action themselves. The illegality is pretty much what makes it profitable. All the "war" on drugs does is keep the prices up. Mean while the government just pours our tax money down the drain, get zero in return. Legalize it and the government can tax it. Dealers get wiped out, and with them, a lot of the violence. The…

It's considered a conspiracy theory, but many people do believe the government takes a cut of the drug trade. That money would be far more valuable than normal tax dollars because a small group would get to control it without any oversight or tax distribution (off the books it could be used for anything). I believe the Federal Government will only legalize pot under one of two circumstances: 1) it becomes more profit…

It is a fairly well documented theory. See: "The Politics of Heroin: CIA Complicity in the Global Drug Trade" by Alfred McCoy.

See also: Iran Contra

Re: NY Comptroller: Legalise marijuana, tax it and end wrongheaded war on pot

#113

Post by oleganza »

bad_user wrote: post #109
oleganza wrote: post #98

Earlier quoted context omitted.

First, laws, guns and police are much more excellent opportunities to abuse power and already attract all sorts of sadists and psychopaths. Second, there is no "giving power" anywhere in the voluntary agreements. Your water will be turned off only if your water supplier thinks it's more profitable to please some insured customers than not piss you off. If they turn your water off unreasonably, they risk losing client…

> If they turn your water off unreasonably, they risk losing clients No, they risk getting sued. If my water company decided one day to turn off my water based on some bullshit claim of one of my neighbours, I would sue the shit out of them. There are such things as contracts and consumer protection laws you know. As a disclaimer, I live in Romania, Europe and what you're describing wouldn't be possible here. But it'…

I'm from Russia and live in France. I don't care about drugs, I care about people not bullying each other over unproved made-up values and ideals.

When I talk about insurance, I talk about voluntary agreements. About giving as much "power" to insurance company as you want. If they suddenly begin carrying guns and threatening people instead of having peaceful arrangements, customers will go away and all the funding for weapons will quickly end (or they won't, it's their choice). Also keep in mind that any enterprise needs savers who will invest their hard-earned money. They wouldn't like to gamble with a risk of losing all their money and customers by doing something people wouldn't like. Like shooting, killing, spying.

If you say that your ideal is being able to "sue" someone, what you are really saying is that you wish to use unilateral violent power to be directed on someone you disagree with. Now you have a problem. Because you won't be able to control that power. You'd either have to become part of that power (and fight hard with other such ruthless guys), or stay away from it and watch it being used upon you too whether you like it or not. Courts, police and politicians are not enterprise: they didn't have voluntarily invested private money that feeds them. They first take the money from every person by force, then decide what they want to do with it. This makes the whole motivational structure reversed and inherently abusive.

So fuck that shit. As I mentioned many times again on HN, pro-government or pro-law rhetoric is no different from religious bullshit that one group of people uses on another group of people at the expense of someone else.

"Without religion and church there's no morality" => "without government we'll have anarchic chaos"

"You must trust pope because he's set here by God" => "You must trust mr. president because there is society that elected him"

"If god does not exist, who created everything?" => "Without government how would we build roads and fly to the moon?"

"The Bible says what's good and what's bad" => "The constitution defines our rights."

"If you are against religion, you are against morality" => "If you are against government, you are against society".

Re: NY Comptroller: Legalise marijuana, tax it and end wrongheaded war on pot

#114

Post by arbuge »

bjourne wrote: post #106
616c wrote: post #44

As someone with a friend who, in a different state and different circumstances, foolishly was detained on a road trip in a state with a strict no-tolerance policy, was subsequently arrested and tried by some small prick DA in the middle of nowehre to teach a lesson with his "sorry, I don't make exceptions because we want to look hard on drugs" apologism, I hope decriminalization succeeds at least in the short term. T…

Why don't employers want to hire people who have smoked weed?

Criminal records never look good on a background check. For a substance which is probably less dangerous than cigarettes and alcohol, they shouldn't be there in the first place. Regulate it like cigarettes and alcohol, but don't criminalize it.

Re: NY Comptroller: Legalise marijuana, tax it and end wrongheaded war on pot

#115

Post by fnordfnordfnord »

bjourne wrote: post #108
newnewnew wrote: post #2

It looks like hacker news is in favor of legalizing marijuana.

Rather that those who themselves use marijuana is much more likely to comment and be in favor of legalization. It doesn't tell you anything about the "silent majority." Then HN:s up & down-vote system means your comments are likely to be downvoted in spite if you voice concerns.

I'm not a pot user (though I have tried it). I favor legalization of most drugs (also not a user of those drugs). Imprisonment of drug offenders is horrible, counter-productive, and expensive tactic for dealing with social issues (I was a prison guard for a few years, too).

PS I rarely downvote anyone to spite them solely for their opinion.

Re: NY Comptroller: Legalise marijuana, tax it and end wrongheaded war on pot

#116

Post by arbuge »

uptown wrote: post #45

Liu is running for mayor, losing badly, and fishing for votes. His campaign treasurer and a fundraiser were also convicted on fraud charges for fabricating donor information. http://gothamist.com/2013/05/02/john_lius_ex-campaign_treasu...

Even a broken clock can be right twice a day though.

Re: NY Comptroller: Legalise marijuana, tax it and end wrongheaded war on pot

#117

Post by brazzy »

bjourne wrote: post #106
616c wrote: post #44

As someone with a friend who, in a different state and different circumstances, foolishly was detained on a road trip in a state with a strict no-tolerance policy, was subsequently arrested and tried by some small prick DA in the middle of nowehre to teach a lesson with his "sorry, I don't make exceptions because we want to look hard on drugs" apologism, I hope decriminalization succeeds at least in the short term. T…

Why don't employers want to hire people who have smoked weed?

They don't care what the "crime" was, a criminal record just disqualifies you. It's the same kind of HR idiocy that would forego hiring someone who has 5 years of Rails experience but did not list HTML as a skill, because HTML is in the checklist.

Re: NY Comptroller: Legalise marijuana, tax it and end wrongheaded war on pot

#118

Post by Zigurd »

tzs wrote: post #70
Zigurd wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I painted it as illegitimate because it is. ONDCP does propaganda, not science.

http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/08/22/1206820109.abst...

Subsequently debunked as an uncontrolled study. That's a prime example of the kind of research and researchers bought by ONDCP.

Re: NY Comptroller: Legalise marijuana, tax it and end wrongheaded war on pot

#119

Post by CJefferson »

rubyn00bie wrote: post #21
pr0xy wrote: post #12

If they did legalize it, what would happen to the thousands sitting in jail / probation for pot offenses. Oh were sry, it's ok now?

I dont mean to say you are insinuating the following, but i feel it is important to say: Is that reason enough to keep them there? Isn't it better to do the right* thing at some point, than do the wrong thing forever? Should an innocent man be sentenced to death, if at some point before his extinction from this earth, we find out the truth? Asking for forgiveness, and admitting the wrong had been done, is and will al…

    It is one of the safest substances for humans to ingest on the planet.... (long term smoking effects not included).
That is a pretty big exception.

Re: NY Comptroller: Legalise marijuana, tax it and end wrongheaded war on pot

#120

Post by mason55 »

uptown wrote: post #45

Liu is running for mayor, losing badly, and fishing for votes. His campaign treasurer and a fundraiser were also convicted on fraud charges for fabricating donor information. http://gothamist.com/2013/05/02/john_lius_ex-campaign_treasu...

Hopefully the pushes De Blasio further in the legalization direction. As of now he's waffling on even medical marijuana and he's actually the most conservative of all the Democratic candidates when it comes to marijuana reform. It's interesting that Speak Quinn is so liberal on the matter given her ties to Commissioner Kelly and her love of Stop n Frisk
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