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Alaskans vote to legalize marijuana

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Re: Alaskans vote to legalize marijuana

#81
post #7

Here's an interesting piece of the Alaska marijuana legal status. We just voted to legalize recreational marijuana use, which includes growing and selling marijuana. I'm happy to see it pass because possession has been legal here for a long time, but sales and distribution has not. That's a murky legal situation, which I'm happy to see cleared up. But last night an article ran in our local paper stating that the Coas…

I didn't think drug enforcement was a duty of the Coast Guard. Usually anything related to cargo and crew is the CBP's responsibility, while the Coast Guard is about safety (life-jackets and -boats, certifications, search and rescue, etc.).

Around here, Southern California, the Coast Guard regularly does drug interdiction duty. The boating safety stuff is usually done by the Harbor Patrol/Sheriff's Department.

Re: Alaskans vote to legalize marijuana

#83
post #7

Here's an interesting piece of the Alaska marijuana legal status. We just voted to legalize recreational marijuana use, which includes growing and selling marijuana. I'm happy to see it pass because possession has been legal here for a long time, but sales and distribution has not. That's a murky legal situation, which I'm happy to see cleared up. But last night an article ran in our local paper stating that the Coas…

While this may technically be true, in practice the feds aren't going to charge you for personal possession unless they're specifically targeting you for some other reason. IIRC the feds usually don't charge you unless you have more than 100 kilograms.

Re: Alaskans vote to legalize marijuana

#84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

@metrix many prisons are run by for-profit companies. It costs the taxpayers a lot, but there is profit to be made, and some elected officials benefit at least indirectly. edit: awkward wording

>many prisons are run by for-profit companies. Citation for the "Many"? Only about 5% of prisoners are in private prisons.

I've got 8.4% (2013 U.S. DOJ statistics) via WikiPedia

Re: Alaskans vote to legalize marijuana

#85
This is very interesting considering Alaska has some strict alcohol laws. There are many areas that are completely dry, and alcohol is very expensive (black market). It's generally this way due to crime and abuse.

Will these areas kneejerk the same restrictions with marijuana, or will they wait to see how the community reacts?

/serious off

It's illegal to give a moose alcohol in Fairbanks: http://www.legalsource360.com/index.php/strange-laws-in-alas... Hope they're not left out, again.

Re: Alaskans vote to legalize marijuana

#86

I still find it very strange that California wasn't one of the first states to legalize marijuana. Now there are three states ahead. EDIT: Looking at the results, these counties that voted 'No' surprised me Los Angeles County (Los Angeles, Long Beach, Glendale, Santa Clarita, Pomona, Palmdale, Pasadena, Torrance, Inglewood, Burbank, Carson, Santa Monica etc.) Santa Clara County (San Jose, Santa Clara, Cupertino, Gilr…

Four, actually (or five including DC): Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Alaska, and DC.

Re: Alaskans vote to legalize marijuana

#87
post #78

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US government is a pretty big boat and takes a while to turn around. You have to have patience and a longer view, but change does happen. In 2012 it was two states. Now it's four. We're getting there.

The issue at the Federal level is not too long ago the US went around bullying UN nations into signing a unified drug treaty which is in effect for I believe 90 years. The idea was that if all countries agree on banning certain drugs, it can have a more unified effort in eradicating said drugs. It mostly targeted hard drugs, but marijuana is also named in the treaty. It would be very difficult for the US to back out…

That's a very good point - it's the basic reason that Obama can't 'end the drug war with a stroke of his pen' as some people seem to imagine, because treaties ratified by the US have almost constitutional standing in legal terms, and need to be formally derogated rather than legislated away. While the US could certainly do so without suffering meaningful sanctions or major geopolitical harm over the long term, indifference to treaty obligations is often the hallmark of an insular political viewpoint - but then such people also tend to be uninterested in the ramifications for international trade and cross-border institutions in the first place.

That said, the SCND dates back to 1961 which was 53 years ago, and those countries which have openly stepped back from full compliance with it such as Portugal and Uruguay don't seem to have incurred any disadvantage or sanctions worth talking about, though you might argue that they had little or no political capital to lose in the first place. I do think there's a global shift towards looking at drug abuse and addiction as public health issues rather than moral vices, so while there's pressure form some quarters to maintain or strengthen anti-drug enforcement there's also pressure to adopt more utilitarian policies focused on harm minimization and demand management.

I think the convention will not be explicitly derogated any time soon, but will rather be allowed to become a dead letter through diminished contributions of fiscal and political capital for enforcement, while being nominally and loudly upheld by more authoritarian regimes as both a blunt instrument in trade negotiations and as a proxy for the rule of law.

Re: Alaskans vote to legalize marijuana

#88
post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would it depress prices for other crops? The economic phenomena you're describing is called "replacement" but it's not like farmers aren't growing opium poppies because cannabis is so easy to grow.

Cannabis and opium poppies cannot be used to produce the same end-product. From what I understand, hemp can replace cotton in most end-products; being much easier to grow (and hence cheaper / more plentiful), it could potentially flood markets earlier reserved to cotton, hence depressing prices. Say you have two farmers; one grows cannabis, the other cotton. Because cannabis is easier to grow, the cannabis farmer has…

That's not quite the case though. Hemp is a member of the cannabis plant family, but it's very low in THC (the active ingredient in the recreational type of cannabis). In other words, industrial cannabis (hemp) and recreational cannabis are two different plants. The farmer would be growing for one side of the market.

Re: Alaskans vote to legalize marijuana

#90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I believe they're referring to the private prison industry, which makes a pretty penny off locking up non-violent drug offenders. Their trade organization listed liberalizing drug laws as a potential threat to their bottom line in their last annual report, so we can expect that they will fiercely lobby against anything happening at a federal level.

I feel like this situation is overstated a lot. Something like 8% of prisoners in the US are in privately run prisons, which could be a problem, but it's not the massive number that is often implied.

That's true, but 8% of anything in the US is a lot. There's roughly 2.2 million prisoners so maybe 200k of them are held in private prisons. And as someone points out upthread, when you add in all that prison-building, the firms that deliver services tot he corrections market and so on, it adds up to a lot of economic activity.
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