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Alaskans vote to legalize marijuana

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Re: Alaskans vote to legalize marijuana

#111

Post by mturmon »

sliverstorm wrote: post #107
chaostheory wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't feel that growers currently have much voting power or even enough money to influence elections.

Maybe not the growers themselves, but there's a lot of money there, and I guarantee somewhere along the line it flows through the hands of people with wealth & power to protect.

Not yet, in CA. That time will come, but in 2010 (Prop. 19) the growers and vendors were not organized enough to make anything happen. The inevitable consolidation has still not occurred in 2014, but you're right, it will eventually.

Re: Alaskans vote to legalize marijuana

#112

Post by mason240 »

trhway wrote: post #103
mason240 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

if you add prison guards unions - which are formally non-profit, and that only means that they have no taxes to pay and they have nobody else to give the formal profit away, and as result they have all the money they collect to themselves - you'd get pretty much 100% of US prisons run by organizations with direct financial interests in growing the prisons in size and number.

By that logic, wouldn't every part of government with unions be "run by organizations with direct financial interests in growing...?"

That seems like it would be a union problem and not a prison problem.

Re: Alaskans vote to legalize marijuana

#113

Post by ams6110 »

themartorana wrote: post #99
mikeash wrote: post #77

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Marijuana laws are up to Congress, not the executive. They have discretion in how they enforce the laws to an extent, but they shouldn't just ignore them.

Congress makes the laws, the Executive enforces them, SCOTUS determines their Constitutionality. So in fact, one check that the Executive can have on the Legislative is in not enforcing laws.

There is an obligation on the part of the executive to enforce the laws passed by congress. The constitution requires that he "take care that the laws be faithfully executed." Clearly there's some room for prioritization and allocation of scarce resources but he can't just ignore them. The Executive's check on the legislative branch is the veto power.

Re: Alaskans vote to legalize marijuana

#114

Post by binarycrusader »

Alupis wrote: post #78
munificent wrote: post #54

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…

It's sad to say this, but that's not the real reason.

The US ignores various agreements it's signed all the time, and international conventions, etc.

So I'd say, you're right, but only because it's convenient for them to adhere to it.

Re: Alaskans vote to legalize marijuana

#115

Post by cloudwalking »

mason240 wrote: post #112
trhway wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

if you add prison guards unions - which are formally non-profit, and that only means that they have no taxes to pay and they have nobody else to give the formal profit away, and as result they have all the money they collect to themselves - you'd get pretty much 100% of US prisons run by organizations with direct financial interests in growing the prisons in size and number.

By that logic, wouldn't every part of government with unions be "run by organizations with direct financial interests in growing...?" That seems like it would be a union problem and not a prison problem.

Except in this case, peoples' freedoms are denied. Versus, say, waiting longer in line at the DMV.

Re: Alaskans vote to legalize marijuana

#116

Post by ashleyw »

josho wrote: post #91

I can't help but to wonder if the tobacco lobby is somehow involved. For decades society fought against smoking and has largely won. So, what happened to all of those tobacco crops? I wonder if that industry is behind the legalize movement so they can shift their production to another crop. Interesting historical fact is that initial tensions over marijuana came about because slaves, and later Mexican labourers were…

Another thing to consider is that, at least in Europe, cannabis + tobacco joints are very popular. So not only could big tobacco quickly gain traction in the cannabis world if it were legal, but it'd also help hold onto its crashing tobacco sales.

Re: Alaskans vote to legalize marijuana

#117

Post by ghshephard »

mturmon wrote: post #110
ghshephard wrote: post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The marijuana growers in California did not support legalization as they felt (correctly) that it would impact their profit. They supported the status quo, which was enough to defeat legalization in California.

That's a second-order effect. The first-order effect is that even large, urban areas like LA did not get behind Prop. 19. The growers have minimal influence on LA voters.

The growers have a lot of money though, that can be directed (or not) to supporting lobbying groups/advertising. And when the vote is close, small groups can have an outsized influence.

Another important element in California, of course, is the Prison Guard unions - they are a very powerful and wealthy lobby, and are directly threatened by legalization efforts, though, with universal "medical availability" - their sun is waning.

California will eventually make the move though, it's inane to believe any state will, in the long term, allow legal nicotine, legal alcohol, but illegal cannabis, particularly now that there are states in which the results of legalized cannabis show that it's not a major threat to society - unlike alcohol and nicotine, which do a lot more damage.

The long term might be measured in decades, but not centuries.

It will be interesting to see how some of the more conservative states like Singapore (Death to Drug Dealers) will deal with this type of cognitive dissonance.

Re: Alaskans vote to legalize marijuana

#118

Post by Alupis »

anigbrowl wrote: post #106
politician wrote: post #105

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difficulty in removing them is also why legislation enacted by way of treaties should be vigorously debated in an open forum, as opposed to the way the Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP) has been negotiated.

I think up-or-down votes or referenda are more appropriate for that. Multilateral treaties are inherently legislative documents, and legislating-to-legislate looks like a self-defeating increase in complexity - there's a reason that governments have executive as well as legislative functions, even though they ,may not always yield results we like in the short term. I mean, imagine if the votes of US senators on indiv…

> I'm personally hoping the incoming congress gives the President fast-track authority to negotiate both the TPP and TTIP

He doesn't need congressional approval -- that's exactly how the TPP has been getting negotiated this entire time -- and is exactly why it's so outstandingly bad.

Back room deals regarding IP rights (pushed hard by the MPAA, RIAA and other lobbying organizations) among many other blanketed things that the public has no knowledge of nor any say in but will ultimately be as effective as law here in the country. (so much for the legislative branch)

Re: Alaskans vote to legalize marijuana

#119

Post by dbrannan »

I live in Alaska as a high school teacher.

We lead the nation in welfare, alcohol abuse and fetal alcohol effects, suicide, sexually transmitted disease, credit card debt, number of women murdered, and domestic abuse.

Now we are all going to be high as a kite, too.

This does not make my job any easier.

Re: Alaskans vote to legalize marijuana

#120

Post by mkehrt »

jdmichal wrote: post #20
japhyr wrote: 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.).

The USCG has several sets of classes of ships, informally known as black, white and red hull. Black does what you say, white does border patrol for drugs and people illegally entering the country, and red is scientific and icebreaking. See http://www.uscg.mil/proceedings/spring2011/articles/10_Tlapa...
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