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Alaskans vote to legalize marijuana

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Re: Alaskans vote to legalize marijuana

#141

Post by smsm42 »

kemiller wrote: post #31
Shivetya wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Didn't DC just vote to legalize it, you just cannot buy or sell it. Here is to hoping the next big issue after marriage equality if fixing our drug laws, which are more damaging than many will admit and far too profitable to law enforcement and the prison industry.

@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

If you look at who's making profit on war on drugs, look up how much money is taken by civil forfeiture. That's where the real money is. And by real money I mean millions, hundreds of millions. Just one case: http://www.government-fleet.com/news/story/2012/04/rhode-isl... There are many, many more. And not only from fatcats - there are thousand of forfeiture cases for sums like $300-$500.

Re: Alaskans vote to legalize marijuana

#142

Post by chaostheory »

ghshephard wrote: post #117
mturmon wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 su…

> The growers have a lot of money though, that can be directed (or not) to supporting lobbying groups/advertising.

They have neither the resources or the lobbyists that come close to what either the pharma or alcohol industries have. Maybe this will change when the markets in CO, WA, and AK mature.

Re: Alaskans vote to legalize marijuana

#143

Post by chaostheory »

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.

Yes there is a lot of money. It's in the pharmaceutical and alcohol industry lobbies. There will be a strong marijuana lobby one day, but it doesn't exist now.

Re: Alaskans vote to legalize marijuana

#144

Post by chaostheory »

sliverstorm wrote: post #134
mturmon wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, the point is the black market wanted Prop. 19 defeated, because if you legalize it they lose their profits. (Some parts of) the black market wants drugs to say illegal.

Yes but has there been evidence of the cartels funding political campaigns in the US?

Re: Alaskans vote to legalize marijuana

#145

Post by mturmon »

sliverstorm wrote: post #134
mturmon wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

No, the point is the black market wanted Prop. 19 defeated, because if you legalize it they lose their profits. (Some parts of) the black market wants drugs to say illegal.

I get your point. I'm saying no segment of the MJ/MMJ market was strong enough in LA County to swing the election. The pushback from rank-and-file residents against the dispensaries was in the front sections of the LA Times for months. The growers were not part of the discussion.

It's true that there are multiple constituencies in the MJ/MMJ community (patients, recreational users, growers of all kinds, licensed dispensaries, unlicensed, street gangs, cartels) and that Prop. 19 split them. Perhaps a different Prop. might have made the MJ community slide definitively to one side or the other, but that's a different question.

The neighborhood where I live was affected by this, and one of the lightning rods was a friend (interviewed in the LA Times several times), as were some people on the other side. That makes me consider myself well-informed, but who knows, maybe I'm biased. ;-)

Re: Alaskans vote to legalize marijuana

#146

Post by arrosenberg »

jonnathanson wrote: post #74
maxerickson wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess the only times (in recent history anyway) that states vigorously defend their borders is when it impacts their tax revenues. Are there big differences in how Washington and Oregon are taxing marijuana?

Not sure. I have heard, interestingly enough, that there are federal taxes on the sale of marijuana. Which is weird, given that the federal government does not legally recognize one's right to buy or sell marijuana. These federal tax burdens are quite high, if the media reports are accurate: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2014/11/03/irs-lim...

It's not that weird if you think about it - same line of reasoning is what finally got Al Capone. Legal or illegal, Uncle Sam always gets his.

Re: Alaskans vote to legalize marijuana

#147

Post by vectorpush »

dbrannan wrote: post #119

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.

> I live in Alaska as a high school teacher.

It's still illegal unless you're 21 or over, so I'm not really sure why that would make your job as a high school teacher any more difficult.

Re: Alaskans vote to legalize marijuana

#148

Post by trhway »

cloudwalking wrote: post #115
mason240 wrote: post #112

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

yep, there is a reason why military for example aren't allowed to form a union. I hope CIA/FBI/NSA aren't allowed to have it too. And prison guards and police shouldn't be allowed to. Holders of "license for violence" shouldn't have masters other than the government hierarchy they belong to thus minimizing conflict of interests.

Re: Alaskans vote to legalize marijuana

#149

Post by rayiner »

munificent wrote: post #54
kyleblarson wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As a Seattleite I was optimistic things might change at the federal level when Obama appointed Kerlikowski as drug czar, given his experience as police chief in what even in 2009 was a very cannabis friendly city. I guess I was just another sucker for hope and change that never materialized.

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.

It's not just that the U.S. is a big boat, it's that the federal government is necessarily slow to respond to local changes. At the national level, the consensus in favor of legalizing marijuana shifted to a slight majority just last year: http://www.people-press.org/2013/04/04/majority-now-supports.... Indeed, if we're talking about the voting public, rather than just the general population, the national consensus is likely still in favor of keeping it illegal, since actual voters skew older and more conservative than the population as a whole.

Furthermore, the drug policy boat in particular is very big. A lot of this policy, and the institutions implementing it, was developed in the 1980's and 1990's. In 1991, the consensus in favor of making marijuana illegal was an overwhelming 78-17. Being anti-drug was a political winner, something both sides of the aisle could get behind. Almost everyone old enough to have substantial leadership within the drug enforcement organizations grew up in an intensely anti-drug culture. It will take quite some time for those folks to age out of the system.

Re: Alaskans vote to legalize marijuana

#150

Post by smsm42 »

TylerE wrote: post #140
smsm42 wrote: post #136

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It just boggles the mind how perversely government logic looks here. So Alaskans say: we are OK with people using marijuana, we see no problem with it. And then the Feds come and say - well, we are still going to arrest and imprison you if you do it, despite the clear will of the people of Alaska, because we can. We know we don't actually change anything as we absolutely can not prevent people of Alaska from using ma…

This cuts both ways.... do you really think, that, say, Mississippi, should be able to inact anything 51% of the voters vote for? It'd be back to the Jim Crow days.

We're talking not about "anything". We're talking about specific thing where the law enforcement enforces arbitrary prohibition against the will of the same people they pretend to protect. Comparing this to Jim Crow laws makes no sense - Jim Crow laws limited people's rights, legalization expands people's rights. Jim Crow laws was an arbitrary governmental restriction, legalization removes the arbitrary governmental restriction. If anything, you should be asking what if the Feds had Jim Crow laws and some state would say they would not support it anymore - is it good for Feds to try and force them to still abide by such laws?

Not that there is absolutely any evidence theres even 10% of voters in Mississippi - let alone 51% - that would really support instituting Jim Crow laws now. For starters, 37.5% of Mississippi population is African-American, and it would require 88% of white vote to achieve 51%. Are you seriously claiming 88% of Mississippi white population - I assume you don't go as far as assuming African-American citizens of Mississippi want to introduce Jim Crow laws - are not only fervently racist, but actually want Jim Crow laws? Any data to back that ridiculous assumption?

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