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Alaskans vote to legalize marijuana

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Re: Alaskans vote to legalize marijuana

#41

Post by waterlesscloud »

chaostheory wrote: post #32

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…

It might as well be legal in California. The medical marijuana provision is so loose you can get a prescription for almost any reason whatsoever. And the number of dispensaries got so out of control that even LA backed off a little. Still, I have about 10 dispensaries within a 5 minute drive of me.

Re: Alaskans vote to legalize marijuana

#42

Post by [deleted] »

metrix wrote: post #28
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.

Profitable? It costs the state a lot to hold a prisoner.

[deleted]

Re: Alaskans vote to legalize marijuana

#43

Post by aaron-lebo »

arca_vorago wrote: post #14

I'm ready for Texas to follow suite. You think corn, wheat, cotton, cows, and oil are profitable? Wait till the congressmen and farmers understand how valuable MJ is as a cash crop, I predict legalization even in our red state within a decade.

It is so hard to say. Texas very much has a libertarian streak on the right and the cities are blue, but there are so many social conservatives around that it is hard to get a bead on how realistic that is.

Re: Alaskans vote to legalize marijuana

#44

Post by jdmichal »

mbillie1 wrote: post #23
jdmichal wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.).

In the Gulf of Mexico and the area around Florida, the Coast Guard does an enormous amount of drug-traffic-policing.

Looks like there's a wide swathe of "homeland security" missions on top of the more traditional missions I was aware of, deemed "non-homeland security":

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Coast_Guard#Missi...

I wonder how this all interacts with the CBP.

Re: Alaskans vote to legalize marijuana

#45

Post by rickdale »

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…

Wait until the pressure grows and then the coast guard will change their stance to, "we follow the local laws". This happened with the TSA in states with medical marijuana, even in Alaska. States rights, the fact that the people voted for it, is going to play a huge role going forward.

Re: Alaskans vote to legalize marijuana

#46

Post by afiedler »

eli wrote: post #2

DC and Oregon too. I think DC in particular will be interesting because Congress has power over DC it does not have with states. Could be the opening for a national debate (or the newly elected Congress could simply crush it).

One thing that is interesting is that Congress usually blocks funding for DC laws by restricting how we can spend our local tax dollars (through the appropriations process).

When DC decriminalized possession, Rep. Andy Harris of Maryland tried to block the decriminalization by blocking funding for decriminalization. If that sounds like the legislative equivalent of a double-negative, it is!

Harris's legislation potentially would have had the un-intended affect of preventing the District from spending any money on enforcing the decriminalization: no money could be spent on writing citations, printing tickets for possession, or prosecuting cases in court. This would have effectively legalized it since the criminal law is already off the books.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/mike-debonis/wp/2014/06/...

I doubt Congress will pick this up. They have 90 days to veto DC laws or they go into effect, and they can barely name post offices at this point. Obama has also promised to veto the veto.

Re: Alaskans vote to legalize marijuana

#47

Post by waterlesscloud »

techpeace wrote: post #38
metrix wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Profitable? It costs the state a lot to hold a prisoner.

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.

Re: Alaskans vote to legalize marijuana

#48

Post by smtddr »

waterlesscloud wrote: post #47
techpeace wrote: post #38

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 still 8% too much.

That still means there are millionaires out there lobbying to keep drug laws as is so they can keep filling their prisons. And the other 92% of prisons probably have a ton of people behind bars due to drug laws because of the 8% of prisons that lobby for & profit from them.

Re: Alaskans vote to legalize marijuana

#49

Post by toyg »

wavefunction wrote: post #27
toyg wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Won't prices eventually start to fall, though, the more legal it becomes? One much-repeated theory explaining support for the initial wave of prohibition was that weed (eh) was too easy to grow, and as such it was depressing prices for a number of other crops. If that's true, I would expect states where the agriculture sector still holds significant power, to be the staunchest bastions of prohibition.

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 more stock to sell, and if demand from the drug market does not absorb it all, he'll try to sell it on the cotton market, potentially igniting a price war with the second farmer.

Re: Alaskans vote to legalize marijuana

#50

Post by TallGuyShort »

metrix wrote: post #28
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.

Profitable? It costs the state a lot to hold a prisoner.

Exactly. That means there's a whole industry / sector of government trying to make it look like a lot of people should be prisoners to protect their jobs and expand their departments.
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