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Americans overwhelmingly say marijuana should be legal

pewresearch.org

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Re: Americans overwhelmingly say marijuana should be legal

#61

Post by AlexTWithBeard »

infogulch wrote: post #39
1cvmask wrote: post #2

Majority of Americans support Medicare for All. But both parties are against it. Marijuana legalization is easier to pass than healthcare because there are no entrenched corporate interests against it: https://morningconsult.com/2021/03/24/medicare-for-all-publi...

I know you just brought it up as an example, but I'm much more interested in a Direct Primary Care healthcare strategy over Medicare for All. https://www.dpcare.org/

Looked through the site.

Could not figure out what DPC is, besides that it's a new innovative way of patients and doctors working together for their mutual benefit with no obvious drawbacks.

Re: Americans overwhelmingly say marijuana should be legal

#62

Post by viraptor »

sneak wrote: post #18

It bothers me that this needs to be done piecemeal, substance by substance. Our bodies are our own to build - they are own to destroy (or alter, or any other damn thing). The whole point of the war on drugs was to imprison minorities. The whole concept of drug prohibition should be done away with. Millions of people are sitting in prison in the US simply because they did something entirely consensual and nonviolent,…

They could be our own to destroy if that didn't impact people around you. It's the same with DUI - causing a crash doesn't only destroy your life. Or getting addicted to the point you can't care for your children.

Re: Americans overwhelmingly say marijuana should be legal

#63

Post by sneak »

viraptor wrote: post #62
sneak wrote: post #18

It bothers me that this needs to be done piecemeal, substance by substance. Our bodies are our own to build - they are own to destroy (or alter, or any other damn thing). The whole point of the war on drugs was to imprison minorities. The whole concept of drug prohibition should be done away with. Millions of people are sitting in prison in the US simply because they did something entirely consensual and nonviolent,…

They could be our own to destroy if that didn't impact people around you. It's the same with DUI - causing a crash doesn't only destroy your life. Or getting addicted to the point you can't care for your children.

Your response illustrates my point nicely:

Drunk driving is illegal; alcohol possession and sale is not, nor should it be.

Child abuse and neglect is already illegal, regardless of drug laws.

Re: Americans overwhelmingly say marijuana should be legal

#64

Post by ALittleLight »

chenzhekl wrote: post #41
ALittleLight wrote: post #28

The biggest change I noticed with respect to legalization is that it used to be the case that you couldn't walk around the streets of downtown Seattle without being offered weed by street vendors, and sometimes other drugs. After legalization and marijuana stores the street vendors (at least those I encountered) basically disappeared.

That is not a good reason I think. It sounds like we should legalize something because we already have no control of it.

If you can't effectively prohibit something you probably shouldn't try. Otherwise you're wasting resources and eroding goodwill towards law enforcement which will be involved in fighting something that people really want to do.

Re: Americans overwhelmingly say marijuana should be legal

#65

Post by ajmurmann »

alexose wrote: post #48

I found myself wondering why we can’t just pass popular legislation as individual clean bills. In a climate where two thirds of Americans support a wealth tax, why not simply send a wealth tax to the Senate and see what happens? The answer, unfortunately, lies in the many layers upon layers of ‘dealmaking’ that happens in congress that lead to popular bills being bundled with less popular ones. Combined with the tren…

> Combined with the trend of trying to pass everything through reconciliation, it means that we almost never get to see congress legislate individual issues.

Having to go through budget reconciliation is another symptom of the same problem. The filibuster used to get used very infrequently. Now that the parties have clearly sorted themselves there is actually less cross-party dealmaking, instead everything has to go through reconciliation which also requires that bills get changed to fit the requirements of budget reconciliation. It's just another outcome of our hyperpartisanship.

The hyperpartisanship and two-party system is also the reason why even popular legislation cannot pass. If it passes it's a win for the governing party. If it doesn't it gets held against the government party because they should be in control. If they cannot get it done it gets blamed on them bring weak. So why would the opposition allow passing even popular legislation? McConnell explained this very openly and clearly.

Re: Americans overwhelmingly say marijuana should be legal

#66

Post by chmod600 »

1cvmask wrote: post #2

Majority of Americans support Medicare for All. But both parties are against it. Marijuana legalization is easier to pass than healthcare because there are no entrenched corporate interests against it: https://morningconsult.com/2021/03/24/medicare-for-all-publi...

That's not a reasonable comparison -- medical care is a much more complicated question, and people are much less likely to underatand what yes/no really mean.

Re: Americans overwhelmingly say marijuana should be legal

#67

Post by XorNot »

chenzhekl wrote: post #41
ALittleLight wrote: post #28

The biggest change I noticed with respect to legalization is that it used to be the case that you couldn't walk around the streets of downtown Seattle without being offered weed by street vendors, and sometimes other drugs. After legalization and marijuana stores the street vendors (at least those I encountered) basically disappeared.

That is not a good reason I think. It sounds like we should legalize something because we already have no control of it.

It implies that it would be difficult for legalization to make the situation worse if you already have no control of it. And as noted: legalization improved the situation substantially.

Re: Americans overwhelmingly say marijuana should be legal

#68

Post by TheAdamAndChe »

viraptor wrote: post #62
sneak wrote: post #18

It bothers me that this needs to be done piecemeal, substance by substance. Our bodies are our own to build - they are own to destroy (or alter, or any other damn thing). The whole point of the war on drugs was to imprison minorities. The whole concept of drug prohibition should be done away with. Millions of people are sitting in prison in the US simply because they did something entirely consensual and nonviolent,…

They could be our own to destroy if that didn't impact people around you. It's the same with DUI - causing a crash doesn't only destroy your life. Or getting addicted to the point you can't care for your children.

Agree. Some drugs like meth, heroin, fentanyl, PCP can cause permanent brain damage at common recreational doses and hurt society overall. Those shouldn't be legal IMO

Re: Americans overwhelmingly say marijuana should be legal

#69

Post by throwaway0a5e »

AlexTWithBeard wrote: post #26
redisman wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s part of the problem but both parties have had total control in the last 5 years and yet nothing has been passed on the federal level. The problem is that all the representatives are in the over 75 yo group

The part of the problem is that everything these days has to be done on federal level. There's even federally mandated shower flow rate [1]. Just leave this shit up to the states. [1] https://www.waterpik.com/shower-head/blog/shower-head-gpm/#:... .

This is what you get when congress delegates its lawmaking power to the executive bureaucracy.

Congress itself is mostly too dysfunctional to micromanage on that level.

Re: Americans overwhelmingly say marijuana should be legal

#70

Post by glennvtx »

underseacables wrote: post #43
jacob2484 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Majority of Americans do NOT support Medicare for All. Please reread your article - they want a public option, which differs from Medicare.

I think a lot of Americans want neither.

People don't know what they want, or rather, they know what they don't want, and it is what we currently have. "most" Americans would like a reasonably priced open market for healthcare, not the currently entrenched healthcare monopolies. Going any control over healthcare to this government is foolish, has already resulted in what we have today.
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