Comment by axxxo93 | Hacker News Reader

Comment by axxxo93 | Hacker News Reader

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It's about time! There is no reason a drug that is considerably less harmful than alcohol should be criminalized to such a high degree.

Unlikely to pass in the Senate due to many Congressional reps who don't believe in decriminalization. Has a chance depending on the Georgia runoff results in January. Would still be helpful to come up for a Senate vote to know who you're up against. Still progress to have the vote and pass in the House.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2020/12/04/lega...

https://www.npr.org/2020/12/04/942949288/house-approves-decr...

Lots of republicans think it should be left up to the state. Their major issue with the last bill was tons of "social justice" riders. Democrats couldn't risk Republicans passing the bill and looking good before the presidential election, so instead they added a ton of stuff that was guaranteed to sink the bill. They then pushed the "republicans hate pot" narrative on news and social media.

This seems likely to be so much more politicking.

Politicking intended to send a message to Georgia: the House is willing. Are you?

For game players, the tech scene sure is anti-politics. Somehow all those smarts are lost on the fact these folks are manipulating your free market giving billions for free to entrenched employers.

Social life is nothing but political choices; rather than engage the government we are told to engage the middle men they fund.

Let freedom ring.

A smart move for Democrats would be to hammer Republicans on their reluctance to pass this bill in the Republican controlled Senate (Marijuana legalization polls extremely well nationally) before the GA runoffs.

The fact of the matter is, it doesn't matter what republicans do or don't do if the people who vote for them only watch Fox News and don't see this as a bad thing. Democrats can hammer all they want, the voters they need will never see the criticisms and genuinely think democrats are "as bad" or evil or something stupid

You can get your message out in many different ways. Fox News is just one (although a fairly important one). I’m specifically referring to campaign ads, people knocking on doors etc. A sizable chunk of the American electorate is neither Democrat nor Republican so swinging these voters + energizing the Democrat base can form a powerful coalition capable of winning elections, especially in purple states.

This is really interesting. I wonder if legalization of marijuana is a hot button issue in Georgia. If it is favorable it could increase the turnout for Democrats in the runoffs. I'm also thinking that those who are strongly opposed to legalization could be convinced to turn out. I'm not sure if this is any indicator but the governor of Georgia gets pretty low marks from NORML.[1]

1. https://norml.org/us-governors/georgia/

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