Hacker News Reader

Comment by nip180 | Hacker News Reader

2/3 of Americans support legalizing cannabis. I don’t understand why this bill is so bipartisan among politicians if so many citizens support it.

View on HN

Prison Industrial Complex lobbying

https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2015/04/28/...

Don't forget pharma [1]. Non-addictive pain management with fewer side effects is not in their interest.

And similarly, the alcohol and tobacco industries. It's really never about morality.

1. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/07/13/one-s...

I assume you mean "partisan"?

It's because the people who want it will still vote for you if you keep it criminalized. But a significant number of the ones who want it to stay criminalized will totally write you off if you decriminalize it.

In the US, how motivated people are is usually even more important than how many of them there are. Combine that fact with the electoral college and gerrymandering, and there is a constant threat of minority rule.

EDIT: Private prisons. Can't believe I forgot about that. Everyone else who replied has got the main reason nailed.

Because Republicans don't need 50% of the support. They need way less because of imbalances built into the system. If your core support still does not support legalizing cannabis then it's not worth it to do it.

For some hard numbers, as of 2018 15.95% of the US population lived in the 25 least populous states and elected half of the US Senate.

To block an conviction of an impeached president or a constitutional amendment, only 34 senators (17 states) are needed. As of 2018, that was as little as 7.32% of the US population.

If you care to do the math yourself, this is my source: https://simple.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_pop...

And some python to help once you have lines to summarize: sum(map(float, open('foo').readlines()))

> For some hard numbers, as of 2018 15.95% of the US population lived in the 25 least populous states and elected half of the US Senate.

Unless the Zetas have recently started moving into Wyoming, too, I'm guessing they're also the ones being least harmed by externalities from the war on drugs.

Americans don't make laws (or approve judges), Senators do. <16% of the US population elects 50 senators.

It’s almost like the US is a representational republic, not a democracy.

I don't feel represented.

That's a clever turn of a phrase, but doesn't justify your position in any meaningful way.

Can you tell me why it makes sense for so few people to dominate the wills of so many?

Something something.... Land... something something... Coastal Elites...

The problem isn't that we're a representative democracy. The problem is the ratio of representation is very far off from the ratios present when the country was formed. The population growth in urban centers combined with the addition of many states with low population has shifted power significantly to a minority.

When the United States was formed and the compromise for 2 Senators per state and house representatives by population was agreed to, the largest state population was 11x the smallest state population. Today, California is 70x Wyoming. This has the effect that Senators from smaller states have way more power in today's world than they did in the 1800s. The ratios are unbalanced and need to be adjusted just like we adjust the apportionment of house representatives via the census every 10 years.

The House represents the people. The Senate represents the state. Without the balance, highly populous states would determine the fate of the entire nation, leaving less populated states behind.

The division of states is somewhat arbitrary. Why shouldn't California, New York, Texas or Florida split into North/South or East/West versions to gain more Senators. I understand the compromise that the House represents people and the Senate represents states so the small states don't get overrun by the will of more populous states. But, by the same token, small states should not have so much power that they always overrun the will of the larger states. There should be balance. The House remains relatively in balance due to regular apportionment with the census. The Senate has no mechanism to make sure their power remains balanced. This is a gap that needs to be addressed.

> The House represents the people. The Senate represents the state.

That was the original thinking, but the 17th amendment turned the Senate into just another House of Representatives, but one where each member has a longer term and a hugely outsized influence compared to the number of people they represent.

So you are explicitly saying that less populated states should override the will of the majority of Americans. That sounds like abuse, not balance.

If the needs of less populated states weren't considered, then there'd be no incentive for them to stay part of the nation. It's necessary for the political system to remain stable.

It is not. Less populated states are a drop in the bucket. If you care about stability, you best not disenfranchise the majority of Americans. There are consequences for such blatant and persistent abuse.

Good thing most states weren't drawn to lock up land in a slave vs free state battle that is 150 years over and done with, or this would be a ridiculous comment.

Isn't it what "bipartisan" usually means? When both parties find common ground? I would expect most laws widely supported by the population to be part of a bipartisan situation.

Wild accusation:

Follow the money. There are a lot of people making a lot of money off of private prisons, generally in red states.

Alcohol manufactures have also dumped massive amounts of money in lobbying against marijuana decriminalization because they don't want the competition.

And before that they went after Absinthe >> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Absinthe#History

Absinthe makes you crazy and criminal, provokes epilepsy and tuberculosis, and has killed thousands of French people. It makes a ferocious beast of man, a martyr of woman, and a degenerate of the infant, it disorganizes and ruins the family and menaces the future of the country.

Private prisons held only 8.2% of inmates in 2017, with many states having zero use at all. Looking at the map, it doesn't appear there is much of a divide between red and blue states in terms of likelihood to use private prisons, or the percentage of prisoners held in them.

https://www.sentencingproject.org/publications/private-priso...

There is just a lot of hand-wringing about the right way to do it. Both parties want to earmark the potential tax income for their special interests. Biden is pushing for meaningless rescheduling instead of outright legalization because those breaking federal drug laws are not legally allowed to own guns, and marijuana is the most used drug outside of alcohol in this country, and they like the way that plays out where millions of pot users have to choose between getting high and having their second amendment rights.

2/3rds of old white men don't support it, and that describes most politicians.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com