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Comment by mullingitover | Hacker News Reader

The fact that this won't sail through congress in a week (it'll never even come up for a vote in the senate) really illustrates how out of touch legislators are with voters. If there was a nationwide referendum on legalizing (not just decriminalizing) it would pass in a landslide today. Instead, congress will dither on this issue for probably the next five years at minimum.

I realize it's more complicated than giving voters what they want. The US has flexed its policy muscles for the drug war for decades, and fully legalizing now would violate a number of important treaties with other countries. However, decriminalizing should be a no-brainer.

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Maybe not "voters as a whole", but legislators know which side their bread is buttered on. This fell along party lines, and it won't come up in the Senate because it's controlled by the party that opposes it.

That party has the overwhelming favor of its constituency. They lost the top spot, but largely held their own in legislative elections. They may have a large contingent of people who would be in favor of decriminalization, but they don't seem to mind that their party obstructs it. Meantime, they have a constituency who is bitterly opposed to legalization, so they get to rule the day.

It's a discussion that needs to be held within that party. They won't listen to anybody from outside. They've made their bargain about a slate of issues they care about and issues they're willing to sacrifice.

Name them. The reason weed will not be legalized in America with this bill is solely, and only, the fault of Republicans

Precisely. Republicans refuse to hold a vote for dozens of life changing bills. This is currently the abject failure of a single party.

Whether it's seen as a failing or a victory is probably a matter of perspective. Republicans probably feel they've been somewhat successful with this obstructionism.

> The fact that this won't sail through congress in a week (it'll never even come up for a vote in the senate) really illustrates how out of touch legislators are with voters.

There is a single person blocking this vote. I'd say it's rather unfair to characterize legislators in general as being out of touch when 228 members of Congress voted in favor of the bill. If fact, if you include both chambers of Congress, more legislators likely support this bill than don't.

If you want to blame more than one person, blame the Senators that elected the current Senate majority leader.

> I'd say it's rather unfair to characterize legislators in general as being out of touch when 228 members of Congress voted in favor of the bill.

I thought it went without saying which specific party in the legislative branch is out of touch with the voters, but yes, this is a specific party who is on the wrong side of history, as usual.

Passing this bill in the house now, when the control of the Senate hangs on an upcoming election, was a brilliant move.

> this is a specific party who is on the wrong side of history, as usual

Why do you believe that history takes sides?

It's not so much that history is a living force that has ideas of its own irrespective of people; but that history is going to be written by people into books and the majority of people living today are going to impose their interpretation of the now into the eventual "then" that kids 20 years from now are going to be forced to read.

> fully legalizing now would violate a number of important treaties with other countries.

As far as Marijuana goes, those treaties are on a path to being a dead letter, anyway. Canada and Uruguay, Mexico almost certainly by the end of the year...

And, in fact, the US, given its federal nonenforcement policy (which, is, in part, statutorily mandated in federal law) in states that have legalized, is already in open and flagrant violation of them, anyhow, so that's not a change with legalization.

Even though public opinion has largely shifted on the Drug War and marijuana specifically, there remains a problem of vested economic interests in preserving the status quo: pharma and alcohol producers that don't want competition, private prisons and prison guard unions that fear loss of revenue, etc.

Having watched legalization play out here in Colorado (quite successfully by any metric), I think what greased the wheels of viability was simple profit motive, for better or worse. The "anti" lobbyists guarding their turf were balanced by "pro" lobbyists who perceived a growth market and investment opportunity; and both citizens and representatives were assuaged by the prospect of significant tax revenue for schools. Paradoxically, it may be that full federal legalization (with a revenue-positive regulatory framework) is more politically viable than decriminalization, even if the latter objectively saves taxpayers money.

> fully legalizing now would violate a number of important treaties with other countries

As I understand it, the US Congress has the power to withdraw from any treaty with legislation without restriction[0], by passing an Act that repeals the effect of the treaty. "Parliament | Congress cannot bind its future self" is a well-settled Common Law principle.

Treaties receive no special status. While they may be negotiated and recommended by the President, and come into effect upon supermajority consent of the Senate, treaties are nevertheless held to be legislative in nature. Since Congress cannot bind its future self, it can repeal any treaty at any time with the usual mechanisms.

Meaning: an Act that fully legalised marijuana could include clauses repealing the legal status of treaties.

Of course, I am not a lawyer.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_Money_Cases

Yes, this is exactly what I was getting at - that full legalization could nullify a number of treaties, so it's not just a thing that stands on its own. Congress can absolutely do it, but it's complicated.

Gotcha.

Given the UN has officially recognized it as medicine, I don't think it would be too much of an issue.

> and fully legalizing now would violate a number of important treaties with other countries

I'd be fascinated to know which countries. Obviously Mexico and Canada couldn't care less. Which other ones haven't already moved on?

> Which other ones haven't already moved on?

Most of the countries in the world (some places still make posession of small quantities of cannabis a potentially-capital offense); the treaties involved are global drug-control treaties.

Well, of course. They need the dithering to negotiate their payouts, situate their investments, and set up their grift schemes. Don't forget the fingerpointing, moral grandstanding, and endless media appearances, jockeying for the spotlight.

> ...illustrates how out of touch legislators are with voters. If there was a nationwide referendum on legalizing (not just decriminalizing) it would pass in a landslide today.

In your own echo chamber, that may be true, but I hope you understand, there's a large number of voters (myself included) who oppose legalization. They may not be as vocal about it online, but their votes count just as much as yours.

It's not just an echo chamber, there's actual data:

https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2019/11/14/americans-s...

https://news.gallup.com/poll/323582/support-legal-marijuana-...

That's not to say people who oppose the legislation's vote doesn't matter, but it's overturned by the majority that favor it.

It's important to keep in mind that it's not as clear as many of these headlines make it sound.

By the numbers in the links you provided, those supporting legalization for medical use only (which I do) represent a significant portion (> 1/3) of those lumped into the broader "support legalization" category. At the same time, many people interpret that broader category as supporting legalization of recreational use, which nationwide, has just 59% support.

Also important to note that public support is much lower in some states, and as a federal republic, those individual states have (and should continue to have) the power to decide for the citizens who live there.

59% vs 41% is a respectably large margin. That's 18 points.

Additionally, that number will almost certainly be higher in coming years. The shift we have seen in recent decades seems very robust.

I would argue this is due to the American public realizing that many of the arguments in favor of prohibition were exaggerated or downright false.

For medical use only, it is already legal at the federal level. The generic name is Dronabinol. It is marketed as Marinol and Syndros.

Demanding brownies and joints for "medical use" is just straight up dishonest. You'll notice that drugs for legitimate medical use are not supplied in either way. (oh, it's time to eat a glaucoma prevention brownie...)

> Demanding brownies and joints for "medical use" is just straight up dishonest.

100% agree.

> there's a large number of voters (myself included) who oppose legalization

After seeing what has happened in Colorado (and many other states) and the entire country of Canada, I'm curious to learn why you oppose legalization?

I don't use it, and personally don't really care, but I see it like same-sex marriage - let people do what makes them happy and lets move onto actual important issues.

> I'm curious to learn why you oppose legalization

For starters, a 20% increase in violent crime and significant increases in hospitalizations[1] directly related to marijuana use are two concrete examples. There are many more less-direct negative effects (e.g., insurance rates increasing for everyone due to marijuana-related accidents/injury) that probably aren't immediately reflected in public data, but are still detrimental to society.

[1] https://cdpsdocs.state.co.us/ors/docs/reports/2018-SB13-283_...

Not sure where you're seeing a 20% increase in violent crime in this data, but per page 160 of this, violent offense rates per 100,000 population are pretty stable from 2008-2016, with a tick up in 2017. That may or may not be related to legalization, since AFAIK Nebraska didn't legalize anything lately and they also had a tick up in violent crime in 2017 [0].

[0] https://crime-data-explorer.fr.cloud.gov/explorer/state/nebr...

This is a very interesting document, but where does it discuss a 20% increase in violent crime? I read the section about organized crime involved with cultivation and assume that bring some violent elements.

While this is an ostensibly neutral collection of data, it reads to me very favorably about effects of legalization. Surprisingly even vehicle fatalities decreased significantly over the measured time period.

Page 160, direct quote:

"violent crime increased 20% from 2012 to 2017"

If you graph the data presented in table 46, the increasing trend – specifically in violent crime since 2012 – becomes very clear.

Alabama saw a similar increase in violent crime in the same period, sans legalization. I'm not seeing any evidence that this is more than a spurious correlation.

I'm also not seeing any significant increase in insurance rates after my state ended prohibition, and the traffic fatalities and collisions haven't been significantly impacted.

What explanation do you propose for why cannabis legalization would lead to an increase in violent crime?

Our auto insurance rates went up significantly in Illinois recently, likely correlated with legalization.

Anecdotally, the people I know who use marijuana drive high regularly and don’t think that doing so is dangerous, despite overwhelming evidence to the contrary.

I think it's reasonable to ask if the people are the same. Who has moved into or out of Colorado? I've heard that initially, large numbers of marijuana users moved to Colorado. They may have different average behavior than the previous population of Colorado, with or without marijuana of any legality.

More. They're the majority-of-the-majority, which is a minority, but enough to stop all legislation. The system of checks and balances is designed so that any change requires overwhelming support, and even a fairly small opposition can block anything from happening.

The votes of people in favor of the status quo always count more than the votes to change, by a factor of perhaps 3 (since they need to be only 26% in order to be the majority-of-the-majority). More, really, since they need to control only one of the House, the Senate, and the Presidency.

...but, but, but. I voted.

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