Virginia lawmakers pass marijuana legalization bills | Hacker News Reader

Virginia lawmakers pass marijuana legalization bills

wset.com

228 pointsunderseacables176 comments

In canada, when we legalized marijuana, it came with massive attempts by law enforcement to grab power: the government passed unconstitutional new laws about screening impaired drivers, police forces and government bureaucracies demanded _more_ funding (because somehow legal pot was harder to deal with than illegal) etc.

Illegal pot had always been about government wielding power that can be used arbitrarily against people that are not liked for some other reason. When we talk about making it legal, we don't talk enough about havjng the government explicitly give back that power, instead of trying to transfer it to other regulations.

I saw a local police union rep on TV arguing that it was unfair that a police department was enacting rules that forbid their members from consuming cannabis.

Here's a person who demonized marijuana and claimed it destroyed individuals and families for years, a person who profited off arrested people for possession and now he's on TV saying that it's not fair that police officers can't use now legalized marijuana like non-police officers?

If crack or meth was legalized tomorrow there's no fucking way that police rep would be on that stage making the same plea to the public. no fucking way.

As a long term pot smoker, I was disappointed when weed was legalised in California because the price didn’t go down at all.

If you can grow at home it’s good. Otherwise it’s business as usual, with just a change of franchisee.

Except the franchise allocates their funds a bit differently https://www.leafly.com/news/politics/californias-635m-in-can...

And clients of the business went from consuming unregulated products from potentially unscrupulous suppliers to high quality and domestically produced product.

If you don’t read cannabis industry propaganda, there are concerns that rules and regulations are ignored in the legal market to increase profits at the cost of product quality and safety.

That sounds like "street dealer" propaganda. There are a lot of actors whose income source is threatened who are parroting unsubstantiated claims about legal products.

It's a very simple plant to grow ideally. For a large industrial operation that is under no concern for law enforcement, run as a normal business, it's pretty easy and cheap to do things as optimally as possible.

>And clients of the business went from consuming unregulated products from potentially unscrupulous suppliers to high quality and domestically produced product

The quality of the legal weed here is far lower than the grey market or black market weed available and more expensive. You also used to have the ability to at least see your product before buying it, not any more.

The money also stopped going from local, small scale growers and dealers to large agribusiness and retail stores.

I think more states should consider what DC has done. They’ve created a grey market where growing and distribution are still controlled by small businesses. The businesses can get lab testing done to show the purity of their products and many consumers expect this, but it isn’t required.

Yeah but you can get reliable smoke, and from brands that you can trust. I would much rather this than be wondering if I'm smoking pesticides.

Exactly this. I envy the legalization happening in NA. Here in europe things are stilly hopelessly shady. Quality is all over the place and dealers are dusting the buds with synthetic cannibinoids. The black market of cannabis also funds a wide selection of other criminal activity for gangs. It's ridiculous.

I'd like reliable brands at fair prices.

Although, I'm not sure it's the best thing for society to have too much cheap, high quality weed around. It's complicated.

I would like to see the artificially high revenue/taxes put to good social purposes.

The market in CA isn't functioning properly quite yet, due mostly to over-regulation but also due to the lack of an national market.

In the longer term it'll sort itself out, but don't hold your breath.

Seems like we have come full circle for a state that originated as a colony with a tobacco-based economy. Back in its day, tobacco was also considered a vice and was heavily regulated by various nations.

Today it's considered a highly addictive and deadly drug that is heavily regulated by various nations.

But you go to jail for using and businesses still profit for selling it.

Abolishing the death penalty and legalizing marijuana on the same day. I've no idea how the legislature works in Virginia, but that it has me stunned.

The state was purple-red for my whole life there (I moved away in 2002). It’s shifted gradually with the urban/rural map and recently the suburban gap. It has one of the most suburban-dense and prosperous counties in the country. It’s been a tipping point in recent elections, and increasingly politically aligned with solid blue “left coast” states all of which have legal cannabis.

I’m looking at it as my childhood home and so it’s not unfamiliar. But it’s so good to see Virginia keep growing.

It seems like the continual growth of the federal government is creating a 'blue stream' of liberal voters into Virginia (federal agency employees are overwhelmingly democrats).

This is definitely not it, although it looks like it because of geography. The trend is actually just urban/suburban growth and suburban leftward shift. It can be seen elsewhere. And while the biggest growth is near the capitol, there is far more an influx of contractors, tech workers, and halo industry to support/profit off of that high-income growth.

The federal employee count isn't ballooning. Most of the DMV growth is hanger-ons (lobbyists, non-profits, contractors).

You seem to imply that cannabis laws follow some sort of red/blue divide.

This, is - IMO - naive at best, disingenuous at worst, especially if you consider that libertarians and like-minded folks increasingly align themselves with the right (in light of the US left having completely removed individual freedoms from their political agenda in favor of collectivist goals).

Cannabis laws do follow a red blue divide still. Most Americans thankfully support its legalization, but its support is still slanted towards Democrats with something like 80% vs 50% support compared to Republicans. [1].

I also think it's worth remembering that personal freedoms can be attained through collectives goals. Everyone is better off when they don't have to worry about starving if they lose their job or going into debt if they are get sick.

[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/irisdorbian/2020/11/09/record-h...

It’s so obviously a red/blue issue for politicians. Decriminalizing marijuana is literally part of the Democrat’s party platform. Of states that have implemented marijuana legalization, only one has had a red legislature (and that was Alaska, which is an outlier in so many ways).

Of course, many conservatives people support decriminalization and/or legalization, but that doesn’t mean it’s a policy priority for their representatives.

Also, the claim that the US left has completely removed individual freedoms from their political agenda is definitely not true. Reducing incarceration, reducing immigration enforcement, and making it easier to vote - which are all also part of the Democrats “party platform” - are undoubtedly about individual freedom.

See the anti-legalization effort that just passed in Idaho.

Trump/right wing craziness accelerated an existing movement in VA politics.

Trump accelerated the abandonment of the GOP by suburban and educated voters. These trends line right up with Virginia's demographic changes over the last 20-30 years. So it's not all attributable to Trump, but he certainly accelerated shifts that were already ongoing.

Not everything is attributable to Trump... Had friends priced out of NJ (high cost blue state) moved to DC area (lower cost , for now, state).

The more we see news like this, the less pretext law enforcement has for engaging in routine activities that escalate the chance of needless violence.

Only a matter of time before every state in the union follows suit, like gay marriage last decade. Then we get to work freeing everyone jailed for this.

Not just freeing people from jail but to finally stop prosecuting people and wasting 100's of millions in Tax Payer Money. How many young people have had their lives ruined over a joint? When I think of all the poor kids who got fucked over, that was the real crime. Any politician who stands in the way of legalization should be thrown out of Government, including the President.

I’ve been involved in dealing with pre-employment criminal background check red flags, and the number of times I’ve had to tell our (US) HR people that we don’t care if someone got busted for smoking low-quality pot in their college town once, it’s just one of the things that people learning about the world may try and do. I know I did.

The gratefulness of these hires is awful to see. And these are the middle class ones. Poorer and more disadvantaged groups have even less likelihood than otherwise of being in our hiring funnel because of this.

Strike these victimless “crimes” from the public record.

Straight facts. There is hundreds of millions not only wasted, but also much more than that to be made in tax revenue by legalizing and taxing it. The fact these people focused on petty crime and punishing people is sickening.

The reason I feel federally they will delay legalizing it as much as possible is due to tax revenue. Due to it being illegally federally, the irs does not allow anyone to write off their expenses accept expenses that contribute to the cost of goods sold. This increases the effective tax rate drastically

Barack Obama called using cannabis his greatest moral failure.

I refuse to believe that there is but a single politician on the planet whose greatest moral failure can be willingly consuming any substance.

Do you have a quote for this? This is the first I’m hearing of it and a simple search online doesn’t pull anything up.

He never said it.

> "As has been well documented, I smoked pot as a kid, and I view it as a bad habit and a vice, not very different from the cigarettes that I smoked as a young person up through a big chunk of my adult life," Mr Obama said. >But he added that in terms of its impact on the individual consumer "I don't think it is more dangerous than alcohol".

https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/world/us/obama-mccain-ad...

This came out on top when searching for it.

To be fair, he phrased it it as “experimenting with drugs”, but as far as I know only the Cannabis is publicly known.

I honestly think it’ll pass federally before most of the remaining holdout states come on over. I’m saying this from having worked in the industry. There’s very little resistance at the federal level other than inertia, and quite a lot of red state resistance.

> and quite a lot of red state resistance.

Not really red state resistance. It’s legal in AK and MT but still illegal (but decriminalized) in NY. Illegal in Maryland, Virginia, New Mexico, etc.

Likely the only real correlation is with states that give their citizens direct referendums.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_cannabis_by_U.S._j...

You’re right that direct democracy measures are a correlation. My point was not that there’s a red/blue divide in current law, but that my educated experience working in the industry informs me that there’s low political will in many red states to legalize & high political pressure to resist it. I’m very familiar with the legal map, don’t need a wiki link thanks.

> low political will in many red states to legalize & high political pressure to resist it

And this clearly applies to blue states as well. If it didn’t it would have been legalized without referendum in CA, or in NM, etc.

> I’m very familiar with the legal map, don’t need a wiki link thanks.

Well you do if you think there is something special about red states in this regard.

That's exactly what will happen. There will be at least 10-15 permanent holdout states that will never willingly legalize it. The same was going to be true of gay marriage. As a union we don't have to care about those holdout states, their positions are meaningless, just have to get a strong majority of the states on board and it's going to be taken care of at the federal level.

The number of people incarcerated on marijuana possession charges alone is a rounding error.

This page suggests 0.1%: http://www.therecoverycenter.org/resources/weed-through-the-...

I'm not sure to what extent that's a political advocacy organization, so let's just call 0.1% a lower bound. The absolute upper bound is ~5%: https://twitter.com/JohnFPfaff/status/985996204986241026 But that assumes that everyone arrested for marijuana possession (even if it was only one of the charges) was incarcerated. But that's absolutely not the case. Rather, marijuana arrests are almost always pretextual and used to intimidate; basically, catch & release.

There sure are a ridiculous number of arrests, though, and these days having any kind of arrest on your record can be a significant handicap.

First, those sources are terrible. The first is a single treatment center, with an obvious bias, that provides zero methodology. The second at least seems like a decent authority, but provides no reason to believe his statement.

Second, the actual number of people in for marijuana far outnumbers those charged with possession. Both sources ignore those arrested for "drug trafficking" violations which would still be misdemeanors at best under the new laws, neither considers what various three strike laws have done, and god knows how many people took a plea for something not labeled possession.

AFAICT, the 600k figure comes the FBI's Uniform Crime Report. And the author of that tweet is a criminal law and criminal justice scholar, currently a professor at Fordham University. I don't remember reading any of his works specifically, but I have read plenty of scholarship on the issue. This summary, https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2017/04/10/how-we-misunde..., of his latest book seems consonant with everything I've read.

Criminal justice reform advocates created, or at least found themselves with, a particular narrative around the drug wars that heavily emphasized and even exaggerated aspects such as incarceration. That narrative helped to generate support for reform, but it wasn't very accurate. The truth is more complex, but no less in need of addressing. But if you don't have an accurate understanding of the underlying dynamics (e.g. not just that the system is racist, but why and how--those are vary important details) you're not going to be able to remediate it very well.

>And the author of that tweet is a criminal law and criminal justice scholar, currently a professor at Fordham University

Yes, an excellent authority, but it is still just an appeal to authority. The first one was the truly objectionable one.

I'm not saying that legalizing marijuana will solve all the legal systems problems, but it would remove a significant weight from an overburdened system. ~5% of prisoners alone is a lot of people, plus think of how many public defender hours are spent on these matters.

I am the last person to ask for a citation, but you are responding to a comment which provided one, so your lack thereof does hurt your credibility.

I would be very interested to know what the numbers are for each of the instances you claim, as well as how many of those people were only charged with marajuana offences. It is very common for people to be charged with drug and violent crimes, but 'plead out' of the violent crimes; these people would likely have been jailed/imprisoned for the latter crimes alone (though perhaps for less time).

>I am the last person to ask for a citation, but you are responding to a comment which provided one, so your lack thereof does hurt your credibility.

I don't think I need a citation to show that those sources are terrible. I never claimed to know how many people are actually locked up.

If it's not terribly easy to refute the claims with a reliable source, then yeah, you probably need a citation.

I would need a citation if I was saying the figures they claim are wrong. I'm saying they provide no detail on how they got those figures, have clear monetary interest, and are only presenting a portion of the people in jail for marijuana charges. My "source" is reading the sources the poster provided.

I think you misunderstand the impetus for freeing the people arrested for breaking marijuana laws. It isn't just to reduce crowding in jails -- it's to free people who were arrested and imprisoned under an unjust and insane law.

Sure, even if it's a merely a fraction of the prison population, the sheer human cost of those remaining in prison is incalculable. Still, from a public policy point of view at some point it sort of becomes indistinguishable from the background population of those unjustly incarcerated for myriad other reasons, and trotting out rare examples of long-term marijuana possession prisoners confuses the debate.

We're like 15 years into marijuana decriminalization--actual decriminalization at the state and even Federal level, not simple advocacy. It became a mostly bipartisan endeavor, at least on the national level since at least 2015 when Paul Ryan became Speaker. Though for various reasons most of the GOP remain non-committal, and will only tacitly support passive decriminalization.

Nonetheless, that's at least 15 years of slowly emptying our prisons of not only marijuana offenders, but drug offenders generally. The state of affairs today is nothing like the numbers that advocates were throwing around 15 years ago (and what most people still believe is the case), and even then they were exaggerated. There's still a ton more that needs to be done, and some reforms even need to be walked back or reverted because it turns out decriminalization alone exposes some serious problems and deficiencies elsewhere in the system. But if everybody's empathy is focused on the de minimis incarceration problem it's difficult to regroup and shift efforts.

Even take it at face value .1% of 2.3 million people incarcerated is 2000 people. Then you have to consider the number of people who get criminal charges on the record and face employment issues in the future because of it

Even if we pretend it's such a low number (which it's obviously not), the even bigger problem with marijuana criminalization laws is the terror they cause. They terrorize the population, literally. It's government tyranny flat out. It's unjust, it's evil, it's cruel to torture your citizens that way, that they should have to live in fear when they're not harming other people.

The politicians that produced and executed the war on drugs across decades are all vile bastards, on both sides of the political spectrum. Anyone involved should never be allowed to hold elected office, and that includes the current President.

Why not just smoke something else?

The burden should be on the government to have moral reasoning for incarcerating people. As long as they aren’t harming others, people should not have to change their behavior to avoid incarceration

Government has moral reasoning - it's for public good. Narcotics are harming other people. Marijuana was first banned in XIII century.

What about all the people who are harassed and/or killed in situations where cops would otherwise have no reason to? What about the extreme race disparity in who is charged with marijuana+other crimes?

Your dubious metric, if true, does not capture the essence of the problem.

When talking about the prison population in America, keep in mind that America has the largest prison population in the world both in absolute numbers and per capita.

So when you talk about the percentage of people locked up for X is small, this is skewed by the vast amount of people we lock up in general. If X is small compared to the prison population as a whole, it may still be an awful lot of people.

If we free people for marijuana possession and sale why not free people for cocaine possession and sale? And so on.

Exactly, now you're getting it. Certainly all people jailed for personal possession of any kind of drug and all small scale dealers should be pardoned and dealt with by social workers instead, or simply allowed to live their lives unharassed.

Another thought comes to mind (which I mention just for novelty's sake): even if a full rational analysis says that taking, say, heroin is a bad idea (for pretty much anyone who plans to live for more than a year, or whatever), it seems legalization should open the door to people tweaking the formula to come up with something with similar positive effects and fewer drawbacks. It seems to me that a great way to get people to stop taking dangerous drugs is to make something that's just better and is also less dangerous.

I've read a few things over the years saying that medical and psychiatric researchers (all but the bravest) have absolutely avoided doing anything remotely connected to the illegal drugs because of fear; given marijuana's use in pain management, and more recent results about psychedelics being possibly useful to treat depression and PTSD, this has probably set back research by years, possibly decades.

There are countries with prescription heroin, safe injecting rooms and addiction support not just looking at mental health, but also housing, work and relationships.

There are indications that this strategy works in decreasing harm, decreasing economic impact, and decreasing supply by drying up demand in illegal supply chains.

As always with public health and challenges to existing socio-cultural norms, there’s a lot of room to further discuss.

https://transformdrugs.org/heroin-assisted-treatment-in-swit...

Diamorphine is already very safe, has few side effects, and is commonly used as a stronger version of morphine in cancer treatment.

What is diamorphine? Well, it's the scientific name for heroin. However, it differs from the drug in being far purer, being used in a clinical setting, and with carefully controlled dosages. Other than that, it's identical to heroin.

This means we can conclude that the negative aspects of heroin come from impurities, addiction, mental health issues of the users, unsafe injection practices, and unknown strengths resulting in overdose.

You can, with access to medical grade heroin, use it occasionally with no negative side effects. We know this because it is used daily in hospitals around the world.

Why not indeed? But realistically we need to go one step at a time and keep pushing the Overton window.

I support this statement. No citizen should be held as a criminal for ingesting, smoking or injecting something into their own person.

If we are not allowed to treat our own bodies in any manner which we see fit, then these bodies are not our own.

Yes, it is essential that we legalize cocaine and many other recreational drugs.

Yes, why not?

It is time to accept we need to manage these things differently.

This is hilariously almost-selfaware.

Reminds me of these interactions on twitter:

> arrest the cops killing Breonna Taylor

> yeah, let's arrest every cop killing an african american...

> yes, that's the point

> the covid vaccine should be free

> yeah, let's just make chemotherapy free as well..

> yeah, let's

Who would build our furniture and make our clothes then?

Please read up on the crack epidemic in America in the 1980s and 1990s. You probably didn't live through it so see what widespread drug use does to society and especially cities.

Could you explain it for us then? I'm genuinely curious in what you observed.

Yes we should.

Not sure why everyone is so obsessed with the federal elections. Things take time and often bubble up via states.

The US needs more decentralization if it want's progress on a realistic timeline (ie, one that reflects the populace). It also helps weeds out the more radical emotion-driven stuff.

Correct me if I'm wrong, but California is the US's highest spending state [0] with a budget of around 200 billion. Its entire budget is smaller than the US Federal government's deficit (measured in single digit trillions).

The reason everyone cares about federal elections is because there are earth-shattering amounts of money involved. The resources that get consumed have to come from somewhere.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._state_budgets

That money is mostly entitlement spending.

You can change a lot of the states level that has nothing to do with entitlements.

It's about half entitlements, 27% Medic* + 22% SS, and this percentage will increase quickly.

But that's still $3T for other stuff in average years. Plus they just passed $2T of extra one-off spending for the second time in a year.

That means the Federal government is basically taking all the spending power of the nation and then redistributing it, giving it enormous power compared to the states.

Because federal laws can throw a LOT of cold water onto state legalization, if the federal government wanted to. Hence why elections matter.

If anything, the US’s progress is being held back by federal government inaction. The freedom to move across state lines causes many problems that require taxpayer subsidies to solve.

For example, no state can offer taxpayer funded healthcare, because it would attract benefit recipients and would repel taxpayers.

And no state can offer housing for homeless, for the same reason as the above.

> And no state can offer housing for homeless, for the same reason as the above.

I thought Utah had housing for homeless?

*Almost every state. Eventually it'll become a pissing contest for which one can hold off on legalization the longest, until they are dragged kicking and screaming.

See South Dakota, where a constitutional amendment passed on the ballot but the asshole governor is still trying to block it in court. One of her main reasons? Setting up the new licensing laws would cost ~$4 million dollars and the predicted tax revenue of $10 million a year won't come in til 2022 at the earliest. How they can make that argument with a straight face is beyond me.

Look at what happened in Idaho. They past joint resolution 101 and now it's part of the State Constitution where even if the voters vote to legalize it will never be allowed. Totally Insane.

It's not in the constitution until voters approve it in 2022.

Idaho organizers have work to do.

Reading the text of joint resolution 101, I can’t see how it would ban cannabis but not alcohol. I’m not a lawyer though.

The bill defines "psycoactive drug" as: any amount or mixture thereof of any schedule I or schedule II controlled substance

This is Idaho, remember?

See Idaho attempting to pass a constitutional amendment banning any legalization, even medical.

Passed the senate with a 2/3 supermajority a couple days ago, about to go to the house for a supermajority vote, then a simple majority ballot measure in 2022.

> even medical

I don't think so. If the FDA approves it and it gets removed as a Class I or II drug, it looks to me like the bill allows it with a prescription.

Some states will simply not pursue legalization until their voting demographics have turned over sufficiently to elect more progressive representation (and the Marijuana Policy Project, who has championed legalization in many states, has said there are only a few states left where this can be done with a ballot initiative versus state legislature).

For many, they’ll need to vote with their feet and migrate to better states. Or the federal government legalizes it.

> until their voting demographics have turned over sufficiently to elect more progressive representation

Which for a large number of states is never. Let's not pretend there aren't many states out there that would eagerly overturn all social progress we have made in the last 50 years tomorrow if they could, fully supported by a voting majority of their constituents.

We didn't wait for states to abolish racial segregation one by one. Marijuana legalization (and drug laws overhaul in general to favor rehabilitation over criminalization) similarly has to be enacted and enforced at the federal level.

Marijuana is a bit different from purely social issues like gay marriage, it has majority support among Republican voters too. (Nationwide, that is, not in every state.)

https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrisroberts/2020/08/19/poll-re...

If a majority of Republicans support it and a majority of democrats support it, then why hasn't it passed already? Surely there cannot be enough state level skew on this issue that a majority of Senators don't represent states where legalization is favored by most voters?

It's not a major issue among the Republicans who don't care, while it's often a major issue for those who do. You don't lose much of your base by opposing it, but you lose a bunch if you support it.

Representatives are doing their job as the system designed. I don't love how it's playing out, but I don't think there are shenanigans afoot.

>If a majority of Republicans support it and a majority of democrats support it, then why hasn't it passed already?

Because the demographics that write the laws aren't representative of the electorate in general. The people making the rules are on average middle age or older.

The US system has atrophied enough that the will of the people no longer really matters.

There are certainly lobbies against it (prison lobby, police lobby) but there are also some that are for it (cigarette lobby would like those weed dollars). But the actual problem is that everyone's gonna vote the way they were anyway, so there's no need to actually address the issue.

And that's really both parties. Like, Biden could unilaterally order federal descheduling tomorrow. The President has authority to order the DEA to schedule or deschedule something. It would literally be another 5 minute thing he could do by executive order that would prevent the ongoing ruining of thousands of people's lives currently being ground up by the justice system. Will he? No.

"Maybe later this year" and only via congress.

I put more weight on the politicians elected by the Right as opposed to a poll of the constituency. The elected officials are going to be more representative of how people actually feel, and what ideas they hold as taboo.

Historically politics changes surprisingly quickly. Events like 911 shape a generation, yet that was before some voters in the last election where born. Give it say another 40 years and heavy handed TSA regulations will just seem like a silly waste of cash to the overwhelming majority of voters.

I could go into actual flip flops, but people get very defensive when their party changes stances on an issue.

> Let's not pretend there aren't many states out there that would eagerly overturn all social progress we have made in the last 50 years tomorrow if they could, fully supported by a voting majority of their constituents.

Well, let's look at one particular issue – marriage equality. In 2017, there was only one state (Alabama) where >= 50% of people said they opposed legal same-sex marriage, and even there the figure was only 51%. So, in the unlikely event that the Supreme Court overturned Obergefell v. Hodges and allowed states to reimpose bans on same-sex marriage, it looks like Alabama is the only state in which there would be majority support for doing so, and that majority would be paper-thin. (Plus, this survey was 3-4 years ago, and opinions continue to shift, so for all we know, opposition in Alabama may have fallen beneath 50% since then.)

http://ava.prri.org/#lgbt/2017/States/lgbt_ssm/3

There are a lot of issues that people are indifferent on though — they agree with it in principle, but it's not enough to swing their vote.

It feels like they'd need to poll something like: "You broadly think your representative has voted in favour of your issues, but they have also voted to repeal same-sex marriage. Would you reelect them?"

If you have a large vocal minority against something, politicians start to assess an appeasement strategy. "How many votes would it lose me to get these people onside?"

As a completely different example, I don't remember any polling in the UK in favour of the Brexit referendum before David Cameron called it, he was definitely playing to the vocal minority. & though polls show most people wish we had remained, it doesn't seem to be enough of an issue to sway people away from voting for Boris Johnson & the Tories generally.

The Brexit example is quite good I think, as it illustrates the horse-trading inherent in these things. It was a promise to a wing of the Tory party in exchange for concessions on other issues. From the polls I can remember it wasn't something the vast majority cared about, it consistently came very far down the list of important issues facing the UK. But when the promise was activated, those with political power who were opposed to EU membership managed to make it into an issue, and I think drugs are an area of policy where it is easy to do the same thing, to create and energise a base that had no great feelings either way. It helps enormously that drugs are a taboo subject, and that usage is associated with groups of people that are easily painted as undesirables.

And yet tons of people are migrating to states like Idaho from states where marijuana is legal.

Plenty of states never legalized gay marriage until the Supreme Court forced them to. (And I seriously doubt the Court will ever rule that the states aren’t allowed to ban cannabis.)

But it's still a federal Schedule I drug, isn't it?? I'm not going to rely on Washington's pinky-swear not to enforce the law, and then there are the big employers that drug-test.

I would not be surprised to see the Biden administration move to change this. Kamala proposed nationwide legalization last year:

https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrisroberts/2020/08/19/poll-re...

I was a little surprised that Trump didn't. That seems like an easy beat-the-establishment policy win, or more likely, he'd put the media in the position of having to defend drug laws.

He was a 70 year old teetotaler and probably bought into the demon weed paranoia. Ironically so is Biden but dems seem much more willing to move on this based in the states so far

I don’t believe I’m defending Trump. But he definitely supported state’s rights to legalize weed.

https://www.marijuanamoment.net/gop-senator-reveals-what-tru...

That position is the status quo. Doing nothing isn’t that praise worthy

It's a tale of two east coast authoritarians who tied themselves to two very different party platforms.

Too many Evangelicals in his coalition, unfortunately. And they vote.

Drug legalization, Snowden/Assange pardon, de-classifying stuff, congressional term limits...

For Trump, being anti-establishment was always about catchy slogans "drain the swamp" and irrelevant "own the media" stunts like skipping the White House Correspondents' dinner.

Biden does not have the ability to legalize weed. That would require an act of Congress, which would require both parties to agree to it (or at least agree not to filibuster it).

Legalization is one thing, instructing the DEA to reschedule it (perhaps with some figleaf like a scientific committee to reassess) is another.

Those employers are a net-negative to society, let them die.

Whether they're bad for society or not, my point was that normalization of pot is more of a climb than "just a couple more states, then progress!".

A lot of the places have legitimate reasons for it. You drug test sometimes because drug users can and will steal you blind if they are addicted enough. You don't want drug users operating heavy or critical machinery, or in any job with a modicum of danger. You don't want your day care provider with workers who show up high; by the time you realize it to fire them, they may have done damage.

Not every reason people drug test is invalid.

There are plenty of folks who would fail a marijuana drug test who I'd have no problem in childcare. Your concern is like, "We should test to ensure that someone has had zero alcohol. You don't want your day care provider showing up drunk."

Well yeah. We don’t want drunk people taking care of kids either. That’s pretty standard.

I think the point is that marijuana will show up in a drugs days a few days later, even when you're no longer high.

As in, you wouldn't fire someone for showing up sober on Monday morning because they had a glass of wine on Saturday evening.

Urine drug tests don't test for active inebriation. They test for metabolite presence, which for cannabis can linger for up to a month depending on a number of factors. That's why drug testing is not the answer to your problem.

The hard drugs that tend to have more destructive effects don't even show up on a urine drug test for much longer than 72 hours. So, while the person who only smokes weed after work in the evening is at risk of being caught by a drug test, the person who gets off on Friday, goes on a cocaine binge, and then tests clean on Tuesday or Wednesday has nothing to worry about. Which would you rather have in your employ? I'd choose the pothead over the cokehead without hesitation.

Okay so lets start making daily breathalyzer tests standard for anyone who works in kids. Once in the morning and once after lunch.

Yes, there are legitimate reasons to test for the use of particular drugs - and in the case of marijuana, operating heavy plant, or flying aircraft, or driving trains etc, would qualify; anything where alertness and reaction time is crucial.

I'd quibble, though, with your statement: "... because drug users can and will steal you blind if they are addicted enough."

It is important not to lump all drug use together. There is a huge difference between marijuana use and use of heroin, or other opiates, which are extremely physically addictive and which do cause users in withdrawal to turn to crime to rob you blind for the next fix.

Alcohol addiction is also physical, and the need for alcohol by addicts craving a drink creates lots of petty crime.

Marijuana is not physically addictive, and users do not suffer from withdrawal symptoms/effects. Burglary and violent crime are just not fuelled by marijuana use in that way.

> users do not suffer from withdrawal symptoms/effects

I smoke a lot of weed. Withdrawal isn't a big deal, but it is a thing. It's closer to caffeine withdrawal than alcohol/nicotine withdrawal though. Symptoms I've experienced when taking a break are typically irritability and insomnia for about a day or two. And of course cravings over the longer term which often brings me back.

I should have been clearer in that I meant physical withdrawal - where your body needs a substance, previously provided externally by the drug, to function. So someone accustomed to heroin use will suffer jangly nerves (among many other things) when it isn't in their system. See [1].

Similar, if lesser, physical effects happen to those with an alcohol dependency when alcohol is suddenly cut off [2]

These things are physical, not just psychological. I'm an inveterate cannabis user, and have been since the age of 15, with a happy daily habit uniterrupted for years until I went to work in Qatar for just over a year. No cannabis was available, but I had no physical ill effects - was just grumpier and less chilled in general. Similarly, currently locked down and away from my usual habitat, I've not had a spliff for quite a few months. Again, I miss the vibe etc, but I am not in any physical pain.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opioid_withdrawal

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcohol_withdrawal_syndrome

i have never heard of a drug that has side effects listed as 'withdrawl may cause crime' though...

Idaho is going the other way, the Senate just passed a bill that will constitutionally prohibit cannabis and any other illicit psychoactive drugs if voters pass it with simple majority in 2022.

> Idaho is going the other way

Which is great, for the following reason: a really good way to actually know the value of something is conducting A/B experiments.

If Idaho keeps cannabis illegal, we'll be able to actually measure what effects good or bad that has on society, including tax opportunity costs.

We're talking about a state without big cities, a comparatively tiny population, generally not a lot of crime, and a mostly white population. The only thing we'd be able to learn is whether drug usage in that state is affected at all by not changing a thing (it's illegal now). This would indeed be surprising as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is a sign of insanity (to paraphrase Einstein). Also, it would be a good way to characterize decades of drug policy making in the US.

It won't. I'm a legalization supporter, but you can't pretend that being surrounded by states with legal cannabis won't cause the availability of cannabis to be huge. If cannabis causes negative effects, they're going to get hit with a double effect of readily available cannabis and no tax revenue to offset it.

Then again, I don't get the impression that it's ever been difficult to find cannabis, even when it was illegal all over the US.

> Then we get to work freeing everyone jailed for this

Reasonably sure that’s now how the law works

You're right, nobody will be automagically freed as a result. That being said, pushing for amnesty, and pushing for pardons is completely how the law works, and very doable.

What is stopping a law from being passed that operates in a similar way to a pardon?

"All people convicted of X set of laws have their sentences nullified and this criminal conviction removed from their records" as a law passed, or something like that?

>What is stopping a law from being passed that operates in a similar way to a pardon?

Nothing. In fact[0]: "As of this writing [12 March 2020], 26 states, D.C., and one territory have legalized or decriminalized marijuana to some degree. Eleven states and D.C. have done both. Seventeen states and D.C. have enacted expungement, sealing, or set-aside laws specifically for marijuana, or targeted more generally to decriminalized or legalized conduct. Four states have pardon programs for marijuana offenses."

[0] https://ccresourcecenter.org/2020/03/12/legalizing-marijuana...

woah the legislature is creating an automatic expungement process

that will be huge

Virginia is about to be solidly blue

And that's the important part. It's not enough to legalize it when it was all fear and racial panic driving it's prohibition, we also have to repair those whose lives were broken by the prohibition. Automatic expungement will go far and should be the blueprint for any states looking to follow.

> Virginia is about to be solidly blue

Why? Is there a strong correlation with ex-cons and the Democratic Party?

If by ex-cons you mean people who were imprisoned for marijuana use then yes, they do tend to support the party which wants to decriminalize marijuana.

> they do tend to support the party which wants to decriminalize marijuana

Neither party supports it. One plays pretend. All of the real progress forward has come from referendums.

The current Vice President made a career crushing marijuana users’ lives. The current President was the Vice President of an administration that left it illegal for 8 years and perpetuated the imprisonment of users.

One of the criticisms of the Republican Party and the people that align with it and it’s prior iterations is that its existence relies on disenfranchising people. Removing their ability to vote. Whether it’s outright exclusion from being a voting citizen, or barriers to entry to vote, or subsequently stripping that right from people. From the beginning of the country till now. And when even that fails some want to dismantle the entire system outside of the prescribed process.

All parties have at some point added to mass incarceration programs and ways to remove voting rights from people, Republican Party right now are the ones that want to continue it as opposed to attempting to rehabilitate and create productive members of society as fast as possible.

There is only one other party with federal representation right now, so that is hard to reconcile for many, but the re-enfranchised people often support that other party’s goals.

> From the beginning of the country till now.

No, Abe Lincoln wants a word. It wasn’t until the southern strategy that the party took a focus on “ensuring that only legitimate citizens can vote”.

Here's a mirror that doesn't require running sinclair media scripts, https://archive.is/GlHfZ

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