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Comment by paxys | Hacker News Reader

*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.

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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.

This is Idaho, remember?

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

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?

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.

>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.

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.

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.

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