Comment by godelski | Hacker News Reader

Comment by godelski | Hacker News Reader

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What's crazy to me is almost 70% of Americans are in favor[0], with about 50% of Republicans being on board (48% Republicans, 72% Independents, 83% Democrats). It is insane to me that the Democrats are not pushing this forward. It is an easy win. It creates more jobs. It is the only think you can say "we're going to put a 30% tax on the sale of" and people will rejoice. I just don't get it. It's roughly the same as support for gay marriage is _today_[1] (I 'm not trying to use the comparison as a human rights issue but because it is another controversial topic where people can guesstimate how controversial the opinion is)

I can understand how they are more hesitant with other drugs and possession (though I'm with you on full decriminalization like Oregon did), but I at least understand this one. I _do not_ understand how weed isn't legal yet. It's very popular, profitable, and will help reduce issues in South America.

Edit: I think there even is a double win strategy. First you reschedule the drug. Second you legalize it. So even if you want to play political games there's advantage. The numbers above were for full legalization but they just rise when you include medicinal (less people are ready for full legalization but in favor of medical and rescheduling).

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

[1] https://news.gallup.com/poll/350486/record-high-support-same...

I think it boils down to a lot of our politicians being old, scared of being perceived as weak on crime, and some pretty heavy lobbying efforts by tobacco and alcohol companies.

I'm sure the DEA is fighting it as hard as they can too. Same with the police union lobby.

I do think it'll happen in the near term, probably faster than people expect just like with gay marriage. Though I also think there will be a few holdout states.

"I think it boils down to a lot of our politicians being old, scared of being perceived as weak on crime, and some pretty heavy lobbying efforts by tobacco and alcohol companies."

It's not just that. A lot of people, including politicians, truly bought in to a lot of the anti-drug propaganda.. and many of them are also in religions which consider drug use sinful. For many of them, their opposition to drugs comes from the same sources as their opposition to gay marriage and abortion: their churches and religious leaders.

What's been incredibly interesting, however, is how their attitudes have been changing once people started to become aware how helpful psychedelics and cannabis can be... to mental and physical health, and to spirituality.

Lots of people are hurting, and the medical and mental health establishments have failed so many people. Even church prohibitions are having a hard time standing up to that, especially if they have a sherd of compassion for those suffering and those than can be helped with these unjustly illegal substances.

I think so too but it also serves as a show of how disconnected politics often is from public opinion. IMO, in a democracy, if public opinion is strongly in favor of something (and there's not clear evidence that that thing is just plane dumb, which we can vet by asking experts), then it is the politicians duty to implement that thing. Yes, they should serve as a safety net (vetting with experts) but they should not impede progress. (In fact, I'll say that they should often ask experts and implement things that are not "widely" popular, but at least mildly popular, if experts think it is a good idea. Which is very clear in the case of drugs. We've got lots of evidence)

Our politicians are very old and seem to have stopped updating their world views long ago (some older people keep learning and changing but it seems most do not). Their views are consistent with public opinion 50 years ago on many issues.

I had assumed big tobacco and alcohol companies were ready to step in and crush all these mom and pop weed ops the second we had federal legalization. Especially tobacco since cigarette usage is on the decline.

I think it's harder than you might assume for big businesses to move into new business areas, especially if it requires cannibalizing their existing revenue streams. That's a story we've seen over and over right?

Big businesses today tend to not innovate themselves and instead expand into new markets via acquisitions, but how many pot business owners do you think are interested in selling to those megacorps vs running their own show and continuing to make bank?

> will help reduce issues in South America

This is not in the interests of your money-owners.

New Zealand had a referendum on leaglisation with a 52/48 opposed result.

Instead of reading this as rightly that people wanted change, Ardern has done nothing.

if the taxes are too high, the market will fail and the majority of people will still use the black market. they'll get a lower tax yield and less safety for users.

yeah but "lower the tax rate" is a lot easier of an incremental policy change than "litigate the tax rate on cannabis before legalization even happens".

I'm just saying, in Washington there's a 37% tax rate... so clearly you can get it pretty high. Probably because weed is cheaper even with the tax than it was on the black market.

Yea this is absolutely not the case at all.

I don't smoke so don't know the specific numbers but pretty much all of the people I know that smoked before it was legal have gone back to their old dealers after their glee from buying from a store wore off.

They usually say that they hate the fact that most of the licenses have gone to rich old dudes who most certainly in the past voted for policies that ruined alot of peoples lives but are happy to make a profit off it now, people like Boehner. They'd much rather support their local dealer who doesn't even have access to a license.

But when you press them on it prices seem to be up to half as much for the same amount and nobody is worried about their weed potentially containing anything dangerous.

That said I assume something similar played out after prohibition. I'm sure there were lots of people who kept making moonshine and lots of people who continued to buy illegally, but over time the number of people doing either basically decreased to zero. I doubt any one looking to smoke the first time is buying illegally. There has been push back on the licensing process to make it more equitable so hopefully the local dealers can get in on it in the future.

What is not the case? 37% tax or weed being cheaper now that it is legalized? Because I can say with extreme confidence that both are true. I can also say that the quality has increased. You can easily fact check the tax rate too.

> They usually say that they hate the fact that most of the licenses have gone to rich old dudes

I'm not sure how this responds to anything I said. This is orthogonal and a completely different conversation. Have you also considered that your friends aren't the norm?

> But when you press them on it prices

So you confirm what I said above. I'll admit now this is a confusing conversation. You open by saying you _absolutely_ disagree with me and then confirm my statement. This has been one wild conversation.

Washington state cannabis has something like 47% tax and it’s very healthy, the black market is not exactly booming. Most of the material on the black market is leaking from licensed grow ops though.

37% for washington, ~17-20% for Oregon

37%excise, plus sales tax. Puts it right about 47 depending on the county and city levied sales taxes.

That hasn't proven to be the case. People who were willing to use the black market before may go back, but in the states that have legalized the bulk of buyers are now people who never used the black market and would not chose to even with very high taxes.

Also lot of the most popular products are stuff the black market never really went into, like gummies, concentrates, etc.

That said, I think OR got it right at about 20% right now, though there's a bill proposed to raise that to ~30%, mostly to raise the local municipalities cut from 3% to 10%.

> That hasn't proven to be the case.

Hasn't? What about the moonshine business? That was all created by the liquor taxes. And all the organized crime around avoiding cigarette taxes.

The moonshine business was pretty darn minor before prohibition?

I'm obviously not talking about moonshine. I'm specifically talking about weed, today.

It is more a question of convenience, quality, variety and availability. Canada had a slow start but more than half of cannabis consumers there are now buying legally, because the legal product has surpassed the illegal one in all these areas.

It is NOT about price.

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