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Comment by mustafa_pasi | Hacker News Reader

Feels like they were keeping this card in their sleeves for when they needed a popularity boost.

It is a good thing for democratically accountable governments to do good things that the people want!

Yes, it's good for the government to not be tyrannical, but I'd argue that when the majority of people increasingly and collectively want things that are net negatives for society like recreational drug use, it's a red flag that society is in decline.

You seem to be conflating a distaste for demonstratively failed policy, like as prohibition, with an appetite for what you are calling "recreational drug use".

Do you acknowledge the failure of prohibition?

I think recreational drug use is demonstrably good for society and part of all succesful civilizations. Take caffeine, sugar, alcohol and tobacco as the primary examples. All potent drugs and all taken habitually and en masse by all the most successful societies in the world.

All the most successful societies have tobacco users, therefore tobacco is good for society. Logic checks out.

More like all the most successful societies value personal freedoms. Personal freedoms are clearly good for society and a big one of those is recreational drug use of which tobacco use is quite common.

Having a government which restricts personal freedoms too much for the sake of "societal good" may work in the short term or for specific issues but is clearly a negative in the long and broad terms. See the "west" of today for evidence of personal freedom combined with not-overly-restrictive-legislation being the most successful method of handling these things.

Tell that to all the people pissed off at Roe v Wade

This is a directional error. Roe protected liberty. Federal criminalization of weed impedes liberty. While ending both of these things returns policy to the states, one necessarily reduces liberty while one necessarily increases liberty.

The political group largely responsible for this has been consistently underperforming in nearly every election since it happened, so I’m not sure what point you’re driving at.

Which party is part of which decision again?

The people want to be undisturbed and untaxed by rampant mental illness too, but the average person won't acknowledge that recreational marijuana use (with today's potency levels) contributes to declining mental health.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2424288/

https://treatmentmagazine.com/cannabis-2020-this-isnt-your-d...

That logic doesn't really hold. I'll speak generally and not about this specific administration:

If the <current government> was doing good things that the people wanted during the entire term, then they would not need to resort to moves like this alleged one when the vote is coming up. It's only if they're not doing good things that the people want that they would dangle something shiny to the electorate.

They absolutely were. Between 25% inflation, the student loan relief failure, two proxy wars and the current beating of college students across the country, the current administration would have been facing record low turnout in November.

I would be surprised if there is not some string attached to this that doesn't take place until after November. That's a good thing though, becuase it was seeming more and more like the current administration was sabotaging itself. The Democrats need the youth vote.

Nobody cares about college protestors, even other young people. It's the second to least important issue in recent polls.

https://iop.harvard.edu/youth-poll/47th-edition-spring-2024

Young people always have bad turnout anyway, so it doesn't matter if they find a new excuse to have it.

(Also they did do student loan reform via SAVE and have forgiven about 9% of loans IIRC. Probably shouldn't have though, it's inflationary, and as you can see from the above poll nobody even appreciates it.)

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