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Comment by Ajay-p | Hacker News Reader

I don't like when politicians only respond to overwhelming public discontent or desires in an election year. This reclassification is a good thing, absolutely, but it angers me that policymakers wait and treat us like baying kittens eager for a morsel of acknowledgement from our elected leaders.

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I really like it when politicians do stuff that the citizens want.

There's no particular need to chastise politicians for doing the right thing, when you could have chastised them the whole time they weren't doing the right thing

I prefer politicians to do what is logical and what is right, even if the citizens hate it so much they will be beheaded in a revolution. One of the number one things I lament the lack of is leaders with actual principles.

The road to hell is paved with good intentions.

When someone commits an evil act, they did it because they think it is justified somehow. Most bad people do not see themselves as bad at the moment of the act, only as someone who had a reason to do it and the reason was much more important.

This is true, but I think much of it is also true of the public. Many abhorrent policies and acts were the result of what the public thought was best and demanded at the time.

How is marijuana use “logical and right?” It serves no logical function other than dulling your ability to perform your social obligations. Legalizing marijuana is actually an example of politicians following public opinion that’s wrong and illogical.

Doing this 4 years ago would’ve meant potentially 4 years of life returned to people who are actively getting fucked or have been getting fucked because of these laws.

It really is silly it was classified as more dangerous than cocaine.

A drug that you can actually overdose on.

It wasn't silly, it was a deliberate choice to hurt politically undesirable demographics.

“You want to know what this [war on drugs] was really all about? The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying?

We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news.

Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”

~ John Ehrlichman, Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs under President Richard Nixon

We have banned alcohol, religions ban alcohol. It's more to do with moral panic rather than subjugating people. As others mention, Singapore, China, Japan, North Korea, etc. have strict control over narcotic substances. Many countries are in diametric opposition to US policies but "agree" with narcotics policies for some of the same reasons.

You have to realize countries will make things terrible crimes by framing something anti-colonialist.

The US' War on Drugs was created to subjugate minority and leftist communities. The powers that be admitted as much.

No doubt that was the case for many instances; however, I would posit that even if the US had been homogenously either black or white as a nation, in either case as a country we would still have controlled those substances. By and large, the only places that didn't control narcotics were locations with poor/weak central governments or a history of proscribed consumption (central Asia had/has a history where it's customary for older folks to consume, but it is heavily frowned upon for non older people to consume.)

It’s even more ridiculous when you learn that there is a prescription form of medical THC, fully legal and authorized under the FDA and DEA rules. And it’s a schedule III.

> don't like when politicians only respond to overwhelming public discontent or desires in an election year

Every year is an election year for someone in your electoral stack.

Imagine a company’s culture if they could only fire, promote or give people bonuses/raises once every four years.

It's always an election year or the year after an election or year of midterms or etc.

This is like "40% of all sick days are on Monday or Friday" levels of cynicism.

Government regulations take a while to be properly written, this has been slowly moving for more then a Year.

This timing is responsive to public opinion, and in fact is still even risky for Biden. The problem is that while marijuana legalization carries a modest majority, that’s split between the parties. As of 2024, over a quarter of Democrats still oppose legalizing marijuana for recreational use: https://www.pewresearch.org/politics/2024/03/26/most-america....

That makes any national movement on marijuana risky for Biden. Biden cannot win reelection without winning a super majority of Hispanics, the majority of whom oppose recreational marijuana. Maybe Biden figures he’s cooked in Arizona and Nevada anyway, and this is his play for cross-pressured voters in whiter than average states like Michigan and Pennsylvania, where abortion has been flipping many Obama-Trump voters back lately.

But zooming out, this phenomenon will exist in any representative democracy with political parties. A policy with 57% support that carries an overwhelming majority of one party has a much better chance than a policy with 57% split between the parties.

> less than half of Hispanics support legalizing marijuana for recreational use. Hispanics (and Asians) support recreational marijuana legalization at only marginally higher rates than Republicans.

Quite possibly, but is there any sort of cross sectioning that to religious beliefs and/or existing political affiliations in the data set?

I say it that way because, the more devout Catholics may very well support abortion bans and keeping Marijuana completely illegal...

But let's remember the reality of this change; it is NOT legalization, it is simply moved to schedule 3 federally.

IMHO, if the population who decides that is 'past the line' or gets fooled to think it is full legalization gets in a tizzy and everything goes its up again...

Idk what to say at that point.

I agree there is risk but the bigger risk is long term blowback if it becomes a big pharma cash grab.

> Quite possibly, but is there any sort of cross sectioning that to religious beliefs and/or existing political affiliations in the data set?

Biden won over 60% of Hispanics in 2020. Even if every one of the 45% who support recreational marijuana voted for him in 2020, he has to win over a quarter of those who oppose that policy.

Regardless, my main point is that it’s misleading to assert that this change was somehow delayed despite “overwhelming public support.” Even today this is not a risk-free move for Biden. That’s not a fault of the governmental system, that’s just how coalition politics works. Even at age 40, I wouldn’t confess to ever having tried marijuana (I tried an edible once in DC where it’s legal) to anyone in my family. But they’re the same immigrants who flipped Virginia blue.

> Biden won over 60% of Hispanics in 2020. Even if every one of the 45% who support recreational marijuana voted for him in 2020, he has to win over a quarter of those who oppose that policy.

Per my comment however, Schedule 3 is nowhere near 'go into a store and buy it' federally speaking. If people see this as full decrim/rec they are in for what may be an extremely rude awakening (best worst scenario, everything is in state only, worst worst scenario, pharma strong arms in.)

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