Legal Marijuana Businesses Should Have Access to Banks, Holder Says
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
Obama and Holder have made it pretty clear (at least personally) that they don't see marijuana as a risk, and yet when the discussion about removing it from Schedule 1 status comes around, the answer seems to be "no".
Why is this? Obviously politics, but I'm curious where the big resistance is coming from. What would happen if Obama just said "You know what, we're taking it off Schedule 1 status. Done." Who would fight back and why?
He is not going to be re-elected of course, but his party still needs to win elections and he won't do anything that he thinks will jeopardize that.
I don't think this broad characterization is correct: Alcohol and Nicotine are drugs, but widely used and accepted in our society. Certain forms of medication could easily be added to the list. It's just that certain drugs are not accepted in our society, despite all scientific evidence that they are at least not more dangerous than alcohol and tobacco.
It's not rational or informed, but lots of people are still thinking that way.
The biggest may be that most local police departments are funded largely by the seizure of assets from minor drug offenders and innocents who they can get away with accusing of drugs.
Other vested interests are the large number of government employees and private companies who benefit from the drug war, from drug detection to prisons.
There are also political issues. Marijuana legalization is opposed by many swing voters, and neither party can afford to lose those. Leaving matters up to states allows states where the majority favors continued criminal prosecution of marijuana offenses to do as they wish. This is actually the way it should be constitutionally.
I'm actually not sure how the federal government has the constitutional authority to enforce drug laws against the wishes of a state. If anyone can point me to a precedent, that would be helpful. The federal government has no authority to enforce laws against most crimes that occur entirely within a state's borders unless they violate international treaties.
EDIT: It appears the authority was challenged and affirmed in Gonzales v Raich case, though I think the opinion is in error as it grants the federal government complete authority to regulate local activity, an opinion which the Constitution was written to prevent. Congress is limited to the power "to regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States".
Which they in fact do - there are multiple international treaties on drug crimes and enforcement.
The reason that drug policy around the world is similar to drug policy in the US is specifically because the US has forced its approach on the rest of the world, not the other way around. Notice how many of the international anti-drug operations are carried out by the DEA.
If the US suddenly decided overnight that it wanted to do things its own way, I have a hard time believing they'd face any real international resistance.
The Republican justices avow a preference for textual interpretation and division between state and federal power. Justice Thomas actually appears to believe that, based on his support for Raich. Justice Rhenquist was dying from cancer and considering that he might want some medical marijuana himself and Justice O'Connor's husband was in a similar situation; they both voted with Thomas. Scalia and Kennedy are right wing culture warriors who hate the "dirty f* cking hippies" and don't care much for textual interpretation unless it's convenient to their agenda; they voted with their culture war preference.
The decision was 6-3 against America. Today America would lose 8-1.
[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn
* man fsck for details
Majority: Stevens - Republican (Ford) Souter - Republican (Bush) Ginsberg - Democrat (Clinton) Breyer - Democrat (Clinton) Kennedy - Republican (Reagan) Scalia - Republican (Reagan)
And the dissenters: O'Conner - Republican (Reagan) Rehnquist - Republican (Nixon) Thomas - Republican (Bush)
Even though there were seven Republican appointees at the time and two Democratic, the court was widely seen as having five Republicans and four Democrats. Mostly this was based on long experience watching the justices on both sides vote their partisan preferences on issues instead of the law and the constitution. The same court had served for a decade together by the time of Raich, so we knew a lot about them.
The classic example is Bush v. Gore where the court openly admitted that they were voting for a president instead of applying the law. The decision specifically disclaimed any precedential authority because it wasn't an application of law. Five Republicans voted for Bush and four Democrats for Gore.
Another classic example is Justice O'Connor's public statement that she would retire voluntarily only when a Republican could choose her replacement. Justices Souter and Stevens, in spite of being Republican appointments, waited just long enough to ensure Obama would choose their replacements.
Stevens held the same opinions for thirty-five years while partisan politics moved around him to make him a Democrat. Souter was specifically chosen by Bush as a cross-party appointment out of fear that the court would overturn Roe v. Wade with another Republican and destroy Bush's chances of reelection.
Well, except that they never said that.
That is further true with Supreme Court justices, who have no reason to have any party affiliation, generally have none, and are far more nuanced, consistent, and reasonable than any political party. Yes, some lean more conservative than others on certain issues - as can be expected.
It's sad to see the sort of Fox News / MSNBC style partisanship you represent on Hacker News, where what you disagree with is called "Democratic" and what you agree with is called "Republican."
Yes, I do.
"neither is right or wrong about anything."
Actually, it's quite common for both to be right (robbery should be a crime), for either one to be right and the other wrong (starting a war with Iran would be bad no matter what Republicans think; trade protectionism is not good for our economy no matter what Democrats think), and for both to be wrong (infinite copyright is not good for creativity).
"That is further true with Supreme Court justices, who have no reason to have any party affiliation, generally have none, and are far more nuanced, consistent, and reasonable than any political party."
That is what I'd like to see, but recent history proves the exact opposite. Supreme Court justices align themselves with a party and pretty much follow it slavishly even contrary to their own declared ideology and rational conclusions. Maybe Justice Thomas is less partisan than most, but they're all far more partisan than ideological or rational.
That's why I explicitly said Republican and Democrat and not left and right or conservative and reactionary.
Lucky for us, most cases are still technical and detail rich rather than battles over federalism, abortion, and other hot button partisan issues. Our only remaining shred of non-partisanship on the court is that many issues don't yet have a partisan aspect.
"It's sad to see the sort of Fox News / MSNBC style partisanship you represent on Hacker News, where what you disagree with is called "Democratic" and what you agree with is called "Republican.""
It's the only realistic view of the present court and its appointment process, no matter how sad it is for the country.
Also, what I disagree with is seldom called 'Democratic'; I'm a registered Democrat. It just so happens that partisan Republican motivated reasoning was better and more valid on the single case under discussion. Since I'm not trying to get appointed to the Supreme Court, I can afford to admit that.
That said, it could certainly be the case that there's a perception of swing voters opposing marijuana legalization (or perhaps those who oppose it are more vociferous than those who support it or something).
Source: http://blog.statwing.com/every-party-age-region-and-religion...
I think a large part of the reason pot is still mostly illegal is because no politician wants to be the guy to say "wow what a massive fuckup we've made".
Passed an amendment to make it illegal
Then passed an amendment to make it legal
Instead of revoking/cancelling/etc to the first one
Think of it like git version history: even a revert is actually a new commit.
Government is filled with a bunch of squares. DOJ and DEA doubly or triply so.
Did you ever know anybody in school who not only never smoked pot or drank, but thought people who did were human failures? They went on to become professional squares, the US government employs thousands of them, and they've got the power of law enforcement and judicial precedent supporting the careers they've spent their lives building. They also populate the staffs, advisors, and campaign workers of Congresspeople who do smoke and drink.
As much as you think legal weed is a slam dunk derp, there are huge swaths of the country who through religion, politics, bad experiences and/or general upbringing who think it's just as simply a terrible idea.
You know, like "health care seems kind of screwed up" turned into "put an excise tax on doing nothing" and "hire a contractor already famous for spectacular failure".
Or like "establish safety standards for children's poducts" turned in to "you cannot resell a children's produce without burning it and blessing the ash".
The American people get the government they deserve, and they get it good and hard.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/local/dc-politics/in-major-shi...
Turns out that old white dudes - which I think would most clearly fit your label of "squares" (please) - are actually not the ones who strongly oppose legalization. True, this is just DC proper and not Virginia/Maryland, but given that Maryland has had votes to decriminalize it and such I don't think it's absurd to apply some general lessons from this to other parts of the area. Really, the only people who reliably oppose legalization seem to be older black women and republicans - which is kinda funny if you ask me.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_%28slang%29
Also, when analyzing the forces resistant to legalization you should account for the allegiances and power dynamics, particularly as applies to the information channels that communicate crime and other social costs upward to the actual policymakers. You're painting a caricature of a flattened hierarchy of federal policy and politics that simply doesn't exist.
But I think that the DOJ has established that they're going to legitimately and honestly let the experiments in Colorado and Washington play out by themselves. Despite what they've done in the past and what they've done in other areas, I think they deserve credit for that at least.
At the end of the day, the people who work at these places are real human beings just like you and me. I think your caricature of these organizations is silly and slightly (and only slightly) offensive or off-putting.
What we're seeing now is that public opinion has changed and official policies are quickly changing to match - for as many problems as US democracy has faced lately, I think this is a pretty good example of it working. Simply put, I don't think it's fair to say that people in DC are trying to keep pot illegal or keep people down more than anyone else in this country.
Not that that would actually stop Obama or Holder, mind you.
Meanwhile WA police lamenting the loss of all that stolen prohibition money they used to enjoy http://online.wsj.com/news/article_email/SB10001424052702304...
Even so, US Attorneys have a great amount of autonomy, and Holder directly "reigning in" Haag could be seen as political interference (it is still a violation of federal law, after all). The US Attorney firing scandal in the Bush Administration was an example of backlash for interfering with this autonomy. [2]
[1] http://www.justice.gov/opa/pr/2013/August/13-opa-974.html
[2] http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dismissal_of_U.S._attorneys_c...
The Bush firing scandal was purely political, it was done to protect Republicans from investigations. That is nowhere in the same league as requesting that prosecution guidelines be followed. And anyway, even in the firing scandal no one got into trouble over it. I don't buy the idea that Holder or Obama are powerless to stop her if they wanted to.
http://www.eastbayexpress.com/LegalizationNation/archives/20...
You basically have federal US laws outlawing anything having to do with marijuana, and many people serving jail time for having possessed, grown, or distributed it.
You also have states that have said it is completely legal to possess, grow, and distribute it. Right there, that strikes me as a weird combination: Don't federal laws trump state ones? (And wasn't this sort of a central part of the Civil War, that states can't just make up their own laws that contradict federal ones?)
The federal government is now saying, "Don't worry about those laws on our books. We won't prosecute you." They're even saying, in this article, that they won't prosecute banks. (Well, after the regulations are clarified.)
But that strikes me as an extremely inconsistent message, and one which can change at any point in time. If everyone believes Holder, but then Holder changes his mind a year from now... well, then there's nothing you can do, because he is doing nothing more than enforcing the laws -- laws that have been around for many years, and didn't come as a surprise to anyone.
Moreover, what happens when another president or attorney general comes into office, and decides to enforce these laws to the max? You'll have banks, growers, and others suddenly prosecuted for federal crimes just because someone else came into office.
I think that these problems are likely to continue, until and unless marijuana use is decriminalized at the federal level. Which, given the state of US politics right now, doesn't strike me as very likely.
On the theory that growing hemp in your garden is "interstate commerce". The laws are unconstitutional. It's all just vote whoring by the princes of Washington, D.C.
Decriminilazation is inevitable. It will take the form of a constitutional amendment, just like the one that stripped the feds of control of alcoholic beverages.
Ambrose Bierce was a sunny optimist.
Sort of. But there's an argument to be made that the federal government doesn't have the constitutional authority to criminalize drugs.
In fact, the very first laws restricting drug and alcohol use were phrased in terms of other language[0], specifically because the common perception was that the federal government couldn't simply prohibit the states from allowing sale of a substance, due to the Tenth Amendment: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bill_of_Rights#T...
I'd recommend reading the Federalist papers (they're long, but there are a few that serve as a nice summary of the whole work). It's fascinating to see how different the attitude towards government in the 18th century was compared to today.
The Federalist Papers were essentially written as a "propaganda" (in the literal sense of the word) piece for the new form of government, directed at people who were concerned with the idea of a federal government and wanted the states to retain authority. This was especially true in large states (like New York), who feared losing control, and a lot of the papers are intended to assure those citizens that the Constitution, etc. should to limit federal power, not to grant it.
[0] For example, taxes: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marihuana_Tax_Act_of_1937
[1] Note that the 18th Amendment was exactly that - a Constitutional amendment, and not a simple bill passed by Congress or executive order.
This messiness is how it works. Give it a couple years one of two things will happen: it will be declared a mistake and repealed, or there will be more states where it is legal. Somewhere around twenty states, I predict it will stop being a federal issue, it will start with some official memos and take decades to be officially removed from the controlled lists just due to the nature of the dea and their reluctants to put themselves out of business. In the meantime, the entrepreneurs in that field are in the Wild West and face all sorts of very unique business challenges. The farce that has been mmj has really shown that all hell hasn't broke loose, the vast majority of mj users sem to be responsible and somewhat private about it.
I beg to differ. If the federal government doesn't like what's going on in these states, they can prosecute individuals and businesses involved in the marijuana business on the federal level. Even if successful, defendants would face months or years of uncertainty and hefty legal bills. Moreover, the prospect of success looks dim: The Supreme Court has already ruled that the infamous universal loophole in the Constitution known as the interstate commerce clause applies even to growing your own food on your own property for your own consumption [1] and that this ruling applies to marijuana even for medicinal purposes [2].
EDIT: Given that the Supreme Court is at least theoretically bound by precedent, and given that precedent apparently allows federal policy to trump state policy in this area even for strictly intra-state activities, the court isn't the right place to address this anyway. If the President is amenable to the idea, having the executive branch proclaim a policy of non-enforcement of federal marijuana statutes in states that have legalized marijuana is certainly a good place to start -- but the next President could unmake such a policy just as easily as this President can make it.
Legislation would be a more permanent fix. The most permanent fix of all would be a Constitutional amendment which altered the balance of power between state and federal governments, perhaps explicitly narrowing the scope of the commerce clause. Some of the reasons why this might desirable are given in the O'Connor / Rehnquist dissent [2].
Unfortunately, due to historical events in the US, the notion that the federal government has too much power and states have too little is inexorably tied in political rhetoric to slavery, repression of African-Americans, and Southern right-wing conservatives. Which means that for the foreseeable future, the balance of power between state and federal governments will continue to tilt toward the latter.
For the most part these divisions between state and federal responsibilities, but the commerce clause, which gives the federal government to regulate commerce between the states, has been interpreted very broadly to give the federal government broad powers even over issues that are only tangentially related to interstate commerce.
The courts have gone back and forth a few times over how broad the commerce clause should be interpreted. If you are interested in the details including some interesting court cases, Wikipedia has a pretty good summary http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Commerce_Clause
After the war, the former colonies decided that sticking together militarily and speaking with one voice on foreign policy had worked out pretty well for them -- they'd fought a war against the world's number one superpower and won -- so they ought to continue to do so, and the new government ought to set up uniform rules for the way states trade with each other, and establish a single place to register scientific inventions, etc. Sort of like the European Union today, or maybe the European Community that preceded it.
The states had just thrown off the shackles of one overlord and weren't about to put themselves under another. After these concerns resulted in an initial agreement so weak as to border on totally ineffective [1], their diplomats tried again [2] [3], and the states agreed but quickly demanded more limitations on federal power [4].
The ideological divide between states that allowed slavery and states that did not was a crisis on slow boil for the better part of the next century, resulting in various political compromises [5] [6] but eventually leading to a major civil war [7].
After the war was won by the side that favored a stronger national government, one of the side effects of the event was setting a precedent of the federal government imposing its policies on unwilling states at gunpoint [8]. (It's not a typo in that reference when it notes the Republicans pushed for radical expansions of African-American rights; both parties basically completely switched sides with respect to racial issues after World War 2 [9]).
The sense of national unity was strengthened through the outcome of the war, increased interstate commerce due to the inventions of the Industrial Revolution, and the crises of the Great Depression and the world wars. All of these events gave the federal government reasons to expand its powers [10] [11] [12], in ways which seemed like good ideas at the time but ended up resulting in a much more powerful federal government, and much weaker state governments, than anyone had envisioned.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Articles_of_confederation
[2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Philadelphia_Convention
[3] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Constitution
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_Bill_of_Rights
[5] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_fifths_compromise
[6] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Missouri_compromise
[7] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_civil_war
[8] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_civil_war#Reconstructi...
[9] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Southern_strategy
[10] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Incorporation_of_the_Bill_of_Ri...
[11] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sixteenth_Amendment_to_the_Unit...
When FDR became president, he took economic desperation as a blank check to do anything to fix the Great Depression. The federal government explicitly had no power over local manufacturing and employment, so they created the power by reinterpreting anything that hypothetically might affect later interstate commerce as if it were interstate commerce. So birthing too many piglets was the same thing as selling too much smoked pork across a state line, and the federal cops would come to your farm and correct it by killing the unlawful piglets.
This should probably have resulted in the rape of Washington, D.C., but at the time Americans were starving in Bangladesh-style tent cities and were willing to put up with a lot. Also local governments were flying the Communist flag and high federal officials were openly espousing Stalinism, so an unconventional jobs program that worked raised few eyebrows.
I was going to gently explain to you something along the lines of "tone down the rhetoric if you want the people here to take your political views seriously," but then I saw you have more karma than me, so I guess you know what you're doing.
The rhetoric is toned down. The present political situation is unstable, and unstable situations are ripe for demagogues to take power. I fear that the expanded interstate commerce clause is our Treaty of Versailles. If we do not build a country to be proud of, someone will slap a few runes and occult symbols on the Flag and say "Here is something to be proud of." And the crematoria will run night and day.
I'll try for an on-topic reply this time instead of US history lesson. The way the system's intended to work is that each state regulates matters that are strictly internal to itself, and the federal government is just responsible for laws about how multiple states interact / trade with each other, and how the US deals with other countries in diplomatic or military matters. This was how it actually originally worked with the thirteen original states who viewed themselves as independent countries in a relatively loose military / economic alliance (as opposed to the modern view of states as more like large administrative districts in a single nation).
Due to all of the history I mentioned in my other comment, plus changing culture, plus the changing domestic / world economy resulting in lots more trade with faraway places, plus the expansive interpretation of the commerce clause [1], led to there being more and more things which at least touch on "interstate matters" or "foreign trade" or "foreign policy" and belong to the federal government, and less and less things that are strictly "intrastate matters" for the state government to deal with.
States still have plenty to do. First, local governments have no Constitutional authority, so city and county governments are set up by states [2]. Next, maintaining lots of roads / bridges / infrastructure, setting up laws against street crimes like shoplifting, assault, murder, etc. and maintaining police / courts / prisons to deal with them, and much of the education system are largely state responsibilities. Also, the non-criminal law system (e.g. lawsuits) is handled within the state [3].
States have their own military forces (referred to as "militia" in the Constitution, but usually called "National Guard" today) which largely consist of part-time soldiers and whose activities in modern times are mostly training and local disaster relief, but also function as reserve forces for national military activities including overseas wars [4]. States also run elections, register and regulate businesses, license and regulate various activities such as medical practice, regulate lotteries and casino gambling, and fund state universities. The federal government often offers to share some of these responsibilities, or attempts to get the state to voluntarily delegate some of its authority to the federal government (for example, a common tactic is offering federal funding for state projects, but requiring states to comply with federal rules for the use of the funds to be eligible to receive them).
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn
[2] The nation's capital, Washington, D.C., is considered not to be a part of any state, and authority for its government rests with Congress. (For the past forty years, the city's elected a mayor and city council, who do most of the actual local governing.) A continual sore point with the capital's residents is that, ironically, they have no voting representative in Congress! http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington,_D.c.
[3] Non-criminal law is called "civil law" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Civil_law_(common_law) Unfortunately, the term "civil law" can also refer to the completely different concept of a legal system which is descended from Roman law. The US state of Louisiana is a former French territory and has a legal system based on civil law; the rest of the United States' legal system is based on English law (referred to as "common law"). http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Common_law http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Louisiana#Civil_law
Also, there are some non-criminal cases that can exist in federal court, for example, suing a party from a different state, or questioning the constitutionality of a law; see http://www.uscourts.gov/FederalCourts/UnderstandingtheFedera...
Of course, the Supreme Court is the highest level of appeal for all cases in both federal and state courts.
[4] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Guard_(United_States)#...
This whole madness was manufactured and can be equally dismissed "under pressure".
You don't think that alcohol prohibition ended because the government wanted to do the right thing, do you? They wanted the tax money and it clearly was a failure. Fast forward to today. Lather, rinse, and repeat.
Psychedelics are almost entirely in Schedule I (except ketamine), yet phenobarbital is in Schedule IV.
Accuracy in the drug scheduling system is not.
"The rules are not expected to give banks a green light to accept deposits and provide other services, but would tell prosecutors not to prioritize cases involving legal marijuana businesses that use banks."
http://www.mysanantonio.com/news/local/article/Gov-Rick-Perr...
Since legalization could potentially eat away at a sizable chunk of a cartel's marijuana revenue stream [1], dispensaries already run the risk of being targeted by cartels/gangs. The fact that these dispensaries are forced to hold large cash balances in their back rooms makes them even more appealing as a potential target.
[1] http://www.cbsnews.com/news/study-us-marijuana-legalization-...
Wow, somewhere there's a storage locker (probably more) with a stack of cash just like we all saw on Breaking Bad. Except this cash was made "legally" and yet the owners still have to operate like an illegal enterprise just to pay bills and employees.
(or for that matter wanted to quickly convert $5000 worth of bitcoins into cash)
The problem remains the cash-out, but for smaller quantities one can use Localbitcoins again.
The combination of checking account, debit card, and local bank branch helps businesses:
- take care of the cash that accumulates on premises.
- take care of routine bills.
- purchase goods by distance sales
The article discusses the loss of these benefits. Bitcoin won't solve them until it's more widely accepted.
Sure, you can convert your cash to other stores of value (bitcoin, gold deposits, and so on) and that may be better than keeping cash on premises. But, again, I think most business owners have better things to do with their time than deal with these kinds of transactions, and they don't like the exchange rate risks.