Rolling Cannabis Politics Thread

Those winds of legalization will die away to a whisper in the South. If the Feds maintain prohibition, then the states will not be able to enact the kind of reform and regulation that will do a proper job of it.

I'm okay with that. I think that if it becomes legal (or de facto legal) in enough of the country, eventually that'll push things over federally too. You just need to build some momentum, and I see momentum all over the place.

If we could just strangle enough RRW Republicans, then maybe...

... but moral scruples forbid me to discuss this line of thought.

i hate the focus on medical though, no one should have to give a reason or be able to see a doctor to engage in freedom

― harbl, Sunday, June 6, 2010 3:14 PM (41 minutes ago)

idk, i agree totally about pot and think that all drug possessions should be decriminalized, but i wouldn't extend that 'freedom' to other illicit drugs or prescription medications obv

neither would i!

ha yeah i basically figured that's what you meant, i'm in lolcollege so i've had one too many conversations w/ ppl who are like yeah pot should be legal! fuck it all drugs should be legal!

penalties in ca may be reclassified (no longer misdemeanor)

http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/cannabis-chronicles/marijuana-possession-less-than/

http://i561.photobucket.com/albums/ss51/tr_fudge/arnold_smoking-pot-thumb-300x238.jpg

if dude can hold the pen straight

i think the legalization ballot measure is going down fwiw, but the fact that it's a question is amazing even given the state of bud politics here.

vast majority of la dispensaries needing to ROLL with the punches meanwhile
http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_15235255?source=rss

they're pushing to get full legalization on the ballot in oregon this fall

Also, I don't know how it works, but if it makes people feel more comfortable maybe a mod can unindex this thread from google? (If not, can we move it to 77 or something?)

― Mordy, Sunday, June 6, 2010 12:37 PM (4 hours ago)

I've done this, though if it's kept to politics rather than personal habits, I don't know how necessary it was.

i hope it's not just a lolcollege idea to want to see see all drugs legalized. obviously we're not talking crack being freely available to schoolkids from the corner shop here; there would besome kind of sliding scale of control, e.g. cannabis as free as tobacco, e/speed/coke over the counter at the pharmacy, heroin perhaps only on prescription for registered addicts. i really don't see the benefit in having any substance completely criminalised. it does not effectively discourage use; it turns ordinary people into criminals - at best merely for usage/possession, at worst for having to commit crime in order to maintain a supply; it enables an enormous criminal trade; it means there is no control over substance purity. if drugs were under government control they would be clean and pure, they could be taxed to help fund treatment for addicts, and there would surely be a huge reduction in drug related crime.

ok maybe things wouldn't be quite that rosy. but it's clear the current system is a complete failure. and in general while i'm far from libertarian i am a strong believer in personal liberty and the idea of the government having such a strong say over what i choose to put into my body is anathema to me.

no i don't think the lolcollege thing refers to what you're talking about, just a certain type of libertarian thinking. i don't believe in drug criminalization either for the same reasons as you said, it has done a lot of very bad things to america in my opinion.

Full legalization is a LONG way away. The area of law I practice in, employment, is one of the areas where this is really clear: The California Fair Employment and Housing Act, or FEHA, recognizes the use of some prescription drugs, and mandates that employers, in certain situations, must accommodate the user of those drugs if the use of those drugs somehow limits their ability to do their job.

But it doesn't provide the same protections to medical marijuana. The way in which the Compassionate Care Act of 1996 was drafted, it addresses only the criminal aspects as it pertains to patients. It doesn't address employment aspects, or any of the other ways in which marijuana can impact lives. The CA Supreme Court ruled that employers do not have to accommodate compassionate care users for precisely this reason - the Act doesn't address employment law. Kind of a legal punt, but it drew attention to just how narrowly the Compassionate Care Act is drawn. There was an Oregon decision recently which arrived at the same rationale. Now, if two of the most pot-friendly states in the country have rulings like that on the books, the 9th circuit is not likely to hold another way if a case were to make it that far.

But the decriminalization has been good. And, in reality, no cop is going to bust you for a joint or a dime bag. Driving while doing smoking/stoned? Another story, as well it should be.

no cop is going to bust you for a joint or a dime bag.

if you have the right color of skin

I doubt we'll ever see pot legalized, though it would be so convenient if it was. OK, maybe not "ever," but I really seriously doubt it'll happen in the next 20-40 years, or so long as we have Mormons in the U.S.

Rev otm, and if you're in the "wrong" neighborhood, you'd be surprised how small an infraction you can end up in handcuffs for

no cop is going to bust you for a joint or a dime bag.

if you have the right color of skin

― donk quixote (The Reverend), Monday, June 7, 2010 10:02 AM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark

I used to work at a diner where for dishwashers we hired convicts who were trying to get back on their feet, and they were mostly black guys that had been in jail for years and years after being busted in this way. Legalization is in a large part a civil rights cause.

i think the legalization ballot measure is going down fwiw

why do you think this...? I haven't seen any authoritative polling to-date.

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/may/31/local/la-me-0601-poll-20100529

i just have a feeling. people don't pay attention to propositions, even this one, until the ads start ratcheting up and the opposition has a lot of boogeymen to unleash, not to mention opposing the measure more forcefully in the coming months is low-hanging fruit for both of the likely gub nominees. from what i've seen, trying to put myself in the shoes of the 'average voter' the pro argument as articulated feels kind of ad-hoc but that could change too.

Besides the Office of National Drug Control Policy, who funds opposition advertising? Someone said the cigarette companies spend a lot on opposition advertising, but I couldn't find any data to support that. Anyone here know?

cigarette companies are all broke I thought

I would not be surprised if it were religious people (cough cough Mormons). If there *were* a national vote, you bet the Mormon Church would do a Prop-8 style $$$$ push to shut that shit down. I promise.

are tobacco companies even allowed to spend campaign money? so many lawsuits/civil suits have crippled the industry

xp

If there *were* a national vote, you bet the Mormon Church would do a Prop-8 style $$$$ push to shut that shit down. I promise.

I can see this happening. at the same time, most of the country does not love Mormons, much less being told what to do by Mormons.

like what is the percentage that thinks Mormons aren't "really" Christians...? it's pretty high iirc

Well, sure, but it worked w/Prop 8, right?

And it's not like they would advertise, "WE, the MORMONS, want you to never smoke pot! And also we don't really have multiple wives. Brought to you by THE MORMONS."

Sponsored by the Mormons For Curtailing Your Fun Committee for America (c)

At any rate, this topic of converrsation ("will pot be legalized") always kind of feels like a mass funtime of projections of the speakers' pasts & desires. I, por ejemplo, would love for pot to be legalized, but grew up in a community where smoking weed was tantamount (in perceived riskiness & evilness) to smoking meth. This informs my perspective. I imagine someone who grew up in a less conservative area, or had pot-smoking parents, would have a more optimistic view. ANd someone who thinks weed is bad, and has never smoked it, would naturally be more inclined to say it's so not gonna happen. I feel in some ways like there's no way to know.

i suspect in my lifetime we will see the states where it's been cleared for medical purposes legalize it wholesale; everywhere else will be in sort of limbo between where we are now and full legalization

It seems to me that once it's become fully legalized in a few states, it'll be de facto legal everywhere. They can't exactly set up state border patrols to make sure you aren't buying in NJ and driving it up to NY, or whatever.

still pretty illegal in lots of europe, despite amsterdam

Europe's different

As far as I know, Prohibition was repealed everywhere all at once, but an interesting comparison might be individual state tax laws on vices. Technically, afaik, it's illegal to buy alcohol in NJ and then drive it into PA, but this obviously happens all the time, whenever someone in Cherry Hill picks up a bottle of wine and then drives to his friend's place in Philadelphia, and it's de facto legal. How can you enforce that kind of law?

wrt CA as an avowed pessimist the fact that they gathered the signatures still feels like found money, bottom line is i think the radius of 'public consciousness raising' for legalization hasn't extended nearly as far as the medical angle, which tbh still relies on compassion for the very very sick to get over (medical cannabis is not going away but it's still plenty begrudged among the majority of counties and municipalities). i mean i hope that's an antiguated view of how politics move in 2010 but yeah, prop 8. think we can just wipe away the culture of prohibition w/o at least will n' gracing it for a minute, it just can't be that easy, right?

yeah, i guess i would liken it blue laws around here. like, you would probably never ever be able to just pop by dispensary/ package store in the state of Tennessee and buy a nice bottle of wine and some white widow for your dinner party. but if you were pulled over and had an oz cops would just be like eh, whatever - as long as you aren't smokin & drivin (someone will obviously need to build some kind of breath-alizer for weed if it's ever to be legalized i'm guessing)

56% of CA supports legalizing weed as of a couple months ago

xxposts

shakey i posted a more recent poll upthread fwiw, but again i think it's too early to hang your hat on either one

Wish 538 would run something about it.

yeah I agree - margins are probably soft, and we haven't seen any marketing really get started yet

xp

As I indicated upthread, while there are still federal anti-drug laws and while Congress is dominated by anti-legalization sentiment (think Nebraska, Oklahoma, Tennesee, ad infinitum), even if California voted to legalize pot, the Feds would be able to render that vote moot, by independent DEA raids, federal prosecutions, and what's worst, by almost certainly withholding vast amounts of federal funds for all kinds of stuff - from Medicaid to schools.

CA would relent within months.

It looks like the Federal government is moving away from enforcement, not towards it. It's hard to imagine Obama giving the order to resume the raiding. (I thought that had stopped, btw?)

yeah they have and Obama's made it explicitly clear that prosecuting marijuana is not a priority

Also, I don't know how this would actually play out politically, but with a right-wing totally committed to limiting federal power for probably the next six years, and a left-wing with a large group that is pro legalization, I can't see a lot of people pushing for federal enforcement.

no one's winning the White House with CA's votes either - state might take a dim view of a sitting president waging financial war against it, esp when it's in such dire straits already

withOUT CA's votes sorry

Hard to imagine there is anything a sitting Democratic president could do that would stop CA from voting for him. I think if Obama wanted to, he could act against CA's economic interests with more or less impunity.

come on NY, get with the times

Here in MN a really fun dynamic has emerged where there are two distinct pot-legalization parties that have achieved “major party” status, and their vote-siphoning presence on the ballot is the only thing preventing Democrats from gaining the state senate and actually legalizing it. Good job dudes!

https://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/politics/cuomo-this-is-the-year-marijuana-finally-gets-legalized-in-new-york/2705462/

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-mexico-cannabis-vote/vote-in-mexico-brings-worlds-largest-legal-weed-market-one-step-closer-idUSKBN27Z3BK

EXCLUSIVE: Biden White House sandbags staffers, sidelines dozens for pot use https://t.co/yahy7dk01b

— The Daily Beast (@thedailybeast) March 19, 2021

W33d is legal in DC iirc

yeah that's legitimately shitty, hope they reverse course now that it's a story

it's still illegal here but they opened up a Delta 8 dispensary recently, where you can buy weed which is I think just hemp with some stuff sprayed on it. it works but it's kinda weak. reminds me of the shit that went around in high school. still, it's priced appropriately - they sell 1g prerolls for $10 which is more than enough for me

A reminder that technically, you can’t “purchase” marijuana in DC because of Congressional interference, but you can purchase something else and receive marijuana as a “gift.” https://t.co/Ss5vb8E9ZJ

— Jane Coaston (@janecoaston) March 19, 2021

yeah i remember going to a place that had "gifts" when you buy a lighter or sticker

A premium experience, like smoking dab wax, meant purchasing a premium gift. She had two options. “I kid you not, the flag options were a Black Lives Matter flag or an All Lives Matter flag. They sold both. I just didn’t know what to do,” Grimaldi says. The dabs came on a one-flag-per-hit basis, and Grimaldi was with a friend, “so I bought two of the Black Lives Matter flags.” The blatant appropriation of diametrically-opposed movements rubbed Grimaldi in a weird way. “Then I had a dab hit and had no more questions,” she says.

lol wut

That is so fucked.

The people I deal with nominally sell a "digital subscription", but as far as I can there is no actual subscription. Maybe I should switch to someone who gives me socks.

It appears the grey market delivery service is in full swing for suburban New Jersey, as my coworker who I knew smoked on occasions started telling me about how he found a guy on IG that delivers regularly to him now.

Doin it for the 2.5gram

If only there was someone in the federal government with the authority to change that https://t.co/c1hiXhpcqu

— Will 🦥 Menaker (@willmenaker) March 24, 2021

A deal to legalize recreational marijuana in New York was crafted with the hope of making amends in communities affected by the war on drugs. Millions of dollars in tax revenue from cannabis sales would be reinvested in minority communities each year. https://t.co/vz0RUHmnRz pic.twitter.com/T7xq3zeWBW

— The New York Times (@nytimes) March 25, 2021

Am I correct in thinking it's pretty unusual for states to legalize it via the legislature?

yeah, they tried that here in NJ but Murphy couldn't wrangle the dem majority to get their crap together. Ended up on going on the ballot and passed no problem.

Illinois passed it via legislature, and at the time it was the most progressive in the country, as far as steering tax money back to the communities who are targeted in the war on drugs

https://www.npr.org/2021/03/23/980277688/in-likely-first-chicago-suburb-of-evanston-approves-reparations-for-black-reside

comically long url

wow!

w33d buxx doing some good! i think it can do more but it's a start

^^^

as i paid an extra $100 in taxes for the ounce i purchased the other day, it honestly did make me feel better that a lot of it was going to those kinds of efforts

The New York state legislature formally voted to legalize and regulate recreational marijuana for adults and expunge the records of people previously convicted of possession.

Shortly after 10:30 p.m. Tuesday night, the New York State Assembly voted 100-49 to pass the marijuana legalization bill.

dang tho

Had been wondering with all the sexual harassment accusations hitting cuomo if he was going to pull a northam in VA and get legalization legislation signed to try and get some goodwill back.

you wondered correctly

under different circumstances, there would have been mass smoke outs all across nyc in response to this but i dunno if i've even seen anything on insta about it yet!

One crazy provision is that w33d smoking is allowed in public where cigarettes are allowed

:O

lol

https://nypost.com/2021/04/01/nypd-gives-cops-new-orders-to-let-people-smoke-weed-in-public/

Specific guidance in the memo tells cops that people 21 and older can legally smoke weed “almost anywhere that cigarette smoking is allowed including on sidewalks, on front stoops and other public places.”

Wonder how NASWIPP feels about this

Marijuana prohibition is unproductive and unjust — and as the newly elected Board Chair of @NORML, I hope you will join me in putting an end to it. You can get on board right now at https://t.co/qdFr9TGHvx

— Rick Steves (@RickSteves) June 18, 2021

Loling at people just realizing he's been the squarest stoner around for years.

rick steves rules, i aspire to his level of quick-drying, money-belted self-confidence

Biden and the Democrats not even giving us decriminalized weed is just an incredible own goal.

I had no idea about Rick Steves' weed evangelism until that long New Yorker profile of him a few years back. Interesting dude.

Minnesota voice: “And he’s a good Lutheran”.