Americans overwhelmingly say marijuana should be legal
pewresearch.orgMajority of Americans support Medicare for All. But both parties are against it. Marijuana legalization is easier to pass than healthcare because there are no entrenched corporate interests against it:
https://morningconsult.com/2021/03/24/medicare-for-all-publi...
Majority of Americans do NOT support Medicare for All. Please reread your article - they want a public option, which differs from Medicare.
When we poll with what Medicare for All will do, support is massive.
Health care in the US is an increasingly brutal, over the top expensive mess.
Frankly, a quick look at why they want a public option is exactly why they would easily support Medicare for All.
Nobody loves their health care insurance company. And where they may be stoic to positive, it is only because they are insulated from the mess, or just have not actually had to receive significant care of any kind.
Tons of people, myself included, have seen serious financial ruin, and in my case it boiled down to basically trading my home and financial future for my spouse.
We got past it, but will never see the future I worked very hard for.
Health insurance companies do not actually add any value. Most of the developed world understands this, and how a market approach for primary care conflicts with fixing sick people.
Right now the priority is making money, not fixing people, and it shows.
More people experience it, or know someone who has every day. I make damn sure to educate others any time, any day, any place.
Once people actually experience Medicare, they love it. I have watched even the most staunch advocates for our current system age in and then change their tune.
There are exceptions, and those people buy Medicare Advantage plans and often seek help getting back to plain old Medicare, which is very difficult, by design. Ever wonder why that is?
> they want a public option, which differs from Medicare.
Medicare is a system by which (currently, a subset) of Americans may select[0] either publicly subsidized private health plans or a purely-public[1] option.
The difference between this and the ACA plus a public option is...not that much.
[0] well, except for many Medicare/Medicaid dual-eligibles, for which a single plan (often fully-publicly-subsized private) covering both programs is selected for them by their state.
[1] actually administered by regional private contractors under federal rules.
Medicare is a specific example of a system. Just because Americans are overwhelmingly thirsty does not mean they want to drink pineapple juice.
From the article: “55% of voters support Medicare for All”
and 70 percent support a public option. 55% is a majority.
The federal government is horrible at competing in the free market when it comes to pretty much any good/service. For medicare to have a chance, they would need to eliminate the private market for healthcare. No one that can afford private healthcare would opt for government healthcare. Those who truly rely on government healthcare I assume wouldn't pay the monthly premium. We could defund the war machine but neither party wants that. There is the option to just printing the money but there's no free lunch and that inflation will show up in healthcare prices and the broader economy. Lastly, This type of top-bottom control of the healthcare market is not pragmatic and will lead to a whole host of inefficiencies and other problems that would create a worst situation then what we have right now.
Primary health care, as a market, is illegal in much of the world.
Most of the world disagrees with what you put here and performs better than the US.
False. America’s healthcare quality is the best in the world despite current issues with affordability. Most developed countries with socialized medical care are far smaller then the US. Most are smaller then just LA or NYC alone. Every market the government enters by subsidizing cost creates market distortions that have contributed to multiple financial crises in this country(mortgage and higher education).
My comprise would be let the states implement socialized medicine. My hunch is that with within a few years every economically productive person in those states would move states within 2-3 years. The tax burden and lack of choice in health care would be a no brainer to leave. Most people think socialized medicine will fix everything overnight put don’t think about what rights they are takin away from individuals to achieve their goals.
Quality does not equal performance.
For a few, the quality is amazing, but even Cuba does better at keeping its people healthy than we do.
Cuba regularly contributes to medicine same as we do and doctors are a national export, recognized around the world.
And just what is an "economically productive" person?
You do realize those numbers come from tons of other people, who work hard and too many of whom have no meaningful access to that quality medicine?
No, probably not.
Finally, there is how health care is funded, who has access, and how care, medicine is delivered.
Socialized medicine is the VA, and that is not what Medicare is.
Medicare is funding health care, not socialized medicine.
It is hard to consider your other points given these basic misalignments.
I think a lot of Americans want neither.
People don't know what they want, or rather, they know what they don't want, and it is what we currently have. "most" Americans would like a reasonably priced open market for healthcare, not the currently entrenched healthcare monopolies. Going any control over healthcare to this government is foolish, has already resulted in what we have today.
No entrenched industries except for alcohol, private prisons, medical cannabis and big pharma.
Still though you’re right, those industries still don’t have has much clout as medical insurance
Law enforcement in general benefits greatly from prohibition
Well, introducing Medicare for All would inevitably require some tax changes. I guess that's what most of the arguments and the opposition about.
Legalizing weed doesn't get into anyone's pocket.
And make no mistake: there are some big names in the battle agains marijuana [1]
[1] - https://www.theguardian.com/sustainable-business/2016/oct/22...
Imho, a significant part of the problem is gerrymandering [1]. A certain party has outsized influence because of gerrymandering (but this shouldn’t absolve moderate/corporate Dems of their failings either, especially with Biden opposing legalization; read the room my dude).
1.8 million voters over the age of 55 age out every year, and election cycles are every two years. We’ll get there eventually (on Medicare for All and marijuana legalization), it’s just a matter of time. Until then, keep knocking it out at the state level. [2]
[1] https://www.americanprogress.org/issues/democracy/reports/20...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_cannabis_by_U.S._j...
It’s part of the problem but both parties have had total control in the last 5 years and yet nothing has been passed on the federal level. The problem is that all the representatives are in the over 75 yo group
The part of the problem is that everything these days has to be done on federal level.
There's even federally mandated shower flow rate [1]. Just leave this shit up to the states.
[1] https://www.waterpik.com/shower-head/blog/shower-head-gpm/#:....
> There's even federally mandated shower flow rate (2.5 GPM max). Just leave this shit up to the states.
from your link, some states can set lower.
| To conserve resources and save money, some state and local governments mandate even lower GPM flow rates than the federal regulation.
| Examples of national and local regulations include:
| * New York City and the state of Colorado require a maximum of 2.0 GPM
| * California, Washington, and Hawaii require a maximum of 1.8 GPM
would you have states set a min flow rate?
Why should it be illegal to use a 3.5 GPM shower in a water rich state? That is the standard people prefer with no regulations.
I would rather have it set at town building code level.
Yes because of the supremacy clause. That’s not really new? Many states have acted on it but the federal laws still fuck things up for individuals and businesses
This is what you get when congress delegates its lawmaking power to the executive bureaucracy.
Congress itself is mostly too dysfunctional to micromanage on that level.
> The part of the problem is that everything these days has to be done on federal level.
I absolutely hate this state rights argument. I for one would gladly support repealing the words the states from the tenth amendment.
States don’t have magical rights. People have rights.
I have a feeling anyone who supports “state rights” would also support the idea of “separate but equal”.
Please do not associate yourself with the hypocrites who are all for state rights until California wants to regulate automobile emissions.
Sorry, what's wrong with California regulating emissions?
People have rights. And the most straightforward way to cater for these rights is to split people into groups. If 90% of people in Alabama don't want weed legalized, don't force it upon them. Save the vigor for what's really important.
> Sorry, what's wrong with California regulating emissions?
Nothing. Ideally it would be at the federal level so California wouldn't have to do it though.
> If 90% of people in Alabama don't want weed legalized, don't force it upon them.
No. The hypothetical ninety percent of people in Alabama have no right to restrict the rights of the other ten percent. It doesn't affect them. They should stay out of it.
> The hypothetical ninety percent of people in Alabama have no right to restrict the rights of the other ten percent
My castle - my rules.
I have close to 100% right to restrict smoking in my home.
I have close to 0% right to restrict smoking on the whole planet.
The boundary is somewhere in between.
Absolutely. States rights is no panacea either. You’ll still have power struggle within the state and personally it makes no sense to devolve power to the state, or heavens forbid, county/parish or town level.
The federal government should say things like this is the baseline - you can go one way on it but not the other. Personally, I want more of this, not less. For instance, I want a federal land/property tax that local governments can’t just make go away in a race to the bottom.
I want a federal ban on capital punishment. Meaning no jurisdiction within these United States should have the legal authority to give capital punishment.
Devolving power lower doesn’t solve any problem. It is seriously scary if you’re a minority. And you don’t have to be black or gay to be a minority, you could just be the wrong denomination of Christianity.
From what I’ve read, we used to demonize everyone from the Irish, the Germans, the Italians. Nobody is safe from the tyranny of the majority and the more you devolve power to a local level, the more these problems will grow larger.
Personally the whole point of government is to protect the individual from the whims of the masses. If I want to smoke weed (I don’t but just an example), the rest of the town shouldn’t be able to tell what I can do. What if fifty one percent of a town decides it wants to be “whites only”?
Why does this stuff need to be at the federal level? CA has a very different air quality situation than Alabama. Why can't they both regulate air quality as they see fit?
> both parties have had total control in the last 5 years
Neither party had total control. Now everything gets fillibustered. You only get around it with 2/3 majority or if you can turn it into a budget-related bill and get it through budget reconciliation.
That’s a bit myopic to claim that the nation’s struggles are due to one party’s inability to achieve a majority, isn’t it? Evil sits on both sides of the aisle.
The Democrats have a majority now and did in 2010. They haven’t even attempted to pass marijuana legalization. I have my theories as to why but they certainly have nothing to do with gerrymandering.
Majority doesn't matter if you don't have 60 votes in the Senate, unless you think "attempting to pass"/performative legislation matters, which I do not.
Well you have to attempt it to see. I can imagine marijuana legalization getting a few GOP votes.
Schumer has legislation in the Senate teed up. Needs enough support to get past Republican holdouts and Biden.
> Key Democrats, including Senate Majority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.), said Tuesday they would work to repeal federal prohibitions on marijuana cultivation and use, vowing to make progress on an issue that has growing public support but still faces sharp objections from most Republicans.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/congress-schumer-mar...
Majority of Americans supporting Medicare for all is meaningless if they don't also agree on the details, like how to pay for it.
> But both parties are against it.
The Senate is split 50-50. It's fair to say one half of that is more strongly opposed to it than the other since their states even rejected the Medicaid expansion accompanying Obamacare.
So it sounds like the Senate is doing a poor job of representing the people. Which leads to the obvious question: why have a Senate at all?
The Senate represents the states, not the people.
Doesn't answer my question. Why is it important to represent a "state"?
Hypothetically if you had only two states, one with 20 people and the other with 20 million (entirely feasible with the Constitution), would it be useful to given them both 2 Senators each? Would the federal government's laws and actions faithfully represent how the people in the nation actually feel?
This isn't a hypothetical concern. See the laws on marijuana for why "representation for states" isn't ideal. For further evidence, see action on climate change.
Because that was the condition on which the states joined the union and it's what many states, and the people in them, still want. They want local control, not to be forced to follow what the majority in bigger states decide. That's because local control gives each person more power over their own life.
> Because that was the condition on which the states joined the union
That's true for maybe the first 13 colonies. The subsequent states were largely formed by settlers from the first 13 and they just wanted their land to be a state in their country. For them, the constitution was kind of a take-it-or-leave-it deal.
I know you just brought it up as an example, but I'm much more interested in a Direct Primary Care healthcare strategy over Medicare for All. https://www.dpcare.org/
Looked through the site.
Could not figure out what DPC is, besides that it's a new innovative way of patients and doctors working together for their mutual benefit with no obvious drawbacks.
This video explains it fairly well https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2QaObLRLi0 though it doesn't cover everything. The doctor in that video also has their own website: https://www.epiphanyhealth.org/
The Primary Care (the PC in DPC) part refers to normal day-to-day health needs typically offered by general practitioners. Things like regular checkups, cuts and scrapes, lab work, typical vaccinations, etc etc. You already think about PC healthcare as a 'service', but you pay your insurance company (with your employer watching in for some reason) to pay the doctor for you. That adds a lot of overhead, more than one might think.
So DPC is where you pay for primary care by subscribing Directly (that's the D) to the doctor by paying a regular, fixed-price subscription to them. Typically $50-$100/mo, the doctor mentioned above charges $75/mo. Receive care as frequently as needed, with no copays, by any means, with reasonable prices for more specialized services like x-rays ($25), and an affordable in-house pharmacy for generic medications. Their office negotiates direct rates for lab work and can get a 95% discount (!) in some cases according to the doctor in the video.
Now there are some caveats, as per usual.
The biggest is that this strategy is specifically for Primary Care, not hospitalizations and other specialized or emergency health services. For those perhaps health insurance can still provide value. But that's the original purpose of insurance in the first place: covering unexpected large expenses. And that's the key: Primary Care is neither an unexpected nor large expense -- it's regular maintenance, more like an oil change; are you paying your insurance company to pay your mechanic to perform oil changes on your car? Unlikely, and it sounds like a bureaucratic nightmare on the face. Yet somehow this is business as usual for healthcare in the US.
That's not a reasonable comparison -- medical care is a much more complicated question, and people are much less likely to underatand what yes/no really mean.
Yes, and corporate interests are looking at great opportunities. Actually moving toward being for it.
Have you ever been on Medicare? Frankly, it’s not that good.
Pew Research has another survey where those polled about their satisfaction with healthcare programs rated Medicare the highest. The link escapes me, but it is there, I have linked to it previously.
TLDR Medicare > Tricare (DoD) > private employer healthcare > nothing
I've experienced the Canadian healthcare system (similar to Medicare for All) as a patient, and I've experienced the American healthcare industry as a "customer" (Note: I've always had private insurance through great jobs).
I can easily say, "having private insurance in American, frankly, its not that good."
Proposals I've previously heard: Medicare for All, Medicare for Children, Medicare reduced age, a public-private option, improved transparency in costs (i.e. a menu), pin costs to Medicare + X%, allow insurance companies to operate across state lines, better subsidize preventative medicine, force clinicians to be able to speak to costs (similar to dentists/chiropractic/optometrists/dermatologist), reduce patent length or add a maximum return on investment to patents (e.g. 10x or 100x R&D costs?), etc.
Literally any of these would be an improvement. Please tell all of your representatives (regardless of politics) to fucking execute on any of them so things improve at least a bit from where it is now.
I would have more respect for the Canadian health care system if the Grand Forks ND Hospital parking lot wasn't full of Manitoba license plates. If the US isn't available as a quick out for people with money than how well does the system work?
Frankly, I wish Congress had to live under Indian Health Service for a couple of years. If the US is incapable of getting decent health care for 2% of the population its obligated to provide for, then I don't see how it gets better adding the other 98%.
I bet it will improve rather quickly once Congress is on it, too.
I've been through a couple of countries with government-run medicine. The very first thing that happens in these systems is people are assigned to a specific medical center, usually using either home or office location.
Rest assured: hospitals in Washington, DC will never be short of personnel, out of supplies or, god forbid, overcrowded.
Better than nothing.
In what way?
> This is particularly the case among adults ages 75 and older: Just 32% say marijuana should be legal for recreational and medical use, by far the lowest share for any age category and 21 percentage points lower than adults in the next-oldest age group
Sadly most elected officials fall in these age groups.
Legalizing weed at the Federal level will be a huge win even in states that have already done so. The industry has a very hard time dealing with banking, credit card payments, advertising etc. right now.
Not entirely true: " The average age of Members of the House at the beginning of the 116th Congress was 57.6 years; of Senators, 62.9 years." [0]
And interestingly, that number has been steeply increasing since 1980 https://i.imgur.com/6eiPP3z.jpg
Older members of congress wield significantly more power though by way of seniority and committee memberships.
Joe Biden (President) - 78
Nancy Pelosi (Speaker of the House) - 81
Steny Hoyer (House Majority Leader) - 81
Jim Clyburn (House Majority Whip) - 80
Chuck Schumer (Senate Majority Leader) - 70
Mitch McConnell (Senate Minority Leader) - 79
Patrick Leahy (President pro tempore) - 81
Dick Durbin (Senate Majority Whip) - 76
Most committee chairs/ranking members are 70+
These are the people running the country. A 30 year old first term congresswoman has next to zero influence in matters like this one.
It is becoming increasingly hard to justify a prohibition on gun ownership due to marijuana use. These two issues will clash soon.
How are the two issues related at all?
If you use marijuana, you either need to lie on the form required to buy a gun, or the gun store won't sell it to you. Also, in theory, if you have a gun and use marijuana, you are a prohibited person in possession of a gun, which is a serious crime.
It bothers me that this needs to be done piecemeal, substance by substance.
Our bodies are our own to build - they are own to destroy (or alter, or any other damn thing). The whole point of the war on drugs was to imprison minorities. The whole concept of drug prohibition should be done away with.
Millions of people are sitting in prison in the US simply because they did something entirely consensual and nonviolent, engaging in a willing transaction with an adult, and victimized no one.
The idea that you can't put whatever you want into your own body is diametrically opposed to the desire for personal liberty for which the US is known.
They could be our own to destroy if that didn't impact people around you. It's the same with DUI - causing a crash doesn't only destroy your life. Or getting addicted to the point you can't care for your children.
Your response illustrates my point nicely:
Drunk driving is illegal; alcohol possession and sale is not, nor should it be.
Child abuse and neglect is already illegal, regardless of drug laws.
We don't have a good comparison right now... because allowing a good computation is considered a bad idea. Selling alcohol to people who obviously are going to drink and drive, people who are aggressive and drink is restricted in some places though.
The issue is that we expect most people to have a drink once in a whole and continue with their lives as usual. We can't realistically expect recreational heroin use with no long term issues.
We also can't realistically expect recreational alcohol use with no long-term issues either: alcohol kills about 100k people per year in the USA.
That's not a reason to ban it. The issues are caused by the user, to the user. If users are causing issues to others (violence, theft, drunk driving, et c), those are separate and already-illegal things that can and should be enforced. Arresting people for possession is basically like arresting them for pre-crime: "some other people who possessed similar things later went on to commit actual crimes, so you go to jail out of fear" is not a sane approach.
The possession and use of substances for the human body is plainly the wrong place to legislate: the war on drugs in the US has been a costly, racist, unmitigated disaster.
Probabilities matter. Cost-benefit matters. You can't just dismiss it with "well, some people don't commit crimes, therefore it's immoral to restrict freedoms." It's a gradient, and the people on the whole reserve the right to determine where the hard line is. This is one of the beautiful things about the fact the US has many states--each state gets to decide where they draw that hard line. If you don't like it you can find another state that draws the line elsewhere.
> It's a gradient, and the people on the whole reserve the right to determine where the hard line is.
Yeah, except when those hard lines intersect the bodies of others. Nobody has the right to tell me what can or can't go in my body: that's exclusively my decision.
> The issues are caused by the user, to the user.
For alcohol? I dare you to say that to the face of someone with alcohol addiction in family. It's a simplistic black and white view. We negotiated thresholds where alcohol is restricted (age, distribution, setting) while not banning it completely. Neither unrestricted access nor prohibition were the answer.
The answer hasn't been found, as there is still a gigantic unsolved societal disease in the USA regarding alcohol. Tobacco too.
Whatever you think is working (stopping sales at 2am or whatever) isn't. It's farce. Humans can't handle drugs, generally speaking, and permitting some whole ruining lives over others is the peak of ineffective ridiculousness.
The fact that humans can't generally handle drugs (alcohol included) is not a reason to waste time and money and imprison millions of people in a misguided attempt to address the problem. (Not that that was what the war on drugs was even for, mind you.)
Agree. Some drugs like meth, heroin, fentanyl, PCP can cause permanent brain damage at common recreational doses and hurt society overall. Those shouldn't be legal IMO
Society has no claim over whether or not I (or anyone else) choose to cause permanent brain damage to myself.
That's the point: drug prohibition is inherently immoral because it denies an adult human being agency over their own body. It's mine to destroy if I see fit; it's mine to build it I see fit.
There is no victim, for example, if I decide to cut off my finger. No one has been wronged, and no crime has occurred.
Society is still responsible for your medical bills. And there's zero chance that someone who has wrecked their body/mind through hard drug use will be able to survive on their own without affecting the lives of others in any way. It doesn't take long for this individual freedom to turn into a widespread public health problem – see the streets of San Francisco for example.
You are incredibly naive. Have you seen a family member fall to addiction? Have you seen what it does to those around them who love them? We aren't just floating brain vessels in space; we live in a complex society of interdependencies and close biological bonds. Your choices nearly always affect others, especially with something like addiction.
We're not talking about addiction. We're talking about criminal penalties for the possession of drugs, which is entirely orthogonal to addiction, and which was initially deployed on a large scale specifically to jail and resume enslaving nonwhite people in the USA into forced labor camps. (To this end it has worked rather well.)
If you think drugs should be illegal "because addiction", then at least be consistent and go after tobacco and alcohol. Tobacco kills 10x more than opiates in the USA, and alcohol 6x, but somehow it's the opiate epidemic that makes the news.
Once we can agree that a) the law should be fair and consistent and b) adults should be allowed to drink alcohol if they want, we can get to c) people should be allowed to drink any damn thing they like and it's nobody else's business.
I’m fairly convinced we’re only about 5-10 acquisitions away from cannabis becoming legal via the legislative branch.
There’s 3 larges sectors that are still holdouts. Healthcare, alcohol, and tobacco industries.
Healthcare will never flip because there’s almost no revenue for them. The only thing they might be able to do is partner with Bayer and license/patent specific strains.
Tobacco exists because it’s addictive. CBD and hemp already offer sedative natural alternatives that are healthier and safer for the consumer. If you find anybody taking Wellbutrin or any drug that can cessate the nicotine withdrawal, they can easily kick the habit via cold turkey, or substitution.
Finally the last big industry is alcohol. I could talk about this pivot for hours but ultimately, look at what AB/InBev is doing. What have they poured millions of r&d into lately? Seltzer drinks. Edibles are expected to be the largest growth segment of the legal cannabis industry for the next 10 years. I already see it in various circles. Seltzer drinks are easily the next step for the alcohol industry. The issue now is how are these cards going to fall. Will they try to pace their way and drop tons of r&d into the legalization/testing efforts or will they try to leverage all of the existing infrastructure that exists in the legal cannabis industry?
That’s why I think we’re only about 5-10 acquisitions away from finding the answer. And once we have the answer, legalization will easily fall afterward.
Edit to add: Biden is doing a great job but this wasn’t one of his bullet points. He might have a difference of opinion. He might pursue something at the federal level. But I’m not counting on it. I fully believe that if these acquisitions happen before 2022 we’ll see it on ballots.
The biggest change I noticed with respect to legalization is that it used to be the case that you couldn't walk around the streets of downtown Seattle without being offered weed by street vendors, and sometimes other drugs. After legalization and marijuana stores the street vendors (at least those I encountered) basically disappeared.
That is not a good reason I think. It sounds like we should legalize something because we already have no control of it.
If you can't effectively prohibit something you probably shouldn't try. Otherwise you're wasting resources and eroding goodwill towards law enforcement which will be involved in fighting something that people really want to do.
It implies that it would be difficult for legalization to make the situation worse if you already have no control of it. And as noted: legalization improved the situation substantially.
I still don't understand how DUI is going to work? The testing doesn't seem to have kept up with the desires of the public.
I don't think anyone has been able to conclusively say that marijuana legalization actually increases the percentage of smokers in any state where it has been implemented.
I really don't care about the increase. I care about disproving / proving DUI in court. Without a valid blood test / breath test and some standards, its going to be a rough go.
As to if high people are bad drivers, then yes they are. I don't even know how that's a debate. What constitutes high is the real debate.
My point is that all of this is already a problem. Legalization will, if nothing else, make it easier to conduct research and get funding to fix some of this.
Well, when pot was illegal they just arrested them on possession and didn't have to worry about the rest. Now, we need some standards or else some people are getting DUIs.
Do we have the science to know how safe/unsafe it is to drive under the influence of marijuana?
There have been a few studies out of CO that I can't find at the moment. The gist is that it's less safe than being sober, but a bit more safe than driving drunk. Unfortunately, the real finding is that combining the two is a lot less safe than either on their own and that a lot of drivers are choosing to cross-fade.
I come to it from the view of prohibition being a known source of power for cartels. I suspect if the various prohibitions were relaxed enough (and safely) that cartels would lose a lot power. Could see less immigrants fleeing cartel violence?
But I fear legalization too. I fear people taking it too far and forcing a backlash and a new prohibition.
What even is taking marijuana "too far"? It has been legal for >66% of the country in some form for many years now, and society has not descended into chaos.
They're not just smuggling Marijuana and that's assuming they're not already deeply entrenched in their localities.
Sure but organized crime runs on profit margins, and study after study has shown that by and large organized crime can't fund itself without the profits from drug running.
Nothing else is as lucrative, and most secondary markets they get involved in tend to be to supply things the criminals want - i.e. guns and sex trafficking.
There is a bizarre trend in these conversations to make a defeatist argument along the lines of "the cartels can never be stopped" that doesn't seem to line up with any of the actual evidence.
For example, gun running into the US just isn't a thing - gun smuggling is what organized crime takes out of the US - but the money needs to be USD to pay for it, and ultimately Mexico just doesn't have a lot of that without drugs.
Even in California, the cartel is still active in the grey market. As long as the legal option remains dramatically more expensive than grey market, and how couldn't it with sometimes a >30% tax rate, there will be a grey market.
Oddly, Biden is a bigger holdout against full legalization than Congress.
>Biden’s blunt opposition to marijuana legalization
https://www.vox.com/22387746/biden-marijuana-weed-legalizati...
Funny enough in this case how Kamala Harris feels might be more important, since she'll likely cast the deciding vote in the Senate. I can't see Biden vetoing the legalization bill if it passes both chambers, regardless of his personal views.
Typically, the Vice President will follow the President's agenda, regardless of how they personally feel.
I'm sure she'll offer her views privately and then follow the President's lead publicly, just as Biden did when he opposed Obama's Afghanistan surge and remaining there forever.
However, on this issue, a group of Republicans and Democrats have been renewing a ban on using Federal dollars to prosecute individuals for pot in states where it is legal since the Obama years, regardless of which party controls the Senate.
> However, on this issue, a group of Republicans and Democrats have been renewing a ban on using Federal dollars to prosecute individuals for pot in states where it is legal since the Obama years, regardless of which party controls the Senate.
Only where the use is consistent with state law limited to medical use; the House tried to expand that to include state law covering non-medical use in 2019 and 2020, but in both cases this change was not included in matching Senate bills and not restored in reconciliation of the bills.
Why do you think the Senate will tie?
Congress has been using their power of the purse to forbid using Federal dollars to prosecute people and businesses in states where pot is legal every year since 2014.
https://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-medical-pot-20141216-st...
Although the courts eventually had to shut down the Obama DOJ for continuing to prosecute in those states anyway.
https://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-medical-pot-201...
The votes are there when you aren't openly calling what you are doing "full legalization".
> Congress has been using their power of the purse to forbid using Federal dollars to prosecute those in states where pot is legal every year since 2014.
No, they prohibit prosecuting use consistent with state medical use laws; in both 2019 and 2020 the House voted to extend that to state-legal use generally, but the Senate didn’t go along. (The House, but not the Senate, also passed a decriminalization bill in 2020.)
I seem to remember the Trump DOJ threatening to renew prosecutions and members of Congress making it clear that they would expand the prosecution ban if they had to.
They are perfectly willing to make pot legal, however, they prefer to avoid looking like they are doing so as long as possible.
Biden's open opposition is the bigger issue here. Lets not forget who was behind a lot of the drug war legislation.
>Biden was a major Democratic leader in spearheading America’s war on drugs during the 1980s and ’90s.
https://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2019/4/25/18282870/j...
> I seem to remember the Trump DOJ threatening to renew prosecutions and members of Congress making it clear that they would expand the prosecution ban if they had to.
If its not “sufficient numbers of Republican members of the Senate to force McConnell to actually allow it on the floor”—and it wasn’t—it was an empty threat; the House actually passed an expanded prosecution ban twice and a general decriminalization, none of those made it into any bill on the Senate floor.
> Biden's open opposition is the bigger issue here.
Not really, Biden publicly supports legalization of medical marijuana, decriminalization, rescheduling, permitting state choice on legalization, and automatic record expungement. This differs from federal legalization substantively only in that there would be federal backup for states that choose not to legalize, and has not openly opposed (or supported) the stronger legalization proposals now being announced by, among others, much of the Democratic Senate leadership.
The only meaningful barrier to something very close to full legalization is support in the Senate, mainly the potential of a filibuster, but there’s a couple uncertain D votes (like Manchin) that could prevent even a bare majority.
The President and the majority of the Democratic caucus have different positions, but not far enough apart to be a real barrier to lawmaking.
> Biden was a major Democratic leader in spearheading America’s war on drugs during the 1980s and ’90s.
Yeah, but its not the 80s and 90s; its the 2020s, and Biden has a very different position today.
You seem to be discussing a different Biden than the one we have.
>This month, something unusual happened: Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer took a stand against President Joe Biden.
The New York Democrat, typically a strong Biden ally, has transformed into one of the Senate’s biggest advocates for marijuana legalization, which Biden continues to oppose. But Schumer said he’ll move forward with his legalization bill anyway.
...based on his public remarks, [Biden] seems genuinely conservative on the issue — arguing only for decriminalization (in which the threat of jail or prison time is removed for possession, but sales remain illegal), and calling for “more scientific investigations” into the issue, particularly whether pot is a “gateway drug.”
Biden, after all, not just supported but spearheaded many of the country’s current drug war policies. During the 1980s and ’90s, he backed and helped write bill after bill that toughened federal criminal penalties against all sorts of drugs. Biden has since admitted to going too far in at least some respects, but this is where he built his early political career.
https://www.vox.com/22387746/biden-marijuana-weed-legalizati...
> You seem to be discussing a different Biden than the one we have.
No, I’m discussing the actual one we have, and the actual concrete positions he has taken, starting in the campaign, and reiterated yesterday by his press secretary.
You, on the other hand, are relying on a heavily-spun media conflict narrative that does not accurately portray the positions he has taken (claiming he supports “only decriminalization” when he supports all of general federal decriminalization of marijuana and federal legalization of medical marijuana and federal law giving states the freedom to choose legalization and rescheduling marijuana to schedule II federally and automatically expunging federal criminal records associated with marijuana.)
Sorry, but Vox is not fake news, and you cannot spin decriminalization into full legalization.
My point remains.
Biden is a larger obstacle to full legalization than Congress.
> Sorry, but Vox is not fake news,
I didn’t say “Vox is fake news”.
I said that article youn cited is misleading and distorts the facts to push an exaggerated conflict narrative.
> you cannot spin decriminalization into full legalization.
Well, I mean I could, it would be no harder than spinning medical legalization plus federally-protected state-choice legalization plus rescheduling plus decriminilization plus automatic criminal record expungement as “only decriminalization”.
But I didn’t. I did point out that the only practical difference between what Biden advocates ans what Schumer, et al., advocate is that the shrinking number of states that don’t choose liberalization woild have federal support for their internal policy. Which, while a significant difference, isn’t a wife enough gap in preferrred policy to stop a bill from being passed somewhere in the space, inclusive, between the two endpoints, largely dependent on where the support is in Congress. Whichever side doesn’t get what they most prefer (which might be both) would no doubt paint it as imperfect, but that's different than blocking it.
What is a real barrier is votes in the Senate, where Democrats certainly have most of their caucus but jave a couple wildcards, but very lolely don’t have the Republican votes to clear a filibuster even if they can reach a majority (and definitely don’t, unless Manchin can be broken down, have the votes to reform thr cloture rule to make the filibuster less of a barrier.)
> What is a real barrier is votes in the Senate
If the real barrier were the Senate, it would not have renewed the ban on prosecution in states where Pot is legal while the Republicans held the majority.
The real barrier to full legalization is the fact that Biden opposes full legalization.
I don't see why that means there will be a tie.
>The votes are there
I'm not saying there will be a tie. I'm saying the votes to pass it are there.
Senators have just been afraid to openly support it.
I found myself wondering why we can’t just pass popular legislation as individual clean bills. In a climate where two thirds of Americans support a wealth tax, why not simply send a wealth tax to the Senate and see what happens?
The answer, unfortunately, lies in the many layers upon layers of ‘dealmaking’ that happens in congress that lead to popular bills being bundled with less popular ones. Combined with the trend of trying to pass everything through reconciliation, it means that we almost never get to see congress legislate individual issues.
That’s a shame. In software, we’d recognize this all-or-nothing approach as bad practice. It would be no surprise why nothing ever gets done, and we’d make a new process that favors incremental improvements.
> Combined with the trend of trying to pass everything through reconciliation, it means that we almost never get to see congress legislate individual issues.
Having to go through budget reconciliation is another symptom of the same problem. The filibuster used to get used very infrequently. Now that the parties have clearly sorted themselves there is actually less cross-party dealmaking, instead everything has to go through reconciliation which also requires that bills get changed to fit the requirements of budget reconciliation. It's just another outcome of our hyperpartisanship.
The hyperpartisanship and two-party system is also the reason why even popular legislation cannot pass. If it passes it's a win for the governing party. If it doesn't it gets held against the government party because they should be in control. If they cannot get it done it gets blamed on them bring weak. So why would the opposition allow passing even popular legislation? McConnell explained this very openly and clearly.
majority support, and democrats have control of the three branches of government. what's the hold up in getting it legalized?
1. Senate filibuster rules
2. Having zero spare votes (there is usually at least one Democrat senator, like Manchin, opposed to everything)
Are there any goods to legalize marijuana? If there had been a chance, I would have voted to ban cigarettes as well.
Tax revenue, reduced use of law enforcement resources, increased personal liberty.
I've supported legalization efforts in two states. But I kindof have regrets, now. And in fact, if I were in charge, I might leave it as an infraction.
I don't really want it to be illegal, but as far as I can tell, the same thing that happens to cigarette smokers happens to weed smokers: perspective on the fact that smoking is the atmospheric equivalent of peeing in the pool is lost.
And I wake up like I did last night at 1:30am having had a neighbor opt me into the experience via my open window next to the patio. Yay, personal liberty.
I have zero problem with people choosing it for themselves, but please, figure out a way to keep it personal.
That existed before legalization. The only difference is now you can't tie up precious law enforcement resources because of unfavorable air currents. You can still appeal to your city or landlord. They might not take it seriously, which, given the level of your personal suffering, seems reasonable.
> That existed before legalization.
The frequency of occurrence has absolutely changed, which in retrospect seems to be exactly what you should expect.
> They might not take it seriously, which, given the level of your personal suffering, seems reasonable.
You know, I was a little worried that my comment about people losing perspective on the impacts of their habit might have been an overgeneralization (I certainly do know some people who are more circumspect about it), but thank you for volunteering to demonstrate exactly how it works.
If my "level of suffering" at being involuntarily opted into someone else's smoking choices is inconsequential, then surely their entirely voluntary choice to engage in it is inconsequential too, and their level of suffering at any requirement to forgo it should be inconsequential.
"I enjoy this and so I don't have to worry about whether it annoys or distresses anyone else" is no basis for social reasoning.
This is a pretty silly way to think about the issue. Loud music, dogs barking, kids running around on the floor above you, smoke of any kind, a bed frame hitting the wall repeatedly. I wouldn't rethink the legal status of music, dogs or children because of some bad neighbors.
Noise ordinances are absolutely a thing, and common.
Smoke ordinances would be at least that reasonable.
Yes, that would be very reasonable. The current status of cannabis as a schedule 1 substance is a completely different subject.
Do you honestly believe there was no one smoking pot in your apartment building before it was legal?
You want weed to be illegal because you don't like the smell of the smoke?
It sounds more likely they would like it to be illegal for one to force others to be subject to second hand smoke.
Correct. As I wrote in my earlier comment, I have zero problem with people choosing it for themselves, as long as it's kept personal and I don't get opted in to anyone's smoking choices.
Ah I see.
I feel that it's unreasonable to equate second hand marijuana smoke with second hand tobacco. It's really hard to consume weed to the same extent as tobacco, so the smoke is in much lower quantity.
Is there another window in your house you can open so that the airflow comes in from the other side of the house?
There are literally no other windows in my apartment except those adjoining this shared patio.