It’s ridiculous that it’s even up for debate at this point. Regulation and taxation will increase government revenue, keep potheads out of jail, and potentially calm people the fuck down. Oh no, those people over there are making themselves feel slightly light headed and good feeling! What a bunch of bastards!
But then how will we criminalize a massive swath of our population and fill up all of the for-profit prisons?
Crack, meth etc.
The US policy on pot has 100% negatively impacted our ability to defend in cyberspace.
Just legalize it (and psychedelics) already.
Normalize personal freedom again. If you don’t have personal freedoms you ain’t free in the least. Fuck all cops and the idea you can control me. Fuck you! I do what I want!
Trump told the crowd, “One rough hour, and I mean real rough, the word will get out, and it will end immediately. End immediately. You know, it’ll end immediately.”
You see, we shoot them in the head to send a message. /s
I think we should start adopting all of Trump’s shitty day-one policies.
- We win, the purge starts on domestic terrorists for a day, terrorism will ‘end immediately’
- Kamala gets to be dictator day one only, like how trump says. She deports all republicans to the nations of their ancestors.
- Courts packed with 29 more SCOTUS justices.
- Build a wall between Texas and the US
If all of this is fine for Trump to do, then why not Kambala??
She deports all republicans to the nations of their ancestors.
😂 🤣
She deports all republicans to the nations of their ancestors.
Believe me, they don’t want these people either. However, my understanding is Russia has open arms for disenfranchised Republicans. Please, don’t let me stop you. No taksies backsies though.
Believe it when I see it.
god i wish we would do the same across europe
So far it’s just a campaign promise. I wouldn’t envy us yet. She made a career out of putting people in jail for MJ.
While I don’t agree with the criminalization of marijuana, it’s really rough when it comes to a prosecutor and a law they may not like. Step back and ask the question, “should an Attorney General (AG) be allowed to not prosecute laws they don’t agree with?” You might be willing to say, “yes” for laws you also don’t agree with; but, what happens when it starts to cover laws you want to see enforced? Should “prosecutorial discretion” effectively allow an AG a complete veto power over the laws as passed by the State and Federal legislatures?
As much as it may suck for the person in that position, it would be really bad for democracy to allow that sort of power. We empower an AG to enforce the law as written. But, we also expect that they will enforce the law as written. So ya, I would expect that Harris (or her office), as AG, prosecuted marijuana cases. That’s really what the whole “rule of law” thing means. It means the laws, as written, being enforced on all people. And it’s up to us, the people, through our representatives to get that law changed.
And hopefully, this will work out to be more than an empty campaign promise. Though, I don’t plan to hold my breath.
I haven’t heard that, do you have a source? My understanding is that she particularly went after violent crimes while showing leniency and seeking alternatives to incarceration towards non-violent offenses during her time as a prosecutor.
I haven’t heard that, do you have a source?
I went looking for one, and it seems not as cut and dried as I thought.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/kamala-harris-record-marijuana-prosecutor-173249390.html
But it is fair to talk about Harris’ complex relationship with marijuana.
As a senator, Harris championed marijuana decriminalization and eventually legalization. She signed Senator Cory Booker’s marijuana legalization bill in 2017, and she also introduced her own bill to decriminalize marijuana at the federal level.
But as an attorney general, her record is much more complicated. Harris oversaw roughly 1,956 misdemeanor and felony convictions for “marijuana possession, cultivation, or sale,” according to Reuters. However, defense attorneys and prosecutors in Harris’ office told Mercury News that most of the people convicted during this period did not serve jail time. And convictions for marijuana did go down under Harris’ tenure as district attorney.
At the end of the day, calling Harris out on her previous role in convicting folks for marijuana crimes isn’t entirely unfair. But it’s also pretty misleading to pretend that she pulled a switcheroo on the issue just in time for the midterms.
This article spins it slightly differently, IMO, but still not solidly stating what I believed to be true. Bold added by me.
As district attorney in San Francisco, however, she had enforced cannabis laws and opposed legalized use for adults. She defended its usage for medicinal purposes, but her prosecutors convicted over 1,900 people on cannabis-related charges. When she was running for reelection as attorney general, she opposed legalizing marijuana for recreational use, which was supported by her GOP opponent.
That aside, it remains true that at this point it’s nothing but a campaign promise.
Biden promised the same thing and then didn’t do shit. They clearly like to dangle this carrot without acting on it so they can continue to leverage it for votes.
Works every time!! I’m 40, I thought legalization was right around the corner 20 years ago.
Hey, we did it up in Canada. It’s 100% viable for the US to do the same. I can’t say for sure the dems will or won’t but it’s not unrealistic for them to follow through.
You should learn how the drug schedule system works. The president can’t just snap his fingers and make it legal.
He could absolutely put out a memo saying “if a DEA agent makes a weed arrest they will be fired” as an officer action. And besides, democrats presidents have been promising to reschedule for coming on 20 years now, the process can’t be 20-years complicated.
Actually up until about a decade or so ago it had been Republicans who were promising to reschedule weed. The Democrats had been firmly against it until very very recently.
Then why are they even talking about it? They haven’t the power to do anything about it, so stop claiming you will do it.
Oh wait! Making empty promises fools idiots into voting for them.
They’re immune from persecution for official acts, though
Demand it be rescheduled, send the military to the houses of those responsible, shoot one for every hour it’s not done
The president is immune from prosecution for any official acts. There’s nothing that can stop them from being persecuted for them.
Decriminalization is not the same as legalization. In terms of legalization, he only supported legalization for medical marijuana which is the process he started. He actually pledged to move it to schedule 2 but has started the process to move it to schedule 3. That process is getting closer for what it’s worth. The DEA has really dragged it out but it’s nearly at the end with the public hearing in December
From the source that politico links to
he will support the legalization of cannabis for medical purposes
[…]
reschedule cannabis as a schedule II drug so researchers can study its positive and negative impacts.
Copying my comment from elsewhere
The DEA has really dragged it out
Color me surprised. It’s not like they’ve made millions by confiscating people’s possessions in the name of “the drug war”. Oh wait, that’s exactly what they’ve been doing since they were established. Seriously, fuck the DEA.
Yea it’s still full of “is going to” and “process getting closer” stuff. He had 4 full years and didn’t do anything until halfway through his last year specifically so the next election cycle could continue to have a carrot to dangle. That was 3 more years of people having their lives permanently ruined.
The existing law outlines the complicated process. Biden cannot do it instantly. Here’s an overview of the process that’s already been done so far
Now the rule has been proposed so we’re at the end of that graph. That’s what I mean when I say we’re close. Here’s the actual rule making procedure to do the rescheduling
Additionally, it’s worth noting that earlier, dem senate leader was also perusing a legislative path until it was clear they couldn’t get the votes. Hence later executive action
Did you even read the previous comment
If no one is being harmed and all parties have the access to information to know enough about whether or not to consent, and if all parties do consent.
Nothing wrong is being done.
Ok. What’s her plan?
So far all we know is she might do more than nothing
She might, yes. I’d still like to see a plan. Hopefully one will be forthcoming soon.
I’m guessing there will be no plan
Perhaps. I’m notoriously pessimistic about Democrats actually wanting to do things that don’t involve capitulating to Republicans, but she just announced it. I’ll give her some time to put out a plan before assuming it’s just an empty campaign promise like Biden’s was.
It’s getting to where if democrats keep milking this issue, they are going to snatch defeat from jaws of victory by pussyfooting around a highly popular issue.
I definitely would not become a republican just because of this issue, but there are many people who see politics as silly football teams. I can see Republicans winning and election because “bro, the republicans support weeeeeeeeed, man”
It’s baffling how uninformed so many large groups of people are when it comes to news and politics
It’s getting to where if democrats keep milking this issue, they are going to snatch defeat from jaws of victory by pussyfooting around a highly popular issue.
Yes, that is familiar behavior from Democrats.
I think to say something broadly popular with the voting base and then forget about it after the election. Decent plan TBH.
Same is true with health care, minimum wage, sick leave for workers, there are numerous issues that large majority’s on both sides support that nothing will be done about because billionaires and corporate donors. She is a neoliberal after all.
There’s a couple of different ways she could do it. She could start the descheduling process (doable with existing law, but DEA slow it down like they are with Biden trying to move it to schedule 3). Or if there’s a democratic trifecta, she could also push for legislation to legalize it
She did push for legislation like that in 2018 when she was a senator
I’m aware of the avenues by which it could be legalized. I asked what Harris’ plan is. If she hasn’t released one yet, fine. She only just announced it. But I would like some specifics from her campaign at some point, because Biden’s efforts have been disappointing to everyone who considers Biden to be fallible.
Biden never said he supported full legalization as far as I am aware, so it’s not surprising he didn’t go as far as he could.
She just made the announcement for the first time in this campaign, so not stated that yet, but she has pushed for legalization via legislation in the past as a senator and called for faster action for the DEA on rescheduling as VP
In other areas, Walz and Harris have already given plans for passing legislation to make banking access easier for legal states and helping veterans get access to medical marijuana in the VA
She just made the announcement for the first time in this campaign, so not stated that yet, but she has pushed for legalization via legislation in the past as a senator and called for faster action for the DEA on rescheduling as VP
In fairness, she pushed for that legislation in 2018 when Trump was president. I’ve seen Democrats introduce a lot of things when they know they stand no chance of passing. I hope a plan will be forthcoming. At the moment, we have a campaign promise.
In other areas, Walz and Harris have already given plans for passing legislation to make banking access easier for legal states and helping veterans get access to medical marijuana in the VA
This, however, is actually reassuring. Thank you.
Wait a second, when someone said Biden should do more you replied that Biden can’t do more,
But now you are saying Biden didn’t do more because he didn’t want to.
Something’s not adding up.
I think dems are using this issue the same as they did with abortion.
That’s why women are dying right now in many states, because politicians are dangling carrots with no intention of actually doing their jobs
He absolutely promised to fully decriminalize. Instead all we got was a committee to look into looking into considering reducing the scheduling of cannabis. It was an empty promise, like every democrat before him because if they actually did something they wouldn’t be able to keep dangling the carrot for votes. Source: https://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/promises/biden-promise-tracker/promise/1529/decriminalize-marijuana/
Decriminalization is not the same as legalization. In terms of legalization, he only supported legalization for medical marijuana which is the process he started. He actually pledged to move it to schedule 2 but has started the process to move it to schedule 3. That process is getting closer for what it’s worth. The DEA has really dragged it out but it’s nearly at the end with the public hearing in December
From the source that politico links to
he will support the legalization of cannabis for medical purposes
[…]
reschedule cannabis as a schedule II drug so researchers can study its positive and negative impacts.
So he promised to decriminalize, but did nothing to make good on that promise until most of his term in office had passed, and that’s why we aren’t done with the lengthy process to get there yet. Your answers throughout the discussion seem to keep glossing over the bolded part. (unless I have some misunderstanding, which is possible)
And that is the part that makes me doubtful Kamala will be any different.
He actually started the reschedule process in 2022, but before that there were attempts by dems to do legalization via legislation but in the senate that didn’t end up getting enough votes.
Rescheduling via legislation is more direct and skips the lengthy process describe in the law for executive action. The president is not able to immediately snap their fingers and reschedule. People within the DEA / other agencies have showed it down since 2022. It’s at the last stages now after the public comment hearing in December. For what it’s worth, as VP Harris did try to call on the agencies to speed up said process but she has no direct power to do so
Remember when Biden “signaled” he would be a one term president in his first campaign, then proceeded to put the entire country at risk by running again?
Those stories were his aides saying he was considering he might not run again. He never said it publicly.
Here Harris is directly stating publicly she wants it legal federally. It’s not a new stance for her. As a senator in 2018 she co-sponsored legislation to make it legal federally
No. It was his words. His words he said. With his mouth.
He never explicitly said he would be a one term president or necessarily saw himself as one. I looked back to double check again, and he only made cagey statements about seeing himself as the transition between generations. A two term president could still qualify for that. The more explicit one term stuff was from his aides saying he was considering that
Should he have just been more direct, yes, but what he said was nothing as explicit as directly stating we need marijuana it to be legalized
and he only made cagey statements about seeing himself as the transition between generations
What the fuck else do you think it means to “signal” something in politics?
However, unlike that Harris isn’t making a cagey statement here. She’s directly stating that marijuana should be federally legalized
Really the title of this article shouldn’t be signals
Thats fair. This is more than a “signal”. What people attributed to Biden (you can dig through the articles of the day; it was very clearly taken as a signal he would remain a 1 term president) was a “signal” though, in the pure sense of it. Its a kind of political maneuver that could be a head fake, could be real, you can figure it out later.
So you have a source for that then?
Assuming you have are asking in good faith and simply have the memory of a gold fish, or lack the ability to simply google things yourself:
Holy shit you should be fucking so embarrassed. That link literally says, right in the first line, that it is just “reportedly” it’s not him being quoted. It literally confirms what the other poster said and absolutely contradicts what you said.
It’s okay to be wrong, but fuck man, you shouldn’t of read at least the first line of your sources to make sure they support your claims when you submit them. That’s just mind numbingly dumb.
The Associated Press reported that Biden said in October that he wouldn’t promise to serve just one term but that he wasn’t necessarily committed to running for another four years.
“I feel good and all I can say is, watch me, you’ll see,” he told the AP at the time. “It doesn’t mean I would run a second term. I’m not going to make that judgment at this moment.”
You should really read your sources.
Nowhere in this article Biden says he will Serve only one term. He basically said that it’s an option - nothing more.
It’s like some one is paying you not to get it.
I’ll believe it when it happens. I can only get my hopes up so many times
Saying, “we need to” is about as noncommittal as not saying anything at all. That’s like my girlfriend pointing out that the kitchen is a mess and me saying “yeah we really need to do the dishes”.
She has no control over it, the only thing she can do is what Biden did, ask them to investigate it and reschedule it. The executive branch does not make laws. That’s on the Senate/Congress. The number of people arrested for marijuana by the federal government isn’t the number of people in prison/jail for it. They are/and will be arrested by states. A law must be written to superseed state laws on marijuana… As the president cannot pardon people from state laws.
Vote for new senators/Congress members… The only 1 the president puts in place is the Vice President in the Senate.
Last year Michigan received about 290 million in weed taxes, around 90 went to municipalities and county governments, 100 million to schools, and 100 million to roads.
It’s crazy to me how cheap it is. Like, they could double the taxes and it would still feel incredibly affordable when compared to alcohol.
What are the prices in Michigan? One of the complaints in Colorado is that the prices (for those without red cards, anyway) were set so high that some people were still resorting to the black market.
Yeah edibles near me are about 6x as expensive as buying them in Michigan. And as a consequence, Ohio’s black market is still alive and well. And obviously illegal interstate transportation too.
If you shop around you can get joints for one dollar. Way cheaper than the black market
Michigan is dirt cheap. $80 ounces are pretty common. $40 for an ounce of shake if you avoid border towns like Monroe. Even the Monroe dispensaries are cheaper than the Ohio ones that just opened, so everyone in NW Ohio still travels north for it since they dave moeny.
It was cheap and high quality in Colorado for the first few years, just long enough to kill off the black market. Now it’s not as strong and has doubled in price. I only do edibles so I can’t speak to the plant quality but the THC content per serving gets lower every year it seems.
I personally think it’s a good thing. Some of that stuff was fucking military grade just because they could.
I bet she commits suicide by shooting herself in the head…twice.
I expect to see frequent attempts on her life if she wins.
I would like to reiterate that A LOT of the entrenched Cannabis industry assholes that run the business are pro-Trump. I’m talking well over a majority of the most psychotic Trump supporters I know are directly involved in the interstate Cannabis market. They are even more prone to conspiracy brainrot than the average Yall’Qaeda folks.
I’m sounding the alarm for the millionth time that the Cannabis industry attracts some of the most degenerate, unethical, fucked up people into positions of power. I’ve said this like 10 times on Lemmy at least, and I always get downvoted into oblivion even though I have more direct experience with the Cannabis industry than 99.9999% of people on earth.
Trust me when I say a lot of these people are fully fucked in the head, and giving them legitimacy is a problem. While I am still 100% pro-legalization, I am also aware of the dark side of that equation as well. There is a lot of exploitation and evil in the industry. It needs to be unionized, and there needs to be common sense regulation that is not captured by the corporations within the industry itself.
Source: Worked in the black, gray, and recreational Cannabis industry for 14 years. Have directly facilitated the sale of tens of millions of dollars worth of Cannabis. Worked with thousands of different people, and hundreds of different vendors over that time.
I’m sounding the alarm for the millionth time that the Cannabis industry attracts some of the most degenerate, unethical, fucked up people into positions of power
I worked at a delivery dispensary for like 2 months in 2021 or so:
- our main product was one which the owner also owned, but only under the table through a kid of his, so we’d regularly get weird orders that didn’t match what we were getting in product, and heavily push the garbage house brand for him. Pretty sure money laundering was happening
- the safe was regularly left unlocked and open. The safe was in the cage (where the weed is) which was also unlocked and open. So was the back door ~10ft away from that, and the roll-up ~20ft from that. Any random homeless person could easily have sprinted in, yoinked money, weed, and bolted. Well, until:
- right after I quit the guy who hired me (the “co owner”) took 10k cash out of the safe AND the wife of the girl in accounting and dipped, idk if they ever found that guy actually
- they absolutely were trafficking significant amounts of hard drugs as well
Canadian here.
It’s been fully legal for… 5 years? We haven’t fallen apart yet!
There’s some people working on that, but they aren’t the stoner type.
