5 ms·

Reasons it's still illegal 1. Pharma lobbyists 2. Private prison lobbyist

by cmahler7 9y ago

calgoo 9y ago
And the DEA.
ttoinou 9y ago
Why wouldn't public prisons be a lobby of itself ?
- adventured 9y ago
  That's universally ignored on HN. Almost nobody on here ever wants to talk about the fact that ~97% of all the people that were put into prison under the war on drugs over the last 40 years, went into government prisons to benefit government agendas & employees. It's very, very, very aggressively ignored here, and the sole response you'll usually get if you do bring up the actual facts of the situation, is heavy downvoting (you won't get much discussion unfortunately).
  - ttoinou 9y ago
    I agree. I guess at least private lobbying IS visible, whereas governement lobbying is just business as usual for them ; hence more opaque
  - grogenaut 9y ago
    Point me to some heavily down voted comments like this and then I'll believe you.
  - dang 9y ago
    Please don't make grandiose generalizations about the community as a rhetorical device. It's pompous and the generalizations are invariably wrong. Moreover, who cares? Let's keep to the topic, or at least something interesting.
- Spooky23 9y ago
  It is. For some reason people focus on private prisons. Government run prisons aren't much better. Afaik, my state has no private prisons. They do have 25,000 prison guards who are a powerful lobby in the state legislature.
kevinnk 9y ago
The biggest funders of the anti prop 64 campaign ("Adult Use of Marijuana Act") were private individuals and police unions.
- rhcom2 9y ago
  Although I know many individual cops who can't wait for legalisation. They're tired of wasting time on weed when heroin and opioids are destroying whole communities.
  - int_19h 9y ago
    I would imagine that the reason why PDs tend to be against legalization, is because it provides them with a much broader list of targets for civil asset forfeiture, which goes into their budgets.
- calafrax 9y ago
  For Nevada Question 2 of the $3,771,500 spent in opposition $3,650,000 (96.7%) of that came from Sheldon Adelson. https://ballotpedia.org/Nevada_Marijuana_Legalization,_Question_2_(2016) https://ballotpedia.org/Nevada_Marijuana_Legalization,_Quest... For California Prop 64 of the $2,077,438 spent in opposition $1,364,000 (65.6%) came from Julie Schauer. The only other major donor was Smart Approaches to Marijuana Action (SAM Action) which donated $489,150 (23.5%) The California Teamsters Public Affairs Council donated $25,000 (1.2%) and the Peace Officers Research Association of Claifornia PIC donated $25,000 (1.2%). https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_64,_Marijuana_Legalization_(2016) https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_64,_Marijuana... In both cases the majority of support for the opposition came from a SINGLE WEALTHY INDIVIDUAL - not "private individuals." I am not sure if the Teamsters directly represent police officers but they are a union and Peace Officers Research Association sounds police related so you are right that some vaguely "police" and "union" related groups did donate a relatively insignificant 2.4% to the opposition campaign, but that is it.
  - kevinnk 9y ago
    PORC is one of the largest police advocacy organizations in California state. SAM is funded largely by private individuals (yes, "individuals" not "individual", although its single donor is Julie Schauer). Notably absent is any "big pharma" or private prisons, in contrast to what the GP stated.
tacoman987 9y ago
Don't forget racism.
refurb 9y ago
Any example of the pharma lobby caring? I haven't seen anything.
- muhfuhkuh 9y ago
  A pharma company was the largest donor to an anti-marijuana legalization movement in AZ. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/03/big-pharma-marijuana-competition-insys-arizona https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/03/big-pharma-m...
  - refurb 9y ago
    That's because Insys makes fentanyl. Fentanyl is abused, so everyone points to them and says "What are you doing to stop drug abuse?". So they write a fat check to stop "drug abuse". The fact it was marijuana legalization doesn't matter, it served it's purpose. And that was one company.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
iaw 9y ago
3. Correlation between liberal politics and those who smoke. (see Richard Nixon)
- raverbashing 9y ago
  Well, this is a cultural connection, and it probably could have gone either way (Not denying it is the case, still, it's very curious it ended up that way)
adventured 9y ago
> 2. Private prison lobbyist That should say: government prison lobbyists. See: how government police & prison lobby groups have fought against pot legalization for decades. They have far more money and influence than the private prison industry (and that was 10x more the case 10+ years ago, when the private prison industry was hardly more than a pebble). Those with the most to lose from pot legalization in terms of money, are government employees. The extreme majority of all the people put in prison during the US prison boom, went into government prisons staffed by government employees, and were arrested by government employees. The war on drugs was a government program, that benefited the government by dramatically increasing its power and scale in just about every possible way. The private prison industry was tiny before year ~2000 (and it's still a small minority of the racket, which still mostly benefits the government). The government prison complex is worth hundreds of billions of dollars per year. All that profit extract goes into the pockets of the government employees (and to a lesser extent, government contractors that build prisons etc). Show me the labor cost of all the government employees related to the prison system (including the unnecessary police/arresting-related employees) over the last 40 years, inflation adjusted. Here's a hint: it's over a trillion dollars and makes the private prison money look like a joke. CoreCivic is worth $3 billion and does $1.8 billion in revenue. That's equivalent to the salary & benefits of about 20,000 cops. There are two million (that's 100x the size of CoreCivic) people directly or indirectly employed by the government prison system, including 1.2+ million that are employed by state & local law enforcement agencies. The income & benefits for those two million workers that are feeding off the government prison complex, is worth at least $150+ billion per year. Politicians also love the government prison complex. It supports their power by making sure taxes remain artificially high, which keeps their slush funds higher, and they can basically build jobs in their voting districts with government prisons.
- ouid 9y ago
  >Politicians also love the government prison complex. It supports their power by making sure taxes remain artificially high, which keeps their slush funds higher, and they can basically build jobs in their voting districts with government prisons. This doesn't make any sort of accounting sense. This doesn't keep taxes "artificially" high. That money is collected in taxes because there is a very expensive program that needs to be funded. There no greater opportunity for embezzlement in your scenario than out of your scenario. Your argument is fine without this claim, though. LEO unions are profoundly fucked up institutions.

Reasons it's still illegal 1. Pharma lobbyists 2. Private prison lobbyist

calgoo 9y ago

And the DEA.

ttoinou 9y ago

Why wouldn't public prisons be a lobby of itself ?

adventured 9y ago
That's universally ignored on HN. Almost nobody on here ever wants to talk about the fact that ~97% of all the people that were put into prison under the war on drugs over the last 40 years, went into government prisons to benefit government agendas & employees. It's very, very, very aggressively ignored here, and the sole response you'll usually get if you do bring up the actual facts of the situation, is heavy downvoting (you won't get much discussion unfortunately).
- ttoinou 9y ago
  I agree. I guess at least private lobbying IS visible, whereas governement lobbying is just business as usual for them ; hence more opaque
- grogenaut 9y ago
  Point me to some heavily down voted comments like this and then I'll believe you.
- dang 9y ago
  Please don't make grandiose generalizations about the community as a rhetorical device. It's pompous and the generalizations are invariably wrong. Moreover, who cares? Let's keep to the topic, or at least something interesting.
Spooky23 9y ago
It is. For some reason people focus on private prisons. Government run prisons aren't much better. Afaik, my state has no private prisons. They do have 25,000 prison guards who are a powerful lobby in the state legislature.

kevinnk 9y ago

The biggest funders of the anti prop 64 campaign ("Adult Use of Marijuana Act") were private individuals and police unions.

rhcom2 9y ago
Although I know many individual cops who can't wait for legalisation. They're tired of wasting time on weed when heroin and opioids are destroying whole communities.
- int_19h 9y ago
  I would imagine that the reason why PDs tend to be against legalization, is because it provides them with a much broader list of targets for civil asset forfeiture, which goes into their budgets.
calafrax 9y ago
For Nevada Question 2 of the $3,771,500 spent in opposition $3,650,000 (96.7%) of that came from Sheldon Adelson. https://ballotpedia.org/Nevada_Marijuana_Legalization,_Question_2_(2016) https://ballotpedia.org/Nevada_Marijuana_Legalization,_Quest... For California Prop 64 of the $2,077,438 spent in opposition $1,364,000 (65.6%) came from Julie Schauer. The only other major donor was Smart Approaches to Marijuana Action (SAM Action) which donated $489,150 (23.5%) The California Teamsters Public Affairs Council donated $25,000 (1.2%) and the Peace Officers Research Association of Claifornia PIC donated $25,000 (1.2%). https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_64,_Marijuana_Legalization_(2016) https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_64,_Marijuana... In both cases the majority of support for the opposition came from a SINGLE WEALTHY INDIVIDUAL - not "private individuals." I am not sure if the Teamsters directly represent police officers but they are a union and Peace Officers Research Association sounds police related so you are right that some vaguely "police" and "union" related groups did donate a relatively insignificant 2.4% to the opposition campaign, but that is it.
- kevinnk 9y ago
  PORC is one of the largest police advocacy organizations in California state. SAM is funded largely by private individuals (yes, "individuals" not "individual", although its single donor is Julie Schauer). Notably absent is any "big pharma" or private prisons, in contrast to what the GP stated.

tacoman987 9y ago

Don't forget racism.

refurb 9y ago

Any example of the pharma lobby caring? I haven't seen anything.

muhfuhkuh 9y ago
A pharma company was the largest donor to an anti-marijuana legalization movement in AZ. https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/03/big-pharma-marijuana-competition-insys-arizona https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/03/big-pharma-m...
- refurb 9y ago
  That's because Insys makes fentanyl. Fentanyl is abused, so everyone points to them and says "What are you doing to stop drug abuse?". So they write a fat check to stop "drug abuse". The fact it was marijuana legalization doesn't matter, it served it's purpose. And that was one company.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]

iaw 9y ago

3. Correlation between liberal politics and those who smoke. (see Richard Nixon)

raverbashing 9y ago
Well, this is a cultural connection, and it probably could have gone either way (Not denying it is the case, still, it's very curious it ended up that way)

adventured 9y ago

> 2. Private prison lobbyist That should say: government prison lobbyists. See: how government police & prison lobby groups have fought against pot legalization for decades. They have far more money and influence than the private prison industry (and that was 10x more the case 10+ years ago, when the private prison industry was hardly more than a pebble). Those with the most to lose from pot legalization in terms of money, are government employees. The extreme majority of all the people put in prison during the US prison boom, went into government prisons staffed by government employees, and were arrested by government employees. The war on drugs was a government program, that benefited the government by dramatically increasing its power and scale in just about every possible way. The private prison industry was tiny before year ~2000 (and it's still a small minority of the racket, which still mostly benefits the government). The government prison complex is worth hundreds of billions of dollars per year. All that profit extract goes into the pockets of the government employees (and to a lesser extent, government contractors that build prisons etc). Show me the labor cost of all the government employees related to the prison system (including the unnecessary police/arresting-related employees) over the last 40 years, inflation adjusted. Here's a hint: it's over a trillion dollars and makes the private prison money look like a joke. CoreCivic is worth $3 billion and does $1.8 billion in revenue. That's equivalent to the salary & benefits of about 20,000 cops. There are two million (that's 100x the size of CoreCivic) people directly or indirectly employed by the government prison system, including 1.2+ million that are employed by state & local law enforcement agencies. The income & benefits for those two million workers that are feeding off the government prison complex, is worth at least $150+ billion per year. Politicians also love the government prison complex. It supports their power by making sure taxes remain artificially high, which keeps their slush funds higher, and they can basically build jobs in their voting districts with government prisons.

ouid 9y ago
>Politicians also love the government prison complex. It supports their power by making sure taxes remain artificially high, which keeps their slush funds higher, and they can basically build jobs in their voting districts with government prisons. This doesn't make any sort of accounting sense. This doesn't keep taxes "artificially" high. That money is collected in taxes because there is a very expensive program that needs to be funded. There no greater opportunity for embezzlement in your scenario than out of your scenario. Your argument is fine without this claim, though. LEO unions are profoundly fucked up institutions.