I agree with you, but it's interesting to see the "worse-is-better" philosophy applied outside of tech. I would hope that most readers of HN who build systems

I agree with you, but it's interesting to see the "worse-is-better" philosophy applied outside of tech. I would hope that most readers of HN who build systems for a living see the value in your argument of separation of concerns and clear interfaces: Congress makes laws, executive branch enforces those laws, states make their own laws within the latitude they have. That said, in life like in software, when subject to resource constraints and a deadline, it's so much easier to just slap in some hardcoded conditions or let this module take on a little more responsibility than it should. I think that's what happened here in the Obama era, and like C, we had a pretty good outcome from it. But again, like C, if we let it fester too long it can cause no end of pain down the road. So I'm actually happy with this outcome - Obama hacked in a proof of concept that seems to be working, and Sessions (though perhaps not his intention) is tackling the tech debt. I don't see this going any way but marijuana being legalized federally down the road. (All that said, the current "system" is not great in terms of separation of concerns. It's my understanding that Congress didn't say marijuana should be illegal, but the DEA, right? The DEA should totally have no say over it.)