5 ms·

Pardon me if this sounds naive, but I'm slightly confused as to how recreational marijuana is legal in 9 states but the DEA still heavily controls cannabidiol a

Pardon me if this sounds naive, but I'm slightly confused as to how recreational marijuana is legal in 9 states but the DEA still heavily controls cannabidiol as if it were still illegal?

beojan 8y ago
It's not "legal in 9 states", it's not prohibited by 9 states, but still prohibited federally.
- vorpalhex 8y ago
  That's incorrect. Those states explicitly legalized the possession and consumption of marijuana. That legalization is in conflict with the federal prohibition - so consuming marijuana in those instances is not a state crime (any more then walking down the street or eating cake is) but might still be a federal crime in those cases where the federal government has the ability to charge you (interstate commerce).
  - acomjean 8y ago
    Thats my understanding of it. I'm in Massachusetts and one of the problem this new industry faces is banking. Banks are federally regulated many won't touch it (there are some "know you customer" anti money landing type laws). Thus it becomes a cash business, leading to all sorts of problems. Being Massachusetts though, although technically it should be legal since july, they haven't issued any permits to allow it to be sold. Those issues should be resolved with luck in another 2-3 years...
    - wavefunction 8y ago
      There are stores in some of the legalized states that are processing debit card transactions through some company in NYC. I expect it will be possible in MA stores.
      - monocasa 8y ago
        The debit card thing is complex, and might not stand up long term. Essentially, to the bank the debit card transactions look like they're coming from an ATM. That 'ATM' is owned by a wholly owned subsidiary of the dispensary that, IDK, ostensibly sells t shirts or something. Then the 'cash' out of the 'ATM' is immediately used in your transaction. There's no way the banks involved don't know what's going on, but there's just enough plausible deniability that they're going with it for the moment. But all it takes is one dropping the hammer on one instance of this and everyone will be back to pure cash.
    - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
      >Being Massachusetts though, although technically it should be legal since july, they haven't issued any permits to allow it to be sold. Those issues should be resolved with luck in another 2-3 years... Being Massachusetts the licensing issues will be cleared up once the appropriate pockets are lined or once a relative of a state legislator starts trying to get a license, not a minute sooner or later.
  - sp332 8y ago
    What's the difference between being legalized and being not prohibited?
    - deelowe 8y ago
      Saying that it's federally prohibited within the state is dubious, because of the issue of states rights. Constitutional scholars would argue the federal government has little to no ability to control what substances a state wants to prohibit within the state itself. The only way this was worked around to begin with is the stretching of the interstate commerce law, which only applies when crossing state lines.
      - beojan 8y ago
        Only if a court made a ruling on it.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
vorpalhex 8y ago
Federal law and state law are different. Federal law is like a system level policy, while state law is like application level policy. When state law explicitly allows things disallowed by federal law, things get a bit more confusing - local police follow state law, but federal departments like the DEA follow federal law.
Nasrudith 8y ago
Essentially it is a matter of practicality. The DEA could do it themselves but is huge but they would be stretching themselves thin to replace a whole state that said we're not doing it. And said move would be costly in cooperation. As for forcing them? Such unfunded mandates overriding official discretion cannot be forced upon a state's police force. Stop this civil rights abuse or acting outside your mandate are valid ones without funding. Start actively looking for spies is not one unless both deputized and funded. They could respond to any if they run across them without but it is within the leadership's discretion to say we have our hands full with the obvious criminals, not going on wild goose chases after guys who leave and take notebooks in public trashcans. The funding available for said purpose? Has to be used for spy chasing if taken. As always they can use federal jurisdiction to establish their own. Generally they stick to interstate matters instead of setting up shop 50 times for something redundant.
hoorayimhelping 8y ago
Not naive at all. The issue is typically framed as States Rights and it's wrapped around the 10th amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. This has been an issue since the 1780s, so it will take more than a couple of sentences to give the whole rundown but it's like this. A few states are saying "we have explicitly made marijuana legal for adult consumption, and since the Federal Constitution doesn't forbid this, it's legal," and the federal government is saying, "um, I don't think so. Cannabis is a schedule 1 drug that is regulated by the DEA, and it can't be made legal. And we intend to enforce this with the DEA." So every once in a while, the DEA come in and shake up a cannabis operation (they raid the grow house or the dispensary or sometimes [rarely now] raid patients' homes) that is legal at the state level but federally illegal and there's a whole jurisdictional issue. The local police used to cooperate with the DEA in decades past, but have since told them to get bent. Now there aren't enough federal agents to deal with this, and a lot of local police forces have realized that cannabis is really not a big deal, so sometimes these things get enforced and sometimes they don't. So we're in a gray area right now, where you can purchase cannabis legally or medically in quite a few states, but it's still illegal at the federal level. Apart from selective enforcement of this being scary, this opens up weird issues for seemingly law-abiding citizens: Since cannabis is a schedule 1 drug, using it precludes you from purchasing a gun legally at the federal level. So a law abiding citizen can easily unknowingly put themselves into a situation where they're breaking federal law even though they're abiding state laws. If you want to see how ridiculous DEA drug scheduling is, check out this page: https://www.dea.gov/drug-scheduling https://www.dea.gov/drug-scheduling
- ivl 8y ago
  Honestly between peyote (mescaline), LSD, and marijuana you've got half of schedule one being ridiculous punishments against drugs that can be used relatively safely. Half of the schedule 1 drugs hardly even need regulation.
- komali2 8y ago
  Wait, peyote is schedule 1? How do they deal with native Americans taking that as part of religious ceremonies?
astura 8y ago
It's complicated and far from a settled issue. As far as I understand it you can be arrested by federal law enforcement and charged with a federal crime but you cannot be arrested by local or state law enforcement and charged with a local or state crime. This is why the marijuana industry is "cash only" - banks won't give them a bank account because it violates federal law for them to do so. This is very undesirable for the marijuana companies because having large stacks of cash laying around is a liability and also an accounting mess. Though last I heard some companies might be trying to band together to create a "maybe semi legal bank like entity" to fix this problem. So far the DEA has largely chosen not to go after marijuana dispensaries and growers that are operating within the parameters of state law, but that can change, and it might lead to some interesting court cases. This also can lead to problems for ordinary citizens, if they can go into a store and buy a product it is reasonable to think the product is totally and completely legal. However, they do risk being charged with a federal crime, but that's not totally obvious.

Pardon me if this sounds naive, but I'm slightly confused as to how recreational marijuana is legal in 9 states but the DEA still heavily controls cannabidiol as if it were still illegal?

beojan 8y ago

It's not "legal in 9 states", it's not prohibited by 9 states, but still prohibited federally.

vorpalhex 8y ago
That's incorrect. Those states explicitly legalized the possession and consumption of marijuana. That legalization is in conflict with the federal prohibition - so consuming marijuana in those instances is not a state crime (any more then walking down the street or eating cake is) but might still be a federal crime in those cases where the federal government has the ability to charge you (interstate commerce).
- acomjean 8y ago
  Thats my understanding of it. I'm in Massachusetts and one of the problem this new industry faces is banking. Banks are federally regulated many won't touch it (there are some "know you customer" anti money landing type laws). Thus it becomes a cash business, leading to all sorts of problems. Being Massachusetts though, although technically it should be legal since july, they haven't issued any permits to allow it to be sold. Those issues should be resolved with luck in another 2-3 years...
  - wavefunction 8y ago
    There are stores in some of the legalized states that are processing debit card transactions through some company in NYC. I expect it will be possible in MA stores.
    - monocasa 8y ago
      The debit card thing is complex, and might not stand up long term. Essentially, to the bank the debit card transactions look like they're coming from an ATM. That 'ATM' is owned by a wholly owned subsidiary of the dispensary that, IDK, ostensibly sells t shirts or something. Then the 'cash' out of the 'ATM' is immediately used in your transaction. There's no way the banks involved don't know what's going on, but there's just enough plausible deniability that they're going with it for the moment. But all it takes is one dropping the hammer on one instance of this and everyone will be back to pure cash.
  - dsfyu404ed 8y ago
    >Being Massachusetts though, although technically it should be legal since july, they haven't issued any permits to allow it to be sold. Those issues should be resolved with luck in another 2-3 years... Being Massachusetts the licensing issues will be cleared up once the appropriate pockets are lined or once a relative of a state legislator starts trying to get a license, not a minute sooner or later.
- sp332 8y ago
  What's the difference between being legalized and being not prohibited?
  - deelowe 8y ago
    Saying that it's federally prohibited within the state is dubious, because of the issue of states rights. Constitutional scholars would argue the federal government has little to no ability to control what substances a state wants to prohibit within the state itself. The only way this was worked around to begin with is the stretching of the interstate commerce law, which only applies when crossing state lines.
    - beojan 8y ago
      Only if a court made a ruling on it.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

vorpalhex 8y ago

Federal law and state law are different. Federal law is like a system level policy, while state law is like application level policy. When state law explicitly allows things disallowed by federal law, things get a bit more confusing - local police follow state law, but federal departments like the DEA follow federal law.

Nasrudith 8y ago

Essentially it is a matter of practicality. The DEA could do it themselves but is huge but they would be stretching themselves thin to replace a whole state that said we're not doing it. And said move would be costly in cooperation. As for forcing them? Such unfunded mandates overriding official discretion cannot be forced upon a state's police force. Stop this civil rights abuse or acting outside your mandate are valid ones without funding. Start actively looking for spies is not one unless both deputized and funded. They could respond to any if they run across them without but it is within the leadership's discretion to say we have our hands full with the obvious criminals, not going on wild goose chases after guys who leave and take notebooks in public trashcans. The funding available for said purpose? Has to be used for spy chasing if taken. As always they can use federal jurisdiction to establish their own. Generally they stick to interstate matters instead of setting up shop 50 times for something redundant.

hoorayimhelping 8y ago

Not naive at all. The issue is typically framed as States Rights and it's wrapped around the 10th amendment: The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. This has been an issue since the 1780s, so it will take more than a couple of sentences to give the whole rundown but it's like this. A few states are saying "we have explicitly made marijuana legal for adult consumption, and since the Federal Constitution doesn't forbid this, it's legal," and the federal government is saying, "um, I don't think so. Cannabis is a schedule 1 drug that is regulated by the DEA, and it can't be made legal. And we intend to enforce this with the DEA." So every once in a while, the DEA come in and shake up a cannabis operation (they raid the grow house or the dispensary or sometimes [rarely now] raid patients' homes) that is legal at the state level but federally illegal and there's a whole jurisdictional issue. The local police used to cooperate with the DEA in decades past, but have since told them to get bent. Now there aren't enough federal agents to deal with this, and a lot of local police forces have realized that cannabis is really not a big deal, so sometimes these things get enforced and sometimes they don't. So we're in a gray area right now, where you can purchase cannabis legally or medically in quite a few states, but it's still illegal at the federal level. Apart from selective enforcement of this being scary, this opens up weird issues for seemingly law-abiding citizens: Since cannabis is a schedule 1 drug, using it precludes you from purchasing a gun legally at the federal level. So a law abiding citizen can easily unknowingly put themselves into a situation where they're breaking federal law even though they're abiding state laws. If you want to see how ridiculous DEA drug scheduling is, check out this page: https://www.dea.gov/drug-scheduling https://www.dea.gov/drug-scheduling

ivl 8y ago
Honestly between peyote (mescaline), LSD, and marijuana you've got half of schedule one being ridiculous punishments against drugs that can be used relatively safely. Half of the schedule 1 drugs hardly even need regulation.
komali2 8y ago
Wait, peyote is schedule 1? How do they deal with native Americans taking that as part of religious ceremonies?

astura 8y ago

It's complicated and far from a settled issue. As far as I understand it you can be arrested by federal law enforcement and charged with a federal crime but you cannot be arrested by local or state law enforcement and charged with a local or state crime. This is why the marijuana industry is "cash only" - banks won't give them a bank account because it violates federal law for them to do so. This is very undesirable for the marijuana companies because having large stacks of cash laying around is a liability and also an accounting mess. Though last I heard some companies might be trying to band together to create a "maybe semi legal bank like entity" to fix this problem. So far the DEA has largely chosen not to go after marijuana dispensaries and growers that are operating within the parameters of state law, but that can change, and it might lead to some interesting court cases. This also can lead to problems for ordinary citizens, if they can go into a store and buy a product it is reasonable to think the product is totally and completely legal. However, they do risk being charged with a federal crime, but that's not totally obvious.