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I think it would make a fascinating poli sci case study about why almost all cannabis legalization came from popular referendum instead of legislation. What is

• cultus 6y ago
  Drug prohibition benefits established power structures. It's the same reason why neither major party wants to enact universal healthcare, despite being generally acknowledged as more efficient in terms of care for the cost.
  • ggm 6y ago
    Does this mean states could enact universal healthcare from referendum, or are they barred from incurring tax raising consequences?
    • munk-a 6y ago
      They absolutely can enact universal healthcare, and some have tried in the past. Vermont famously(?) did this with Green Mountain Care - the problem is that when it comes to healthcare you end up needing to pay the same outrageous market prices for healthcare that insurance drives but without any of the wink and nod discounts that HCPs and Payers exchange to keep things moving - along with a lot of market players working actively to extort as much money as possible from your system. Universal healthcare is difficult due to the inability to actually nationalize health care providers without having your state's system overburdened by everyone from neighboring states which you're quite limited in restricting due to federal interstate commerce requirements. Also the federal government would probably come down hard on you.
    • mjn 6y ago
      Some have at least moved incrementally in that direction by referendum. Maine, Missouri, and Oklahoma voters opted in by ballot initiative to ACA's Medicaid expansion, after their respective state governments had decided not to expand Medicaid. That's admittedly easier than designing an entirely state-level system.
• creato 6y ago
  I think being pro legalization doesn't win many votes, but being anti legalization could cost votes. It's an easy attack ad to make. One of the worst things about politics seems to be that the substance of the attack doesn't really matter, just the fact that it exists. With popular votes on the topic, everyone wins: people get what they want, and no legislator needs to grow the courage to stand up for it.
  • munk-a 6y ago
    Sadly being pro-legalization loses you older voters that were exposed to a lot more propaganda during the war on drugs - legalization is inevitable as we age out of those voters but it still is a semi-risky political stance. Bear in mind that John Boehner (yea that one) is now hawking legal marijuana himself after years of publicly opposing it.
    • TylerE 6y ago
      I don’t think that’s as true anymore. Someone who was 18 in the Summer of Love (1967) is 71 today.
      • wavefunction 6y ago
        The people who took part in the Summer of Love were a minority of the population of 18 year olds at the time from what I understand. Around 100,000 according to Wikipedia[0] That's not to say that drug experimentation wasn't more widespread than that group: I know my father experimented because he's told me. However he has become pretty conservative as he's gotten older. Or at least supports conservative American politicians and voted for Trump probably both times. [0]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_of_Love https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Summer_of_Love
• SmellTheGlove 6y ago
  > What is it about cannabis that makes it so much more amenable to direct democracy compared to popular democracy. Polls show that overwhelming majorities in most states support legalization. Yet elected representative have been extremely reticent to move policy in that direction. Two thirds of Americans support legalization, yet neither of the major party candidates for president do. It's counter to "tough on crime" messaging, and for both parties, a lot of your reliable voters love "tough on crime" candidates. Campaign contributions from groups interested in the status quo (law enforcement unions, private prison groups, pharmaceutical/tobacco/alcohol companies) also have an interest in funding the "No" campaign.
  • djitz 6y ago
    It turns out alcoholic beverage companies and big pharma have deep pockets. Whoops, forgot the link as an example. https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/07/13/one-striking-chart-shows-why-pharma-companies-are-fighting-legal-marijuana/ https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2016/07/13/one-s...
    • munk-a 6y ago
      And I think it's important to fight to make sure we don't get similarly entrenched weed cartels. We now have a new fight - against market consolidation of the weed producers.
      • wombatmobile 6y ago
        How do regular people like us fight oligopological market consolidation of commodity goods vendors?
        • wolco2 6y ago
          Make sure to lobby to grow your own.
          • rStar 6y ago
• vmception 6y ago
  Because representatives don't represent the people that want to legalize it. Or the Governor's don't.
• nickpp 6y ago
  Oh, the war on drugs was way too useful for politicians to give it up themselves. A classic case of "Just give me more powers so I can protect you and your loved ones from this horrible danger you can’t possibly protect yourself against". It had to come from the people. Hollywood helped too, making weed smoking seem familiar, funny and harmless way before it was legal.
• dalbasal 6y ago
  One way or another, it does demonstrate a medium-is-the-message dynamic in politics. How democracy is structured is the deciding factor. Referendum, sortition, representative democracy, etc. will have wildly divergent vote counts on a lot of issues.
• crazygringo 6y ago
  I think it's pretty simple -- politicians think it's going to happen, but don't want to be personally linked to it because it can hurt their popularity with certain segments of voters they rely on. Nobody wants to claim credit for it. So they put it up for referendum instead, so it happens but it doesn't harm anyone's careers. It's not at all any kind of vindication of direct democracy. Rather, because it's broadly popular but also highly unpopular with significant segments of voters on both sides... a referendum works out for everyone.
  • tshaddox 6y ago
    That doesn’t seem like a satisfying explanation. Why then do legislators routinely support other legislation that is similarly or even less popular than marijuana legalization?
    • snakeboy 6y ago
      At least until recently, there was no money backing it. Support for unpopular policies is presumably backed by rich corporations, right? I'm thinking relaxing environmental regulations and war as two examples that come immediately to mind.
  • sevencolors 6y ago
    I also think it's an older generational mindset, that being pro-pot will sink your career. They don't want to offend too many people so it's easier to stick their head in the sand and then "come around" when it's suddenly popular. There's also people like my mother who believe marijuana is akin to meth. If you smoke it once you'll end up homeless, under a bridge down by the river
    • mustacheemperor 6y ago
      >They don't want to offend too many people so it's easier to stick their head in the sand and then "come around" when it's suddenly popular. Another example to point to from recent US political history: the federal legalization of same-sex marriage, and subsequent rapid rehabilitation of the public platforms held by its former opponents still regularly running for re-election.
• nashashmi 6y ago
  Police don’t support it. Difficult to enforce on some people (under 21) and not others. Businesses don’t support it. People should not come to work drunk or on high. Government doesn’t like it. Marijuana creates bad atmosphere of drugged people. People who never face the problems associated with marijuana are ok with it. But they still need a reason to vote yes. And prison population and Black Lives Matter did just that
• mdavidn 6y ago
  To combat drugs, huge sums of public funds flow to public-sector union jobs and private industries. Both contribute significantly to political campaigns, whereas victims of the drug war cannot.
• js2 6y ago
  Voting on referendum allows voters to vote on policy divorced from the tribalism of party. Florida voted for a $15/minimum wage, part of Biden's platform, but chose Trump over Biden. What would we come up with if we voted by national referendum on gun control? Immigration? Climate change? Healthcare? Reproductive rights? I wonder... Politicians in both parties are bribed (er, lobbied) by special interests. The average joe voter wouldn't care a rat's ass what Exxon thinks of climate change legislation (say).
• lalaland1125 6y ago
  It's simple math. People are against marijuana tend to hold that position more strongly to the point where they might refuse to vote for politicians who support marijuana. Pro-marijuana people on the other hand usually have that as a weaker preference. https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dictatorship-of-the-small-minority-3f1f83ce4e15 https://medium.com/incerto/the-most-intolerant-wins-the-dict... is a good article discussing these types of effects.
• m0zg 6y ago
  Fascinating indeed, especially considering that legalizing MJ nationwide would easily add a few percentage points to their ratings, and they don't even have to do anything - just get it de-scheduled and strike out the statutes criminalizing it. If you want to do it right, let out all people who are in jail for possession too. I can't think of any legislative measure that would get more popular support. I'm not a user myself, but I have tried it (after voting for legalization in my state), and it's ridiculous that it was illegal in the first place.
• spamizbad 6y ago
  It's a side-effect of our gerontocracy. Even moderate political candidates under 40 support it. Younger conservatives will even get behind decriminalizing it. Problem is seasoned leadership (who skew older) don't want to touch it with a 10-foot pole.
• devwastaken 6y ago
  Right to repair in Mass was also popular vote and won in a landslide. Republic democracies are no longer representative of the people. Instead of the blue and red football team we should get direct ballot votes.
  • pwinnski 6y ago
    In theory, we elect representative to understand the issues better than we do, and protect us from ill-informed impulses. In practice, it seem like our representatives "understand" what lobbyists are paid to help them understand, and they protect entrenched interests from anything those interests don't like.
• FpUser 6y ago
  One has to be careful with what the majority supports. I think if we always follow a majority we'd still be burning witches at the stake. I am not against people smoking joint though. Their choice.
  • brokenmachine 6y ago
    How should we choose whose opinion matters?
    • FpUser 6y ago
      I wish I knew. I bet there is no single recipe and it depends on many things and what is the subject. I community discusses building kids playground maybe 2/3 majority is enough. If we are talking death penalty "get tough on crime" crowd screams the loudest but in this case telling them to sod off I think would be a good thing.
      • brokenmachine 6y ago
        It was more of a rhetorical question, to make the point that you saying "one has to be careful with what the majority supports" doesn't really offer any solutions because it's unclear who we should listen to, if we don't listen to the majority.
• pengaru 6y ago
  representatives represent corporate interests individuals represent their own interests
• eyelidlessness 6y ago
  It’s not a wild leap if you’ve followed the history. Cannabis prohibition is directly tied to post-Civil War criminalization of Black lives/activities/culture. The word “marijuana” is a racialization of the drug to associate it with Latinos. Using prohibition to increase law enforcement scrutiny, imprisonment and the war on drugs has been consistently part of how the US has maintained two power dynamics that have significantly eroded by popular shifts in public opinion.
• fuzzfactor 6y ago
  It would also be worthwhile to study where the citizen's initiative referendum came from to begin with. In some states it's from the same place that voting under the age of 21 arose. During the Vietnam War, kids were being drafted into the Army at 18 but still not allowed to vote until 21. Just like it was in World War II only this time they weren't fighting for their country, they were fighting for somebody else's country. Then along comes Nixon and it was plain to see he was an evil war-monger at heart. Things got worse as expected, and there was no end in sight since it takes so long to become a powerful politician that the top positions will mostly be the oldest dogs in the race, and therefore by statistics alone the most out-of-touch about things affecting young people that were not a factor in their previous generation. Fortunately there had been a baby boom so the 21 to 30 age group was bigger than ever at the time, and were largely on the same page as the still-powerless under-21 citizens. Nixon was doing more damage to US democracy every year, at the same time the war was becoming more widely recognized for its pure stupidity as waves of returning soldiers and officers were able to confirm so with growing consensus. This built a nationwide unification around lowering the voting age to 18. Even some war hawks could understand the unfairness of continuing to draft kids under 21 when they were still politically powerless. The dogs of war still despised the draft dodgers and their supporters who were constantly pointing this discrepancy out though. Pressure on legislators eventually won the vote at 18, and while there was momentum plus a new decent size voting block overnight, the push for _Initiative Referendum_ got underway. Before citizens can put something on the ballot themselves without necessarily having any politicians or political parties involved, their legislators often had to pass a law restoring the right to that type of freedom. Due to the unprecedented pressure, many states chose to no longer deny this liberty to their people. They then codified the hurdles that must be overcome for mere citizens to make things right without having to wait for sluggish politicians who may not be interested, or who could act as obstacles until more responsive representatives got into power. Too bad not every state got this, especially now that it's needed more than ever, but that's what we were planning at the time. It was plain to see that the 21st century was going to be pretty ugly, but there definitely needed to be some hope. Texas is not a free state in this regard, remaining more like the Spanish monarchy that ruled when Texas was still a state in Mexico before it joined the USA. The legislature by design still has no provision to quit denying their subjects the full liberty to vote on items of their own initiative. Oklahoma's lawmakers have presided over a free state by comparison, and their citizens have enjoyed one of the fundamental elements of democracy that Texans can only dream about.