12 ms·

Virginia lawmakers pass marijuana legalization bills

228 points by underseacables 6y ago

markn951 6y ago
Only a matter of time before every state in the union follows suit, like gay marriage last decade. Then we get to work freeing everyone jailed for this.
- peteretep 6y ago
  > Then we get to work freeing everyone jailed for this Reasonably sure that’s now how the law works
  - t-writescode 6y ago
    What is stopping a law from being passed that operates in a similar way to a pardon? "All people convicted of X set of laws have their sentences nullified and this criminal conviction removed from their records" as a law passed, or something like that?
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
    - nobody9999 6y ago
      >What is stopping a law from being passed that operates in a similar way to a pardon? Nothing. In fact[0]: "As of this writing [12 March 2020], 26 states, D.C., and one territory have legalized or decriminalized marijuana to some degree. Eleven states and D.C. have done both. Seventeen states and D.C. have enacted expungement, sealing, or set-aside laws specifically for marijuana, or targeted more generally to decriminalized or legalized conduct. Four states have pardon programs for marijuana offenses." [0] https://ccresourcecenter.org/2020/03/12/legalizing-marijuana-and-expunging-records-across-the-country/ https://ccresourcecenter.org/2020/03/12/legalizing-marijuana...
  - Hyp3rion 6y ago
    You're right, nobody will be automagically freed as a result. That being said, pushing for amnesty, and pushing for pardons is completely how the law works, and very doable.
- paxys 6y ago
  *Almost every state. Eventually it'll become a pissing contest for which one can hold off on legalization the longest, until they are dragged kicking and screaming.
  - toomuchtodo 6y ago
    Some states will simply not pursue legalization until their voting demographics have turned over sufficiently to elect more progressive representation (and the Marijuana Policy Project, who has championed legalization in many states, has said there are only a few states left where this can be done with a ballot initiative versus state legislature). For many, they’ll need to vote with their feet and migrate to better states. Or the federal government legalizes it.
    - paxys 6y ago
      > until their voting demographics have turned over sufficiently to elect more progressive representation Which for a large number of states is never. Let's not pretend there aren't many states out there that would eagerly overturn all social progress we have made in the last 50 years tomorrow if they could, fully supported by a voting majority of their constituents. We didn't wait for states to abolish racial segregation one by one. Marijuana legalization (and drug laws overhaul in general to favor rehabilitation over criminalization) similarly has to be enacted and enforced at the federal level.
      - Clewza313 6y ago
        Marijuana is a bit different from purely social issues like gay marriage, it has majority support among Republican voters too. (Nationwide, that is, not in every state.) https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrisroberts/2020/08/19/poll-republicans-like-marijuana-legalization-too-even-if-its-kamala-harriss-idea/?sh=fd01557420e4 https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrisroberts/2020/08/19/poll-re...
        fogof 6y ago
        If a majority of Republicans support it and a majority of democrats support it, then why hasn't it passed already? Surely there cannot be enough state level skew on this issue that a majority of Senators don't represent states where legalization is favored by most voters?
- mbg721 6y ago
  But it's still a federal Schedule I drug, isn't it?? I'm not going to rely on Washington's pinky-swear not to enforce the law, and then there are the big employers that drug-test.
  - acct776 6y ago
    Those employers are a net-negative to society, let them die.
    - mbg721 6y ago
      Whether they're bad for society or not, my point was that normalization of pot is more of a climb than "just a couple more states, then progress!".
    - Noos 6y ago
      A lot of the places have legitimate reasons for it. You drug test sometimes because drug users can and will steal you blind if they are addicted enough. You don't want drug users operating heavy or critical machinery, or in any job with a modicum of danger. You don't want your day care provider with workers who show up high; by the time you realize it to fire them, they may have done damage. Not every reason people drug test is invalid.
      - Pfhreak 6y ago
        There are plenty of folks who would fail a marijuana drug test who I'd have no problem in childcare. Your concern is like, "We should test to ensure that someone has had zero alcohol. You don't want your day care provider showing up drunk."
        refurb 6y ago
        Well yeah. We don’t want drunk people taking care of kids either. That’s pretty standard.
        6y ago
- wahern 6y ago
  The number of people incarcerated on marijuana possession charges alone is a rounding error. This page suggests 0.1%: http://www.therecoverycenter.org/resources/weed-through-the-myths-get-the-facts/60-what-percent-of-state-prisoners-are-being-held-for-marijuana-possession-only http://www.therecoverycenter.org/resources/weed-through-the-... I'm not sure to what extent that's a political advocacy organization, so let's just call 0.1% a lower bound. The absolute upper bound is ~5%: https://twitter.com/JohnFPfaff/status/985996204986241026 https://twitter.com/JohnFPfaff/status/985996204986241026 But that assumes that everyone arrested for marijuana possession (even if it was only one of the charges) was incarcerated. But that's absolutely not the case. Rather, marijuana arrests are almost always pretextual and used to intimidate; basically, catch & release. There sure are a ridiculous number of arrests, though, and these days having any kind of arrest on your record can be a significant handicap.
  - Teever 6y ago
    I think you misunderstand the impetus for freeing the people arrested for breaking marijuana laws. It isn't just to reduce crowding in jails -- it's to free people who were arrested and imprisoned under an unjust and insane law.
    - wahern 6y ago
      Sure, even if it's a merely a fraction of the prison population, the sheer human cost of those remaining in prison is incalculable. Still, from a public policy point of view at some point it sort of becomes indistinguishable from the background population of those unjustly incarcerated for myriad other reasons, and trotting out rare examples of long-term marijuana possession prisoners confuses the debate. We're like 15 years into marijuana decriminalization--actual decriminalization at the state and even Federal level, not simple advocacy. It became a mostly bipartisan endeavor, at least on the national level since at least 2015 when Paul Ryan became Speaker. Though for various reasons most of the GOP remain non-committal, and will only tacitly support passive decriminalization. Nonetheless, that's at least 15 years of slowly emptying our prisons of not only marijuana offenders, but drug offenders generally. The state of affairs today is nothing like the numbers that advocates were throwing around 15 years ago (and what most people still believe is the case), and even then they were exaggerated. There's still a ton more that needs to be done, and some reforms even need to be walked back or reverted because it turns out decriminalization alone exposes some serious problems and deficiencies elsewhere in the system. But if everybody's empathy is focused on the de minimis incarceration problem it's difficult to regroup and shift efforts.
- eyelidlessness 6y ago
  I honestly think it’ll pass federally before most of the remaining holdout states come on over. I’m saying this from having worked in the industry. There’s very little resistance at the federal level other than inertia, and quite a lot of red state resistance.
  - adventured 6y ago
    That's exactly what will happen. There will be at least 10-15 permanent holdout states that will never willingly legalize it. The same was going to be true of gay marriage. As a union we don't have to care about those holdout states, their positions are meaningless, just have to get a strong majority of the states on board and it's going to be taken care of at the federal level.
    - deleted 6y ago
      [deleted]
  - kortilla 6y ago
    > and quite a lot of red state resistance. Not really red state resistance. It’s legal in AK and MT but still illegal (but decriminalized) in NY. Illegal in Maryland, Virginia, New Mexico, etc. Likely the only real correlation is with states that give their citizens direct referendums. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_cannabis_by_U.S._jurisdiction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_cannabis_by_U.S._j...
    - eyelidlessness 6y ago
      You’re right that direct democracy measures are a correlation. My point was not that there’s a red/blue divide in current law, but that my educated experience working in the industry informs me that there’s low political will in many red states to legalize & high political pressure to resist it. I’m very familiar with the legal map, don’t need a wiki link thanks.
      - kortilla 6y ago
- dmix 6y ago
  Not sure why everyone is so obsessed with the federal elections. Things take time and often bubble up via states. The US needs more decentralization if it want's progress on a realistic timeline (ie, one that reflects the populace). It also helps weeds out the more radical emotion-driven stuff.
  - afterburner 6y ago
    Because federal laws can throw a LOT of cold water onto state legalization, if the federal government wanted to. Hence why elections matter.
  - roenxi 6y ago
    Correct me if I'm wrong, but California is the US's highest spending state [0] with a budget of around 200 billion. Its entire budget is smaller than the US Federal government's deficit (measured in single digit trillions). The reason everyone cares about federal elections is because there are earth-shattering amounts of money involved. The resources that get consumed have to come from somewhere. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._state_budgets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._state_budgets
    - refurb 6y ago
      That money is mostly entitlement spending. You can change a lot of the states level that has nothing to do with entitlements.
      - akvadrako 6y ago
        It's about half entitlements, 27% Medic* + 22% SS, and this percentage will increase quickly. But that's still $3T for other stuff in average years. Plus they just passed $2T of extra one-off spending for the second time in a year. That means the Federal government is basically taking all the spending power of the nation and then redistributing it, giving it enormous power compared to the states.
  - lotsofpulp 6y ago
- hourislate 6y ago
  Not just freeing people from jail but to finally stop prosecuting people and wasting 100's of millions in Tax Payer Money. How many young people have had their lives ruined over a joint? When I think of all the poor kids who got fucked over, that was the real crime. Any politician who stands in the way of legalization should be thrown out of Government, including the President.
  - lpa22 6y ago
    Straight facts. There is hundreds of millions not only wasted, but also much more than that to be made in tax revenue by legalizing and taxing it. The fact these people focused on petty crime and punishing people is sickening.
    - cmurf 6y ago
      Straight facts, it was all about the racism. And pandering for votes from white nationalists. Some things don't ever change in America. Politicians gave up the tax revenue in order to get racist votes so they could be in power. We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black. But by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. https://www.thomhartmann.com/blog/2015/12/big-lie-war-against-drugs https://www.thomhartmann.com/blog/2015/12/big-lie-war-agains... https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy/ https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/exclusive-lee-atwa...
      - lightgreen 6y ago
        Sure, because everything in the US is about racism these days. The world is very simple and easy to deal with when every problem is explained by one reason. Some people believe the reason for everything bad is racism. Others believe it is Jews secretly holding power. Thirds blame secret Martian masters directly controlling president heads. All of them have reasonable and consistent explanations of the world with their model. These people are called conspiracy theorists. Also, people reducing the world to such a simple model are always wrong. We have seen it many times throughout history. Often their mistakes led to grave consequences.
- darkstar999 6y ago
  Idaho is going the other way, the Senate just passed a bill that will constitutionally prohibit cannabis and any other illicit psychoactive drugs if voters pass it with simple majority in 2022.
  - ur-whale 6y ago
    > Idaho is going the other way Which is great, for the following reason: a really good way to actually know the value of something is conducting A/B experiments. If Idaho keeps cannabis illegal, we'll be able to actually measure what effects good or bad that has on society, including tax opportunity costs.
    - jillesvangurp 6y ago
      We're talking about a state without big cities, a comparatively tiny population, generally not a lot of crime, and a mostly white population. The only thing we'd be able to learn is whether drug usage in that state is affected at all by not changing a thing (it's illegal now). This would indeed be surprising as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is a sign of insanity (to paraphrase Einstein). Also, it would be a good way to characterize decades of drug policy making in the US.
    - curryst 6y ago
      It won't. I'm a legalization supporter, but you can't pretend that being surrounded by states with legal cannabis won't cause the availability of cannabis to be huge. If cannabis causes negative effects, they're going to get hit with a double effect of readily available cannabis and no tax revenue to offset it. Then again, I don't get the impression that it's ever been difficult to find cannabis, even when it was illegal all over the US.
- umanwizard 6y ago
  Plenty of states never legalized gay marriage until the Supreme Court forced them to. (And I seriously doubt the Court will ever rule that the states aren’t allowed to ban cannabis.)
Stevvo 6y ago
Abolishing the death penalty and legalizing marijuana on the same day. I've no idea how the legislature works in Virginia, but that it has me stunned.
- eyelidlessness 6y ago
  The state was purple-red for my whole life there (I moved away in 2002). It’s shifted gradually with the urban/rural map and recently the suburban gap. It has one of the most suburban-dense and prosperous counties in the country. It’s been a tipping point in recent elections, and increasingly politically aligned with solid blue “left coast” states all of which have legal cannabis. I’m looking at it as my childhood home and so it’s not unfamiliar. But it’s so good to see Virginia keep growing.
  - nickff 6y ago
    It seems like the continual growth of the federal government is creating a 'blue stream' of liberal voters into Virginia (federal agency employees are overwhelmingly democrats).
    - Ericson2314 6y ago
      The federal employee count isn't ballooning. Most of the DMV growth is hanger-ons (lobbyists, non-profits, contractors).
    - eyelidlessness 6y ago
      This is definitely not it, although it looks like it because of geography. The trend is actually just urban/suburban growth and suburban leftward shift. It can be seen elsewhere. And while the biggest growth is near the capitol, there is far more an influx of contractors, tech workers, and halo industry to support/profit off of that high-income growth.
  - ur-whale 6y ago
    You seem to imply that cannabis laws follow some sort of red/blue divide. This, is - IMO - naive at best, disingenuous at worst, especially if you consider that libertarians and like-minded folks increasingly align themselves with the right (in light of the US left having completely removed individual freedoms from their political agenda in favor of collectivist goals).
Animats 6y ago
How will this play out over the next decade? Huge numbers of useless unemployable druggies?
- bilbo0s 6y ago
  So, a bit like the last decade?
- xvedejas 6y ago
  It's apparently already happened in California! Did you see the huge unemployment spike around March 2020?
  - refurb 6y ago
    What is March 2020? Marijuana was legalized in CA well before then.
    - bigwavedave 6y ago
      The person you're responding to was making a joke- the unemployment spike came from covid.
      - refurb 6y ago
        Ahh... not really all that funny or clever.
        junon 6y ago
        I found it quite clever, so your assertion is subjective.
        tlamponi 6y ago
        Isn't it bit thick to assert that it was not really clever if you were the one not clever enough to draw the association with a once in a century event, which is still happening?
vmception 6y ago
woah the legislature is creating an automatic expungement process that will be huge Virginia is about to be solidly blue
- x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
  And that's the important part. It's not enough to legalize it when it was all fear and racial panic driving it's prohibition, we also have to repair those whose lives were broken by the prohibition. Automatic expungement will go far and should be the blueprint for any states looking to follow.
- kortilla 6y ago
  > Virginia is about to be solidly blue Why? Is there a strong correlation with ex-cons and the Democratic Party?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - elil17 6y ago
    If by ex-cons you mean people who were imprisoned for marijuana use then yes, they do tend to support the party which wants to decriminalize marijuana.
    - kortilla 6y ago
      > they do tend to support the party which wants to decriminalize marijuana Neither party supports it. One plays pretend. All of the real progress forward has come from referendums. The current Vice President made a career crushing marijuana users’ lives. The current President was the Vice President of an administration that left it illegal for 8 years and perpetuated the imprisonment of users.
  - vmception 6y ago
    One of the criticisms of the Republican Party and the people that align with it and it’s prior iterations is that its existence relies on disenfranchising people. Removing their ability to vote. Whether it’s outright exclusion from being a voting citizen, or barriers to entry to vote, or subsequently stripping that right from people. From the beginning of the country till now. And when even that fails some want to dismantle the entire system outside of the prescribed process. All parties have at some point added to mass incarceration programs and ways to remove voting rights from people, Republican Party right now are the ones that want to continue it as opposed to attempting to rehabilitate and create productive members of society as fast as possible. There is only one other party with federal representation right now, so that is hard to reconcile for many, but the re-enfranchised people often support that other party’s goals.
booleanbetrayal 6y ago
The more we see news like this, the less pretext law enforcement has for engaging in routine activities that escalate the chance of needless violence.
devin 6y ago
420 blaze it.
wombatmobile 6y ago
As a long term pot smoker, I was disappointed when weed was legalised in California because the price didn’t go down at all. If you can grow at home it’s good. Otherwise it’s business as usual, with just a change of franchisee.
- lgats 6y ago
  Except the franchise allocates their funds a bit differently https://www.leafly.com/news/politics/californias-635m-in-cannabis-taxes-where-is-it-going https://www.leafly.com/news/politics/californias-635m-in-can... And clients of the business went from consuming unregulated products from potentially unscrupulous suppliers to high quality and domestically produced product.
  - newsclues 6y ago
    If you don’t read cannabis industry propaganda, there are concerns that rules and regulations are ignored in the legal market to increase profits at the cost of product quality and safety.
    - joseph_grobbles 6y ago
      That sounds like "street dealer" propaganda. There are a lot of actors whose income source is threatened who are parroting unsubstantiated claims about legal products. It's a very simple plant to grow ideally. For a large industrial operation that is under no concern for law enforcement, run as a normal business, it's pretty easy and cheap to do things as optimally as possible.
  - elil17 6y ago
    The money also stopped going from local, small scale growers and dealers to large agribusiness and retail stores. I think more states should consider what DC has done. They’ve created a grey market where growing and distribution are still controlled by small businesses. The businesses can get lab testing done to show the purity of their products and many consumers expect this, but it isn’t required.
  - 6y ago
superkuh 6y ago
Here's a mirror that doesn't require running sinclair media scripts, https://archive.is/GlHfZ https://archive.is/GlHfZ
nexthash 6y ago
Seems like we have come full circle for a state that originated as a colony with a tobacco-based economy. Back in its day, tobacco was also considered a vice and was heavily regulated by various nations.
- dkjaudyeqooe 6y ago
  Today it's considered a highly addictive and deadly drug that is heavily regulated by various nations.
  - Bellamy 6y ago
    But you go to jail for using and businesses still profit for selling it.
iujjkfjdkkdkf 6y ago
In canada, when we legalized marijuana, it came with massive attempts by law enforcement to grab power: the government passed unconstitutional new laws about screening impaired drivers, police forces and government bureaucracies demanded _more_ funding (because somehow legal pot was harder to deal with than illegal) etc. Illegal pot had always been about government wielding power that can be used arbitrarily against people that are not liked for some other reason. When we talk about making it legal, we don't talk enough about havjng the government explicitly give back that power, instead of trying to transfer it to other regulations.
- Teever 6y ago
  I saw a local police union rep on TV arguing that it was unfair that a police department was enacting rules that forbid their members from consuming cannabis. Here's a person who demonized marijuana and claimed it destroyed individuals and families for years, a person who profited off arrested people for possession and now he's on TV saying that it's not fair that police officers can't use now legalized marijuana like non-police officers? If crack or meth was legalized tomorrow there's no fucking way that police rep would be on that stage making the same plea to the public. no fucking way.

Only a matter of time before every state in the union follows suit, like gay marriage last decade. Then we get to work freeing everyone jailed for this.

peteretep 6y ago
> Then we get to work freeing everyone jailed for this Reasonably sure that’s now how the law works
- t-writescode 6y ago
  What is stopping a law from being passed that operates in a similar way to a pardon? "All people convicted of X set of laws have their sentences nullified and this criminal conviction removed from their records" as a law passed, or something like that?
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - nobody9999 6y ago
    >What is stopping a law from being passed that operates in a similar way to a pardon? Nothing. In fact[0]: "As of this writing [12 March 2020], 26 states, D.C., and one territory have legalized or decriminalized marijuana to some degree. Eleven states and D.C. have done both. Seventeen states and D.C. have enacted expungement, sealing, or set-aside laws specifically for marijuana, or targeted more generally to decriminalized or legalized conduct. Four states have pardon programs for marijuana offenses." [0] https://ccresourcecenter.org/2020/03/12/legalizing-marijuana-and-expunging-records-across-the-country/ https://ccresourcecenter.org/2020/03/12/legalizing-marijuana...
- Hyp3rion 6y ago
  You're right, nobody will be automagically freed as a result. That being said, pushing for amnesty, and pushing for pardons is completely how the law works, and very doable.
paxys 6y ago
*Almost every state. Eventually it'll become a pissing contest for which one can hold off on legalization the longest, until they are dragged kicking and screaming.
- toomuchtodo 6y ago
  Some states will simply not pursue legalization until their voting demographics have turned over sufficiently to elect more progressive representation (and the Marijuana Policy Project, who has championed legalization in many states, has said there are only a few states left where this can be done with a ballot initiative versus state legislature). For many, they’ll need to vote with their feet and migrate to better states. Or the federal government legalizes it.
  - paxys 6y ago
    > until their voting demographics have turned over sufficiently to elect more progressive representation Which for a large number of states is never. Let's not pretend there aren't many states out there that would eagerly overturn all social progress we have made in the last 50 years tomorrow if they could, fully supported by a voting majority of their constituents. We didn't wait for states to abolish racial segregation one by one. Marijuana legalization (and drug laws overhaul in general to favor rehabilitation over criminalization) similarly has to be enacted and enforced at the federal level.
    - Clewza313 6y ago
      Marijuana is a bit different from purely social issues like gay marriage, it has majority support among Republican voters too. (Nationwide, that is, not in every state.) https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrisroberts/2020/08/19/poll-republicans-like-marijuana-legalization-too-even-if-its-kamala-harriss-idea/?sh=fd01557420e4 https://www.forbes.com/sites/chrisroberts/2020/08/19/poll-re...
      - fogof 6y ago
        If a majority of Republicans support it and a majority of democrats support it, then why hasn't it passed already? Surely there cannot be enough state level skew on this issue that a majority of Senators don't represent states where legalization is favored by most voters?
mbg721 6y ago
But it's still a federal Schedule I drug, isn't it?? I'm not going to rely on Washington's pinky-swear not to enforce the law, and then there are the big employers that drug-test.
- acct776 6y ago
  Those employers are a net-negative to society, let them die.
  - mbg721 6y ago
    Whether they're bad for society or not, my point was that normalization of pot is more of a climb than "just a couple more states, then progress!".
  - Noos 6y ago
    A lot of the places have legitimate reasons for it. You drug test sometimes because drug users can and will steal you blind if they are addicted enough. You don't want drug users operating heavy or critical machinery, or in any job with a modicum of danger. You don't want your day care provider with workers who show up high; by the time you realize it to fire them, they may have done damage. Not every reason people drug test is invalid.
    - Pfhreak 6y ago
      There are plenty of folks who would fail a marijuana drug test who I'd have no problem in childcare. Your concern is like, "We should test to ensure that someone has had zero alcohol. You don't want your day care provider showing up drunk."
      - refurb 6y ago
        Well yeah. We don’t want drunk people taking care of kids either. That’s pretty standard.
        6y ago
wahern 6y ago
The number of people incarcerated on marijuana possession charges alone is a rounding error. This page suggests 0.1%: http://www.therecoverycenter.org/resources/weed-through-the-myths-get-the-facts/60-what-percent-of-state-prisoners-are-being-held-for-marijuana-possession-only http://www.therecoverycenter.org/resources/weed-through-the-... I'm not sure to what extent that's a political advocacy organization, so let's just call 0.1% a lower bound. The absolute upper bound is ~5%: https://twitter.com/JohnFPfaff/status/985996204986241026 https://twitter.com/JohnFPfaff/status/985996204986241026 But that assumes that everyone arrested for marijuana possession (even if it was only one of the charges) was incarcerated. But that's absolutely not the case. Rather, marijuana arrests are almost always pretextual and used to intimidate; basically, catch & release. There sure are a ridiculous number of arrests, though, and these days having any kind of arrest on your record can be a significant handicap.
- Teever 6y ago
  I think you misunderstand the impetus for freeing the people arrested for breaking marijuana laws. It isn't just to reduce crowding in jails -- it's to free people who were arrested and imprisoned under an unjust and insane law.
  - wahern 6y ago
    Sure, even if it's a merely a fraction of the prison population, the sheer human cost of those remaining in prison is incalculable. Still, from a public policy point of view at some point it sort of becomes indistinguishable from the background population of those unjustly incarcerated for myriad other reasons, and trotting out rare examples of long-term marijuana possession prisoners confuses the debate. We're like 15 years into marijuana decriminalization--actual decriminalization at the state and even Federal level, not simple advocacy. It became a mostly bipartisan endeavor, at least on the national level since at least 2015 when Paul Ryan became Speaker. Though for various reasons most of the GOP remain non-committal, and will only tacitly support passive decriminalization. Nonetheless, that's at least 15 years of slowly emptying our prisons of not only marijuana offenders, but drug offenders generally. The state of affairs today is nothing like the numbers that advocates were throwing around 15 years ago (and what most people still believe is the case), and even then they were exaggerated. There's still a ton more that needs to be done, and some reforms even need to be walked back or reverted because it turns out decriminalization alone exposes some serious problems and deficiencies elsewhere in the system. But if everybody's empathy is focused on the de minimis incarceration problem it's difficult to regroup and shift efforts.
eyelidlessness 6y ago
I honestly think it’ll pass federally before most of the remaining holdout states come on over. I’m saying this from having worked in the industry. There’s very little resistance at the federal level other than inertia, and quite a lot of red state resistance.
- adventured 6y ago
  That's exactly what will happen. There will be at least 10-15 permanent holdout states that will never willingly legalize it. The same was going to be true of gay marriage. As a union we don't have to care about those holdout states, their positions are meaningless, just have to get a strong majority of the states on board and it's going to be taken care of at the federal level.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
- kortilla 6y ago
  > and quite a lot of red state resistance. Not really red state resistance. It’s legal in AK and MT but still illegal (but decriminalized) in NY. Illegal in Maryland, Virginia, New Mexico, etc. Likely the only real correlation is with states that give their citizens direct referendums. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_cannabis_by_U.S._jurisdiction https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_cannabis_by_U.S._j...
  - eyelidlessness 6y ago
    You’re right that direct democracy measures are a correlation. My point was not that there’s a red/blue divide in current law, but that my educated experience working in the industry informs me that there’s low political will in many red states to legalize & high political pressure to resist it. I’m very familiar with the legal map, don’t need a wiki link thanks.
    - kortilla 6y ago
dmix 6y ago
Not sure why everyone is so obsessed with the federal elections. Things take time and often bubble up via states. The US needs more decentralization if it want's progress on a realistic timeline (ie, one that reflects the populace). It also helps weeds out the more radical emotion-driven stuff.
- afterburner 6y ago
  Because federal laws can throw a LOT of cold water onto state legalization, if the federal government wanted to. Hence why elections matter.
- roenxi 6y ago
  Correct me if I'm wrong, but California is the US's highest spending state [0] with a budget of around 200 billion. Its entire budget is smaller than the US Federal government's deficit (measured in single digit trillions). The reason everyone cares about federal elections is because there are earth-shattering amounts of money involved. The resources that get consumed have to come from somewhere. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._state_budgets https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._state_budgets
  - refurb 6y ago
    That money is mostly entitlement spending. You can change a lot of the states level that has nothing to do with entitlements.
    - akvadrako 6y ago
      It's about half entitlements, 27% Medic* + 22% SS, and this percentage will increase quickly. But that's still $3T for other stuff in average years. Plus they just passed $2T of extra one-off spending for the second time in a year. That means the Federal government is basically taking all the spending power of the nation and then redistributing it, giving it enormous power compared to the states.
- lotsofpulp 6y ago
hourislate 6y ago
Not just freeing people from jail but to finally stop prosecuting people and wasting 100's of millions in Tax Payer Money. How many young people have had their lives ruined over a joint? When I think of all the poor kids who got fucked over, that was the real crime. Any politician who stands in the way of legalization should be thrown out of Government, including the President.
- lpa22 6y ago
  Straight facts. There is hundreds of millions not only wasted, but also much more than that to be made in tax revenue by legalizing and taxing it. The fact these people focused on petty crime and punishing people is sickening.
  - cmurf 6y ago
    Straight facts, it was all about the racism. And pandering for votes from white nationalists. Some things don't ever change in America. Politicians gave up the tax revenue in order to get racist votes so they could be in power. We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black. But by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. https://www.thomhartmann.com/blog/2015/12/big-lie-war-against-drugs https://www.thomhartmann.com/blog/2015/12/big-lie-war-agains... https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/exclusive-lee-atwaters-infamous-1981-interview-southern-strategy/ https://www.thenation.com/article/archive/exclusive-lee-atwa...
    - lightgreen 6y ago
      Sure, because everything in the US is about racism these days. The world is very simple and easy to deal with when every problem is explained by one reason. Some people believe the reason for everything bad is racism. Others believe it is Jews secretly holding power. Thirds blame secret Martian masters directly controlling president heads. All of them have reasonable and consistent explanations of the world with their model. These people are called conspiracy theorists. Also, people reducing the world to such a simple model are always wrong. We have seen it many times throughout history. Often their mistakes led to grave consequences.
darkstar999 6y ago
Idaho is going the other way, the Senate just passed a bill that will constitutionally prohibit cannabis and any other illicit psychoactive drugs if voters pass it with simple majority in 2022.
- ur-whale 6y ago
  > Idaho is going the other way Which is great, for the following reason: a really good way to actually know the value of something is conducting A/B experiments. If Idaho keeps cannabis illegal, we'll be able to actually measure what effects good or bad that has on society, including tax opportunity costs.
  - jillesvangurp 6y ago
    We're talking about a state without big cities, a comparatively tiny population, generally not a lot of crime, and a mostly white population. The only thing we'd be able to learn is whether drug usage in that state is affected at all by not changing a thing (it's illegal now). This would indeed be surprising as doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results is a sign of insanity (to paraphrase Einstein). Also, it would be a good way to characterize decades of drug policy making in the US.
  - curryst 6y ago
    It won't. I'm a legalization supporter, but you can't pretend that being surrounded by states with legal cannabis won't cause the availability of cannabis to be huge. If cannabis causes negative effects, they're going to get hit with a double effect of readily available cannabis and no tax revenue to offset it. Then again, I don't get the impression that it's ever been difficult to find cannabis, even when it was illegal all over the US.
umanwizard 6y ago
Plenty of states never legalized gay marriage until the Supreme Court forced them to. (And I seriously doubt the Court will ever rule that the states aren’t allowed to ban cannabis.)

Stevvo 6y ago

Abolishing the death penalty and legalizing marijuana on the same day. I've no idea how the legislature works in Virginia, but that it has me stunned.

eyelidlessness 6y ago
The state was purple-red for my whole life there (I moved away in 2002). It’s shifted gradually with the urban/rural map and recently the suburban gap. It has one of the most suburban-dense and prosperous counties in the country. It’s been a tipping point in recent elections, and increasingly politically aligned with solid blue “left coast” states all of which have legal cannabis. I’m looking at it as my childhood home and so it’s not unfamiliar. But it’s so good to see Virginia keep growing.
- nickff 6y ago
  It seems like the continual growth of the federal government is creating a 'blue stream' of liberal voters into Virginia (federal agency employees are overwhelmingly democrats).
  - Ericson2314 6y ago
    The federal employee count isn't ballooning. Most of the DMV growth is hanger-ons (lobbyists, non-profits, contractors).
  - eyelidlessness 6y ago
    This is definitely not it, although it looks like it because of geography. The trend is actually just urban/suburban growth and suburban leftward shift. It can be seen elsewhere. And while the biggest growth is near the capitol, there is far more an influx of contractors, tech workers, and halo industry to support/profit off of that high-income growth.
- ur-whale 6y ago
  You seem to imply that cannabis laws follow some sort of red/blue divide. This, is - IMO - naive at best, disingenuous at worst, especially if you consider that libertarians and like-minded folks increasingly align themselves with the right (in light of the US left having completely removed individual freedoms from their political agenda in favor of collectivist goals).

Animats 6y ago

How will this play out over the next decade? Huge numbers of useless unemployable druggies?

bilbo0s 6y ago
So, a bit like the last decade?
xvedejas 6y ago
It's apparently already happened in California! Did you see the huge unemployment spike around March 2020?
- refurb 6y ago
  What is March 2020? Marijuana was legalized in CA well before then.
  - bigwavedave 6y ago
    The person you're responding to was making a joke- the unemployment spike came from covid.
    - refurb 6y ago
      Ahh... not really all that funny or clever.
      - junon 6y ago
        I found it quite clever, so your assertion is subjective.
      - tlamponi 6y ago
        Isn't it bit thick to assert that it was not really clever if you were the one not clever enough to draw the association with a once in a century event, which is still happening?

vmception 6y ago

woah the legislature is creating an automatic expungement process that will be huge Virginia is about to be solidly blue

x86_64Ubuntu 6y ago
And that's the important part. It's not enough to legalize it when it was all fear and racial panic driving it's prohibition, we also have to repair those whose lives were broken by the prohibition. Automatic expungement will go far and should be the blueprint for any states looking to follow.
kortilla 6y ago
> Virginia is about to be solidly blue Why? Is there a strong correlation with ex-cons and the Democratic Party?
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- elil17 6y ago
  If by ex-cons you mean people who were imprisoned for marijuana use then yes, they do tend to support the party which wants to decriminalize marijuana.
  - kortilla 6y ago
    > they do tend to support the party which wants to decriminalize marijuana Neither party supports it. One plays pretend. All of the real progress forward has come from referendums. The current Vice President made a career crushing marijuana users’ lives. The current President was the Vice President of an administration that left it illegal for 8 years and perpetuated the imprisonment of users.
- vmception 6y ago
  One of the criticisms of the Republican Party and the people that align with it and it’s prior iterations is that its existence relies on disenfranchising people. Removing their ability to vote. Whether it’s outright exclusion from being a voting citizen, or barriers to entry to vote, or subsequently stripping that right from people. From the beginning of the country till now. And when even that fails some want to dismantle the entire system outside of the prescribed process. All parties have at some point added to mass incarceration programs and ways to remove voting rights from people, Republican Party right now are the ones that want to continue it as opposed to attempting to rehabilitate and create productive members of society as fast as possible. There is only one other party with federal representation right now, so that is hard to reconcile for many, but the re-enfranchised people often support that other party’s goals.

booleanbetrayal 6y ago

The more we see news like this, the less pretext law enforcement has for engaging in routine activities that escalate the chance of needless violence.

devin 6y ago

420 blaze it.

wombatmobile 6y ago

As a long term pot smoker, I was disappointed when weed was legalised in California because the price didn’t go down at all. If you can grow at home it’s good. Otherwise it’s business as usual, with just a change of franchisee.

lgats 6y ago
Except the franchise allocates their funds a bit differently https://www.leafly.com/news/politics/californias-635m-in-cannabis-taxes-where-is-it-going https://www.leafly.com/news/politics/californias-635m-in-can... And clients of the business went from consuming unregulated products from potentially unscrupulous suppliers to high quality and domestically produced product.
- newsclues 6y ago
  If you don’t read cannabis industry propaganda, there are concerns that rules and regulations are ignored in the legal market to increase profits at the cost of product quality and safety.
  - joseph_grobbles 6y ago
    That sounds like "street dealer" propaganda. There are a lot of actors whose income source is threatened who are parroting unsubstantiated claims about legal products. It's a very simple plant to grow ideally. For a large industrial operation that is under no concern for law enforcement, run as a normal business, it's pretty easy and cheap to do things as optimally as possible.
- elil17 6y ago
  The money also stopped going from local, small scale growers and dealers to large agribusiness and retail stores. I think more states should consider what DC has done. They’ve created a grey market where growing and distribution are still controlled by small businesses. The businesses can get lab testing done to show the purity of their products and many consumers expect this, but it isn’t required.
- 6y ago

superkuh 6y ago

Here's a mirror that doesn't require running sinclair media scripts, https://archive.is/GlHfZ https://archive.is/GlHfZ

nexthash 6y ago

Seems like we have come full circle for a state that originated as a colony with a tobacco-based economy. Back in its day, tobacco was also considered a vice and was heavily regulated by various nations.

dkjaudyeqooe 6y ago
Today it's considered a highly addictive and deadly drug that is heavily regulated by various nations.
- Bellamy 6y ago
  But you go to jail for using and businesses still profit for selling it.

iujjkfjdkkdkf 6y ago

In canada, when we legalized marijuana, it came with massive attempts by law enforcement to grab power: the government passed unconstitutional new laws about screening impaired drivers, police forces and government bureaucracies demanded _more_ funding (because somehow legal pot was harder to deal with than illegal) etc. Illegal pot had always been about government wielding power that can be used arbitrarily against people that are not liked for some other reason. When we talk about making it legal, we don't talk enough about havjng the government explicitly give back that power, instead of trying to transfer it to other regulations.

Teever 6y ago
I saw a local police union rep on TV arguing that it was unfair that a police department was enacting rules that forbid their members from consuming cannabis. Here's a person who demonized marijuana and claimed it destroyed individuals and families for years, a person who profited off arrested people for possession and now he's on TV saying that it's not fair that police officers can't use now legalized marijuana like non-police officers? If crack or meth was legalized tomorrow there's no fucking way that police rep would be on that stage making the same plea to the public. no fucking way.