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Hemp ban hidden inside government shutdown bill
https://web.archive.org/web/20251113164403/https://hightimes.com/news/politics/hemp-ban-hidden-inside-government-shutdown-bill/ https://web.archive.org/web/20251113164403/https://hightimes...
- superkuh 1y agoOr, updated: https://hightimes.com/news/politics/trump-signs-shutdown-deal-that-recriminalizes-hemp/ https://hightimes.com/news/politics/trump-signs-shutdown-dea...
- ethin 1y agoThis nonsense of tacking bills onto other bills needs to end. As does this nonsensical fearmongering of Hemp and Marijuana. Absolutely none of it is actually evidence-driven from what I remember. I know the CDC has (had?) side effect stuff but I think it might be very heavily exaggerated.
- mlmonkey 1y agoEach and every character inserted in a Bill must have an owner: who inserted that character. Google Docs can do this. Why can't the Congress??
- ShroudedNight 1y agoI agree with the sentiment in general, but in this case it seems extremely well known: https://www.lpm.org/news/2025-11-11/mcconnell-paul-clash-over-senate-provision-that-critics-say-will-destroy-us-hemp-industry https://www.lpm.org/news/2025-11-11/mcconnell-paul-clash-ove...
- monooso 1y agoNot only that, the same bill includes a provision which allows "...eight Republican senators to seek hundreds of thousands of dollars in damages for alleged privacy violations stemming from the Biden administration's investigation of the Jan. 6, 2021, Capitol riot." [1]. This ability to tack random unrelated legislation onto a bill makes no sense to me. [1] https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/deal-end-us-shutdown-would-also-allow-some-republican-senators-seek-500000-2025-11-11/ https://www.reuters.com/legal/government/deal-end-us-shutdow...
- dawnerd 1y agoAlways amazes me that we allow multiple bills to be packaged together. Needs to be one bill = 1 vote. Not hundreds/thousands of pages of bills no one will read all rushed through because funding.
- ShroudedNight 1y agoIsn't it usually one bill, but an omnibus bill? My understanding is that the actual guard rail that the US congress has discarded is requiring that the contents of the bill be limited to the purview described by the bill's title.
- dawnerd 1y agoI guess technically yeah but they're usually bills that wouldn't have any chance of being law on their own. "I'll vote for it if you include this" kinda deals.
- jeffbee 1y agoTo do so you need an effective bureaucracy to which the legislature can delegate authority, otherwise there are too many details to be passed in bills. But the revanchist Roberts court has said that bureaucratic powers do not exist, the executive can only do things that are expressly enumerated by Congress and Congress can delegate nothing.
- NoMoreNicksLeft 1y ago>To do so you need an effective bureaucracy to which the legislature can delegate authority, otherwise there are too many details to be passed in bills. But the revanchist Roberts court has said that bureaucratic powers do not exist, And your way would be better? All laws defined and redefined by bureaucracies in committees behind closed doors?
- jeffbee 1y agoThat isn't how federal rules have historically been made, so I neither disagree nor agree with your misleading statement. Federal rules are created collaboratively between executive agencies and the subject matter experts relevant to the regulation, then published in the Federal Register for public review and comments, then after feedback has been gathered, considered, and incorporated the final rules are promulgated. This process was created by Congress.
- mullingitover 1y ago[flagged]
- khuey 1y agoWhat actually happened is that a group of squishy Democrats and Angus King didn't actually want the filibuster nuked so when they realized Republicans weren't going to extend the ACA subsidies they called the whole thing off without even reading the bill they were going to pass. The hemp ban isn't even the shadiest part, the self-dealing of allowing certain Senators who were connected to a putsch to loot the treasury is even more egregious.
- adamors 1y agoThe fact that all 8 are either retiring or not facing reelection in 2026 means that this was probably orchestrated by the minority leadership. It’s exactly 8 senators, safe seats, no comments from Schumer. There is no coup.
- khuey 1y agoI didn't say those 8 were the only 8 members of said group.
- missingcolours 1y agoThis is what always happened with Republican shutdowns too. - You get nothing - Eventually everyone understands they're going to get nothing, so they ask some sacrificial lambs to vote to end it while they posture and pretend they would have "kept fighting" With Republicans this was called "RINOs" and "tea party" but it's the same thing now.
- dehrmann 1y agoWas there every a real clean bill offramp available early in the shutdown? I think the Democrat's mistake was as much as they were backing a popular policy, they didn't have the "clean bill" high ground, the Republicans are less concerned with government services, and they were backed into an end date with Thanksgiving travel coming up, so it would always get earmarks attached. What the Democrats got right was they wanted a fight, and at first, the majority was on their side.
- whimsicalism 1y agoThe Senate is fundamentally a ridiculous way of representing 350 million people and we’re going to continue to get absurd unrepresentative outcomes for as long as it remains a relevant body. There’s no getting around this and it will structurally just get worse and worse. Simply no way something like it exists 200 years from now, it is probably the biggest flaw in the US political structure right now.
- jeffbee 1y ago[flagged]
- alessandru 1y agomany non-slavery parliamentary societies have bicameral legislature, why do you think that is considering they never considered counting their slaves...?
- runako 1y agoNot a historian, but some possibilities: - some governments were explicitly modeled on the US system - others were influenced by the US system as they moved from e.g. monarchies - most countries have some sort of caste system that established interests want to preserve
- lovecg 1y agoBicameralism appeared very, very early on. There’s a well known case of a missing pig in 1642’s Boston (with a population of less than 2000 at the time) that finally solidified splitting the assembly into two chambers, and that debate has been going on for a while at the time already https://www.americanantiquarian.org/sites/default/files/proceedings/44817318.pdf https://www.americanantiquarian.org/sites/default/files/proc...
- NoMoreNicksLeft 1y agoThere is a particular sort of partisan who loathes any process, procedure, or rule that acts as an impediment to his agenda. Never mind that, quite often, these same processes, procedures, and rules often act as impediments to his opponents when they are (temporarily) in the majority, he sees his faction as ascendant forever because the universe is designed to promote his peculiar idea of progress and thus there is no longer any need for those hurdles and obstacles. In hushed whispers he might even confess he thinks there never was a need, that those were put in place by his enemies to thwart his righteous cause.
- whalesalad 1y agoThe alcohol lobbyists did this. > And in a letter Monday obtained by MJBizDaily, representatives from major alcohol lobbies urged senators to thwart Paul’s efforts. > His “shortsighted actions could threaten the delicately balanced deal to reopen the federal government,” a Nov. 10 letter from the American Distilled Spirits Alliance, Distilled Spirits Council, Wine Institute, Beer Institute and Wine America reads. https://mjbizdaily.com/trump-backs-hemp-thc-ban-included-in-government-reopening-deal/ https://mjbizdaily.com/trump-backs-hemp-thc-ban-included-in-...
- barbazoo 1y agoThat’s my guess too. Here in Canada, certain alcohol sales have been in decline since legalization. Not surprising.
- mothballed 1y agoThe wealthy weed stock / dispensary people wanted it as much as anything else. Note many of the senators voting against the amendment to fix it, were pro-marijuana senators from legal weed states. Hemp was a way for mom and pops to get in the game because the regulatory overhead was much lower. They were small private operators that could enter with low start-up costs, in a free-market like environment. No one could have seriously thought it was going to last. The likes of Philip Morris type enterprises who pay a gazillion dollars for state dispensary licensing, state chain of custody, zoning, permits, state testing, etc are not going to just let some guy in his basement start shipping out THCa hemp with nothing more than a couple hundred dollars in capital and a Square terminal, no they're going to call on their contacts to ban it. History shows us time and time again the state will destroy the free market and create regulations that don't actually help people but rather ensure the barriers are such that their wealthy friends will capture almost all the profits.
- hemp_is_canvas 1y agoBoth senators from NY, Washington, California, and Illinois voted for this.
- luxuryballs 1y agois this the ongoing legacy of big pharma influence in government? there must be some reason why tapping this sign is not good enough for their purposes, maybe it’s too hard to enforce https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Analogue_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Federal_Analogue_Act
- antonvs 1y agoAnother comment pointed to the alcohol industry: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45917173 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45917173
- luxuryballs 1y agois it conspiratorial to wonder that if enough of the owners are the same investment groups they can move alcohol industry pieces on behalf of other industries they also own, then they have token industries already tainted and ready to accept newly thrown tomatoes instead of the ivory ones
- ratelimitsteve 1y ago[flagged]
- ge96 1y agoit's not their problem until it is eg. snap
- intermerda 1y ago[flagged]
- hollywood_court 1y ago[flagged]
- ratelimitsteve 1y agothank you for acknowledging. I know what it means when my comment has a negative score but all the replies are supportive.
- dfxm12 1y agoDon't forget about the people who want to coverup the fact that our president is a pedophile, too. The house got a nice paid vacation during the shutdown & Mike Johnson left an Arizona district without representation for weeks to this end.
- goatlover 1y agoAt least they didn't flag this entire thread like they often do in the guise of keeping HN apolitical.
- ratelimitsteve 1y ago"I don't think that everything the state of Israel is doing is 100% above reproach" there, that should get rid of this thread in a hurry
- tlogan 1y agoAlcohol lobbyists did this. Amazing swamp :( I was really stupid to think Republicans wanted a clean CR and Democrats wanted to help people with insurance. Both sides wanted to slip in something their lobbyists wanted, and they did it. Win.
- jLaForest 1y agoOnly one side wrote in million dollar payouts direct into their pocket from the Treasury...
- micromacrofoot 1y agoOne thing I think most Americans can agree on is that Congress is utterly useless.
- goatlover 1y agoWe need to be careful with that sentiment. It plays into the hands of those who want to give the President and the current Supreme Court all the power. Congress was set up in the Constitution to be the branch that represents the people. It's supposed to be fully independent and wield the most power.
- micromacrofoot 1y agoYou mean like the current president that has been skipping over congress for a number of things, and the supreme court that has been doing little to stop him? Our institutions aren't failing they've already failed.
- goatlover 1y agoAnd that can change over the next couple of elections. What the current regime would like is for the electorate to think Congress is useless and not bother voting the majority out of power. There's already enough apathetic and disaffected voters who think voting doesn't matter.
- micromacrofoot 1y agoCongress is directly responsible for causing this problem. Elections aren't going to change it because they redistrict to prevent it. They're a bunch of elites only interested in enriching themselves and holding office until they die. True regardless of party.
- phendrenad2 1y agoThis is from 3 days ago. Did this part of the bill actually make it in? Like, asking for a friend, maaaaaan.
- ethin 1y agoYep, it did. If I have the right bill (H. R. 5371), it's SEC. 781 if you want to see the actual text. (The table of contents is horribly bad though, and only covers divisions and titles and nothing beneath it though.)
- phendrenad2 1y agoThank you. I try to avoid reading bills for that reason.
- charcircuit 1y ago[flagged]
- ryandvm 1y agoCitizens United The more money you allow in politics, the more politics becomes about money.
- bakies 1y agoCannabis needs to be reclassified. I think this is the right thing to do, actually, but only if it came at the same time as reclassifying. This is a drug market that should be regulated, but not class 1.
- dmix 1y agoThat seems to be an alcohol industry complaint. That it isn't taxed and regulated like booze Most US problems come down to inability of congress to just figure out basic stuff like regulating weed. Same with the getting rid of the penny, immigration, tariffs/executive power, doing a proper and legal DOGE etc. They mostly just sit on the sidelines of the big ticket items and focus instead on spending money in their own states.
- dfxm12 1y agoPeople upthread are arguing about the senate as a system, but how much does that really matter when wildly popular things, like legalizing marijuana, are not even considered by anyone in congress? A majority of Americans are in favor of this, and have been for over a decade.
- mrguyorama 1y ago> wildly popular things, like legalizing marijuana, are not even considered by anyone in congress? Because it's not "not considered by anyone". Democrats have been demonstrably decriminalizing and legalizing weed all over the country, and the Democrats in the federal government have been pushing and submitting and trying to make it happen. It's republicans. They are the ones that continually stonewall a measure the vast majority of their constituents support, and they are the ones that somehow still get elected despite that. Show me the democrats preventing legalization of weed federally. Show me the democrats who invite cop associations to talk at their meetings about how dangerous weed is. Show me the democrats who are taking money from cop associations or prison lobbying organizations who very explicitly want to keep weed illegal. Stop overgeneralizing! It's literally how things are this bad! Blame who is actually at fault!
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- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- ProllyInfamous 1y agoIf you're anywhere near Cherokee, North Carolina ... it's definitely worth the drive / prices. These natives certainly know what they're doing with their dependant-domestic sovereign nation.
- lunias 1y agoSurely we must be ignoring the rules...
- runako 1y ago[flagged]
- hemp_is_canvas 1y ago76/100 senators voted to keep this provision. 39/50 states sent requests to Congress to have this banned. It is a bipartisan effort.
- runako 1y agoYes, none of this is in conflict with my message.
- hemp_is_canvas 1y agoBlame everybody who is responsible, please.
- darkhorse222 1y agoSo would that be almost all republicans and half of democrats?
- bilsbie 1y agoThat’s not limited to GOP.
- 1y ago
- mothballed 1y agoEven the legal weed state senators were voting for this. It is mostly about shifting profits from mom and pop, low regulation hemp industry to wealthy corporations that own dispensaries that have gargantuan regulatory costs that gatekeep out most the competition. This ensures profits are captured by the wealthy rather than small family type setups. Wealthy former hemp companies will shift to the "legal" weed market, while the mom and pops will get completely wiped out.
- goatlover 1y agoCorporations are eroding democracy with their powerful lobbies. They have too much money and influence. And yet too much of the electorate has been convinced it's good for the economy to just let them and the super rich have free reign.
- hemp_is_canvas 1y ago76/100 senators voted to keep this provision.
- MangoToupe 1y agoI'm not sure how this relates to the above comment. EDIT: I'm assuming this is to point out it's a bipartisan effort. Well, yes, there isn't exactly a pro-people party.
- hemp_is_canvas 1y agoIt says that weed supporting stats voted for this. They did.
- CalChris 1y agoBoth Senators in California, my state, voted for the ban. Neither has explained why.
- GloriousKoji 1y agoI didn't want to believe you so I went to the source: https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1191/vote_119_1_00614.htm https://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_votes/vote1... wtf.
- dboreham 1y agoThese are all just symptoms. The underlying vulnerability is the median US culture, which permits venality, scamming, skuldugery, shenanigans and crime in its ruling class.
- Herring 1y agoI was reading about Austria recently. It's a nice place, but it turns out they have their far-right Nazis in rural areas too. It's pretty common around the world. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban%E2%80%93rural_political_divide https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Urban%E2%80%93rural_political_... I think the world is still figuring out how to deal with this. The German firewall looks quite interesting. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firewall_against_the_far-right_in_Germany https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Firewall_against_the_far-right... Of course things like the electoral college, filibuster, gerrymandering, fptp, lifetime appointments etc don't help.
- hollywood_court 1y ago[flagged]
- goatlover 1y agoThat has never really been true whenever they get power. Just like states rights, the deficit spending and federal overreach stops mattering. It's just a matter of which part of the government Republicans want to grow and have the funding (ICE for example). Republicans pretend to act principled when they're not the party in power. Amazing how that works.
- fundad 1y agoJobs stop mattering when they get power too. It all makes a lot more sense when you realize that party doesn't want economic growth.
- hemp_is_canvas 1y ago76/100 senators voted to keep this provision in the bill.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> The party of small government strikes again The GOP hasn't been a party of small government since W. Bush. And it hasn't really claimed to be as much since Trump 1.
- nobody9999 1y ago>The GOP hasn't been a party of small government since W. Bush. And it hasn't really claimed to be as much since Trump 1. That's not even close to being true. The "Two Santas" strategy[0] has been in place since at least Reagan's first term. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jude_Wanniski#The_Two_Santa_Claus_Theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jude_Wanniski#The_Two_Santa_Cl...
- mind-blight 1y agoThis is a weird one. It absolutely should not be haphazardly added as a rider. The 0.4 per container is also insane. But, this really was an unintended loophole of the 2018 farm bill. Most plants grow THCa, which turns into Delta-9 when heated. They were ignorant and straight up forgot to specify anything except Delta-9. Cannabis is a bioremediator and absorbs basically every environmental toxin from the ground (pesticides, heavy metals, etc.). Extraction (for CBD and THC oil) increases the concentration of any present toxins. The only way you know of the problem is by thoroughly testing every batch. Pesticides that are safe at low levels can get concentrated and become really problematic at high levels. States where marijuana is legal require all of this testing, so the products are much safer. Hemp-derived THC does not require these tests. (Same is true for CBD, but that's a while other conversation...)
- hemp_is_canvas 1y agoThere is pretty extensive testing throughout the industry. Small hemp farms don't want to murder their customers or themselves.
- mind-blight 1y agoIt's night and day. It's also about access. The labs in legal states usually just test for more things. For a while, it was one or two labs plus a Cole extraction companies that were pushing the testing boundaries. Then, relation caught up and pushed the broader testing on to everyone. Then there were managed batch sizes (though these got too small in Oregon). Hemp does not have the same regulations, and unregulated states have way less infrastructure (including access to good labs). Nobody wants to harm their customers, but it 100% happened in the early days. A lot of harm is/was not immediately obvious. Of was repeated exposure to harmful chemicals. Good intentions are great, but resources and incentives still matter. Nobodyv wants to get hacked, but building a new feature over hardening is what stops you from getting yelled at
- hemp_is_canvas 1y agoI've been a regular consumer of the results of this since about 2020 when I discovered it. It's been quite the journey watching the industry boom and evolve and get better and better. I've seen an incredible incredible amount of ignorance on this topic. Prior to this, I found 1 comment on HN mentioning this last night. On reddit, it's not on the frontpage of r/politics, r/moderatepolitics or anything relevant. I can find it on r/news but like every other thread not a single person is mentioning something very factual. Rand tried to stop this provision in the Senate. 76/100 senators voted for this ban to remain. 76 senators from across the political spectrum, from every state have decided to secretly try to destroy a $30b industry, 300,000 jobs, and a lot of lives.
- oblio 1y ago> On reddit, it's not on the frontpage of r/politics, r/moderatepolitics or anything relevant. There were at least 3 posts on /r/all yesterday.
- Tadpole9181 1y agoI mean, were you posting to draw attention to it? How would people know if the people who do know aren't spreading it? Most people don't read bills themselves and it's no news that US media is captured by billionaires and special interests...
- nerdjon 1y agoI feel like I am missing something here, and it is around it being called "hemp". Does this actually have any impact on legal dispensaries, their products, farms, etc? Does this make it harder to eventually de-schedule pot.
- mothballed 1y agoYes, in the sense that now it will be illegal to ship cannabis seeds interstate. Under current law, which doesn't expire for a year, cannabis seeds can be shipped legally interstate across the US as they don't exceed the THC content. Doesn't matter if it's a hemp seed or marijuana seed as both are hemp under the old definition in seed form as long as they're under 0.3% THC. The passed legislation outlaws any seeds that can produce a plant that doesn't satisfy the new definition of hemp. It completely destroys the white market seed industry, on which the legal weed industry partially operates. Also, prices will go up and quality will go down in the 'legal' weed market, as previously the hemp industry was a check on prices because you could get better product for cheaper than going to a dispensary and with nice lab tested COAs to see what you were getting.
- missingcolours 1y agoOnly indirectly (see other comment). In 2018 a provision was attached to the Farm Bill to legalize "hemp". The public and presumably the senators were led to believe this was about legalizing textiles and things like that, not drugs. It turned out that the language actually legalized delta-8 too. Many people were displeased with that outcome, because in many states it's completely unregulated with no additional taxes or anything like there is in "legal cannabis" states, and again because it was not understood or anticipated by most people. So now that provision is being reverted in this year's Farm Bill, passage of which was part of the shutdown deal (I think because SNAP benefits are part of the farm bill). Until a month ago in Texas my kids could buy Delta-8 weed gummies at the gas station by my house (the Texas governor issued some emergency regulations to limit this). You didn't even need to be 18. This bill is targeted at those products legalized by the 2018 loophole.
- linkregister 1y ago
- pogue 1y agoContact your representatives and let them know this is BS. [1] When Texas Gov. Gregg Abbott was trying to ban that same "loophole" the business community had time to organize & lobby against it, but in addition, regular citizens sent in over 120k letters, there's footage of people moving boxes and boxes of letters into his office. [2] In the end, he folded and kept the law as it was despite a pretty big push from his party. Was that the reason he didn't end up acting on it? It's hard to know, but it definitely showed him public sentiment was against it. Don't be apathetic! Letters & phone calls work best, but emails through their official contact page at least get glanced at by an intern. [1] Find and contact elected officials https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials https://www.usa.gov/elected-officials [2] 120,000 Texans send letters and petitions against THC ban to Gov. Abbott https://www.kut.org/politics/2025-06-03/austin-tx-thc-ban-law-greg-abbott-farmers-veterans https://www.kut.org/politics/2025-06-03/austin-tx-thc-ban-la...
- somehnguy 1y agoIt's infuriating to take the time to draft & send a thought out email to my representatives only to receive a canned email 8 months later. Most of the time the response is even something like "ok cool opinion but I believe the opposite so bummer" (obviously exaggerated but the meaning is identical). I will try a letter at some point, email feels completely useless.
- pogue 1y agoTime is of the essence, so I might just have a chatbot draft me something quickly and edit it or rewrite it to more what I want to say. Just emphasize the main points that even the linked article mentions - hugely bad for business, loss of taxes, bad for veterans, people will just go back to the black market for their needs, etc. I'm kind of surprised I'm not finding sites like NORML have any of those "take action" forms on their site you just fill in and it sends it out to all your representatives automatically. Regardless, it doesn't need to be something you spend hours pouring your heart into. Some representatives respond differently than others. I've gotten boilerplate letters back, and I've even had phone calls back with someone from their office. It really just depends. EDIT: It's already been signed into law, so now they have 1 year to try and remedy the situation... :( Trump Signs Bill To Recriminalize Hemp THC Products, Years After Approving Their Legalization https://www.marijuanamoment.net/congress-passes-bill-to-recriminalize-hemp-thc-products-sending-it-to-trumps-desk/ https://www.marijuanamoment.net/congress-passes-bill-to-recr...
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- candiddevmike 1y agoThe party of small government killing a new, billion dollar industry because Mitch McConnell's state beverage is seeing declining sales.
- iammjm 1y agoA similar thing can be observed in Germany: the most anti-cannabis state is the state that produces the most alcohol (Bavaria)
- mschuster91 1y agoThat's less because Bavaria makes beer, otherwise the wine states would also impede cannabis. The problem is that Söder and his CSU are obviously following the old Nixon attitude of targetting cannabis to hit left-wings [1]: > You understand what I’m saying? 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. And then you got the absolute deranged ones, like Marlene "Cannabis ist verboten, weil es eine illegale Droge ist" (cannabis is banned because it's an illegal drug") Mortler or Daniela "Cannabis ist kein Brokkoli" (cannabis ain't broccoli) Ludwig [2]. Imagine, these two utter failures were the official drug policy heads. [1] https://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-richard-nixon-drug-war-blacks-hippie https://edition.cnn.com/2016/03/23/politics/john-ehrlichman-... [2] https://www.stern.de/politik/deutschland/legalisierung-von-cannabis--gebt-das-hanf-frei---und-zwar-so-richtig-32842066.html https://www.stern.de/politik/deutschland/legalisierung-von-c...
- InTheArena 1y agoYou realize that this statement was completely fabricated by a legalization proponent, correct? No historian takes that "quote" seriously.
- hellisothers 1y agoIn my experience (of friends who drink and/or smoke weed) weed isn’t replacing drinking wine, it’s replacing drinking beer and booze.
- theturtle 1y ago[dead]
- Gunax 1y agoThis is going to be controversial because it steps into the shutdown blame game. I think I am more interested in the mechanics of how this happens. Why do we need to attach riders / sneak in legislation? What changes could we make to the constitution to avoid this?
- ronsor 1y ago> Why do we need to attach riders / sneak in legislation? Because they can't agree on anything normally, so the only way to make changes is to shove them in with things they must agree on. > What changes could we make to the constitution to avoid this? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-subject_rule https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single-subject_rule Multiple states already have this.
- whoisthemachine 1y agoThis can have interesting consequences, because politicians are going to be politicians. > The Minnesota Gun Owners Caucus sued, arguing that the omnibus bill, whose original title is over 300 words before it keels over in repetition of the word “subdivision,” violated the single-subject rule. https://www.minnpost.com/state-government/2025/09/the-minnesota-legislature-has-come-to-rely-on-catchall-omnibus-bills-but-are-they-illegal/ https://www.minnpost.com/state-government/2025/09/the-minnes...
- ceejayoz 1y agoScoping the single subject gets a bit tough, in practice.
- petcat 1y agoIt works just fine for the vast majority of US states, including all the largest ones (California, New York, Texas). I don't think the federal government is special here.
- pacoWebConsult 1y agoThe federal government has grown immensely since the early 20th century due to the interpretations of the commerce clause allowing more and more federal legislation and rules to broadly be applied to essentially override state legislation. The 10th amendment exists for a reason. The system wasn't intended for congress to even control something like this in the first place.
- platevoltage 1y agoI remember being lectured about how this needed to be a "clean funding bill".
- gwbas1c 1y agoAll of this stuff is already built around loopholes. > But the provision that was inserted into the government funding bill makes illegal any hemp product that contains more than 0.4 milligrams of THC per container. Now the online "hemp" industry will shift to selling gummies in "containers" that really equate to individually wrapped. You'll get bulk discounts for buying groups of 30 "containers", but what you get will feel like Japanese-style individual wrapping. BTW: This was kinda-sorta what I encountered when I bought gummies in Ontario, Canada. The gummy was in a single "container" and had roughly ~0.4 mg THC.
- 0xTJ 1y ago0.4 mg is an extremely low amount. The as far as I understand (and have seen) the limit of THC in Ontario is 10 mg/container for gummies. Some companies will get around that limit by packaging multiple 10 mg THC bags together. While it's annoying and definitely creates more waste than is needed, 10 mg is a relatively reasonable limit. Most people aren't going to consume more than 10 mg THC worth of gummies in one sitting (at least if they're getting something government-sactioned).
- giobox 1y ago> Most people aren't going to consume more than 10 mg THC worth of gummies in one sitting (at least if they're getting something government-sactioned) In CA, WA and CO, almost every single individual gummie is 10mg (up to 100mg in the pack, the state limit, so usually 10 gummies in a pack). I rarely see individual servings under 10mg ever, its not common. People in these states routinely consume more than 10mgs in a single sitting - its just two gummies. 10mg for an entire pack of edibles strikes me as extremely low - shared with friends, none of you are getting that high... > https://app.leg.wa.gov/Wac/default.aspx?cite=314-55-095 https://app.leg.wa.gov/Wac/default.aspx?cite=314-55-095 > https://cannabis.colorado.gov/responsible-use/safety-with-edibles https://cannabis.colorado.gov/responsible-use/safety-with-ed...
- gwbas1c 1y agoThink of it more like the store being forced to sell individual beers: At some point someone will figure out that they can sell them in a box of 6 in a way that complies with the law.
- insane_dreamer 1y agoIt's absolutely insane how unrelated provisions can be inserted into a CR instead of being debated and passed on their own merits (or bundled with related laws). Regardless of what the measure is, or what party it's coming from, it's a significant flaw in the process.
- tmnvix 1y agoOne man's flaw is another man's feature.
- insane_dreamer 1y ago"one man" -> American People; "another man" -> corrupt politicians
- philcrocket 1y agoAs others mentioned, unfortunately the last bill allowed for some large loopholes and emboldened underground growers (also due to more lax state laws) to grow and flood the market with sub-par or even poisonous product. It’d a billion dollar market that state actors and cartels alike are using to launder money (and ruin lives). Very informative video on this: https://youtu.be/3qC4c-zNxTg?si=oy4ab6kuo27fJqcx https://youtu.be/3qC4c-zNxTg?si=oy4ab6kuo27fJqcx
- 0cf8612b2e1e 1y agoWouldn’t the correct solution be to close the loopholes or make more strict regulations? Not shut down everything.
- tediousgraffit1 1y agoBy that logic, we should ban lettuce[1] next [1] https://www.science.org/content/article/e-coli-outbreak-traced-california-farm https://www.science.org/content/article/e-coli-outbreak-trac...
- nxor 1y ago[flagged]
- ng12 1y agoOutrage about what? I know people whose hobbies cab generally be summed up as "drinking alcohol". We already decided prohibition didn't work once.
- cthalupa 1y ago> I have friends who smoke and have seen over the years how they've abandoned hobbies in favor of smoking more. Where's the outrage about that? Why in the world would I or anyone else have any right to be outraged over someone trading one hobby for another? > I take public transport and the people who smoke make the entire train smell. Make and enforce laws about smoking on public transport.
- pissmeself 1y ago[flagged]
- oompydoompy74 1y agoI’m sure they don’t want to be on the bus with an insufferable asshole, but there you are.
- oompydoompy74 1y agoWho gives a fuck? Mind your business?
- Animats 1y agoThis corrects a drafting error. There were never supposed to be be products containing THC selling in gas stations.
- hemp_is_canvas 1y agoThis kills the entire hemp flower market. Our state similarly tried to get it outlawed by using these excuses but ignoring the many shops where they are just selling quality product, not allowing kids, etc.
- zapataband2 1y agoI guess all those involved in burgeoning hemp trade are just in time for the mines to re-open. We're ruled by sociopaths and we don't live in a democracy.
- ApolloFortyNine 1y agoWhere'd all this abolish the senate nonsense come from recently? I get people have been complaining about 'flyover' states for a while now, but the Republicans also have the majority in the House at the moment. At least wait until the House doesn't represent the current majority party in the Senate (like it almost certainly will again eventually) to make that argument. I'm mildly worried that it's just an attempt to speed up major change the next time a party has a super majority, by planting the seeds early...
- wat10000 1y agoIt's nothing new. It's fundamentally undemocratic and the reasons for having it are long gone. I don't care who controls it, it should go or at the very least be dramatically reformed.
- hemp_is_canvas 1y agoThere is the concept of illiberal democracy. The Senate, according to most political scientists who study this, is an important part of cutting that off that because bicameralism along with independent courts etc are good. It's mostly populism rising and not realizing how dangerous it would be to have another check on power removed. Reform the system, don't just turn to blind populism.
- harimau777 1y agoI'm not sure it's possible to reform the system. Its way too stacked towards corporate interests.
- idle_zealot 1y ago> No, we need the House of Lords, otherwise the plebeians might do something crazy like tax us!
- wat10000 1y agoDo those political scientists say that it has to be so extremely unequal in its representation? Right now, the least representative parts of our government are the ones pushing towards illiberality and populism. "Better democracy can be dangerous" really falls flat when our existing worse democracy is actively being dangerous.
- notmyjob 1y agoSeems like they are doing this now just to distract from the Tucker/Epstein controversy.
- Havoc 1y agoUS system of creating legislation seems…broken
- oompydoompy74 1y agoThink of the children! Anyways, would you like to try this new strawberry vodka I invested in?