legal weed at the state level was done by dems though. remember how the dominoes fell, california passed medical, colorado and washington got recreational. that’s what turned the tide. federal law would just cement those gains and relieve thousands of criminal liability
In most states it was done by ballot initiative. So I would not say it was done by Dems at the state level. States like Nebraska has fully legal recreational weed coming. My state is one of the reddest in the country and overwhelmingly passed it by ballot initiative.
My point is I would rather have marijuana laws like what we have now in most states, nationwide. Imagining what a marijuana law written by WAR ON DRUGS Joe, Nancy Pelosi and Manchin would look like after it was whittled down to satisfy all the 85 year old nervous nellies raised on Reefer Madness is terrifying.
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Maybe they’ll push out the CBD and vape shops that are fucking everywhere.
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I live in a state that has voted blue for the last 50 years and we’re not even close to legal weed.
yes activists did their part in getting ballot initiatives to pass, but the dems still had to run the thing. and i think philosophically maybe that’s how it should happen, voters need to speak what they want, and the state needs to implement it responsibly.
the opposite of that process is playing out with voting rights. florida wants to restore ex-felons eligibility, and the ruling party is actively resisting.
eta: nebraska implementing it is great, but most red states don’t want to be early adopters. but it’s clearly a form of revenue and taxation that voters and ruling administrations are ok with now.
actually i think in alaska it’s all republican run, and they also got on the wagon early.
damn, which state? i was surprised i couldn’t find any recreational weed stores in hawaii last time. couldn’t believe they only had medical, and even those shops are basically nowhere.
Mondale #1
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I’m 100% on board with this happening with mj legalization. If this happened it would already be fully legal in all 50 states. I guess my general point is that there is no way that mechanism, which in theory should be what we all want out of our government, will happen in today’s Democratic party at the national level. Which gets me to my conclusion that things are actually pretty good wrt marijuana in the majority of the country already and there is a very real chance the Joes and Chuck and Nancy screw it up even if they did manage to pass some legalization bill (which there is a 0% chance of anyways).
Joe Biden could make marijuana a non-schedule 1 drug with a stroke of his pen and he doesn’t do it. That tells me everything I need to know about whether these people are trustworthy on this issue.
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ok well nancy’s house did just pass it. and i can’t comment on whether biden will sign or veto it, he might not get the chance. but i would say if it doesn’t happen in the senate, it probably due to manchin and mcconnell, than chuck. it’s a pretty clear win for the majority leader and president, mcconnell wouldn’t let anyone help them. manchin can be a blocker obviously, i would put a lot of the blame on him too. are you suggesting chuck should blow the filibuster for this?
I’m saying passing these kinds of bills when you know it won’t come up for a Senate vote is just virtue signaling. It’s like when the Republicans used to vote every other week to get rid of Obamacare. When they actually did have the votes to nuke it they hemmed and hawed and ultimately didn’t.
So no I don’t think this is a genuine attempt to legalize marijuana by the Dems and I don’t trust party leadership on this issue at all when most of them have spent their entire careers making drug laws worse and worse.
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virtue signaling is a form of societal pressure
Well sure but there isn’t a lot of pressure on this issue anymore because it’s largely been solved by activist initiatives in almost every state. The Dems are 20-30 years behind on this issue. So passing a meaningless bill in 2022 that has no chance of seeing the light of day in the Senate is a non-event.
I’d honestly rather keep the current access i have to marijuana than let these clowns have their way with it. The last few remaining holdout states will probably have some form of legalization passed anyways in the next 10 years anyways.
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This is accurate. This is DOA in the Senate and the eDems know it.
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I don’t understand the pushback here. It sucks that the eDems are whiffing on an easy opportunity to legalize weed at the federal level and enhance their brand with the under-65 crowd; that’s my only take here…
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So like vape shops?
Completely agree.
20-30 years behind? you are overstating the support. 90s were the D.A.R.E. days. the public was not onboard with weed, although in our cohort the support must have been strong. it took another 10 years for the medical ballot initiative to succeed in liberal california. true lots of democrats fought it along the way. it’s a testament to societal pressure that 48/50 dem senators are most likely voting yes.
in perfect senate play for ‘22, what do you think happens? schumer decides to bring it to a vote and nukes the filibuster and strong arms manchin/sinema/kelly? or doesn’t ever bring it up because mcconnell says every 45+ republicans will block it?
Biden rescheduling marijuana is the obvious easy win that they won’t for reasons.
not the senate. but okay i’m onboard to running that up to any officials that listen.
What are the ways we’re thinking they would fuck it up? The most obvious no-brainer thing they’d do would be to draw up regulations that completely shut out small independent growers and give contracts to big huge corporate ones, but that wouldn’t necessarily fuck over the users.
Are we thinking of some truly oppressive federal “sin tax” that stacks with the state taxes and makes it unaffordable? Some absurd limits on THC content that make it impossible to get high? etc.