Marijuana

[Swordsmyth]

Hold the phone.

Immigration and the change in demographic makeup of the country that goes along with that, changes political policy????

Why am I told over and over again by the no borders crowd that that is impossible and is nothing more than hateful, collectivist, racist, xenophobia?

Because they are part of the plot to turn us communist.

[Brian4Liberty]

My opinion is that they could not stop it. They recognized that people were going to smoke pot. "Criminals" were profiting instead of Big Government. Change was for the $$.

Was the point of prohibition ever really to stop it though?

If you analyze this by the question of who benefits from prohibition, then some of the most important parties that benefit and who exercised a lot of influence on the policy (police unions, private prisons, and prosecutors) would get the most benefit by having it be prohibited, while at the same time not effectively stopping it.

I think the question of why this policy shift has happened is honestly a really good question. I don't know the full answer. I suspect that changing demographics in the US, attributable partially to immigration, is a nonnegligible factor.

Your main point is a good one though. Taxing marijuana is another big part of it.

That said, big government (and special interests it served) did profit from prohibition, albeit in other ways than tax revenue from legal marijuana.

Follow the money. It's almost always enlightening.

Many reasons for the changing policy.

In favor of legalization:

- The majority of the population has realized the hypocrisy of keeping it illegal. So many people have tried it or regularly use it. The majority supports decriminalization.

- The money. Once it's legalized, it's a boom for the tax man and those who want to go into the business, and regulation favors the big boys (Wall St.) who want to go into the business and exclude competition. The heavy regulation is there right from the start. Built in cronyism.

- More money. Many people will not want to admit this, but acceptance of drugs also brings new business to the pharma complex. Feeling some anxiety from a night of too much partying? Big pharma has a solution for you, many solutions...

- Marijuana enthusiasts (Hey, @dannno).

Who wants to keep it illegal?

- All of the nefarious entities (including certain areas of government) that have profited from the risky business and increased prices due to prohibition.

- Policing and prisons. Not only does it increase budgets and business, it provides an excuse to jail people for marijuana vs. actually proving that they committed some other crimes. It's like putting Al Capone in jail for tax evasion.

- Those who felt marijuana was competition. Alcohol is one, cotton was another. Those businesses don't have the pull they once had.

- Those who want to continue a war on select drugs, often on religious grounds. Drugs are bad, mkay?


Needless to say, the pendulum has swung towards the side of legalization. And the money is always a big part of the calculation.

[pcosmar]

What decades? The first states to fully legalize were Washington and Colorado with 2012 ballot measures that went into affect in 2014.

I started around 1976 when I first joined Norml.

That is Decades. and last Century.

[dannno]

I started around 1976 when I first joined Norml.

That is Decades. and last Century.

California first legalized for medical purposes in 1996.

I looked into getting a prescription when I was 18 in the year 2000.. but I was in college.. and there were like 6 weed dealers in my dorm... so it wasn't really necessary. But I did have a business card for a doctor who was prescribing it. Finally picked one up in 2004 I believe. That is around when there began to be a huge explosion in medical dispensaries as well as clinics providing prescriptions for countless ailments.

Still remember that magical first trip to a weed dispensary in SF.

[Occam's Banana]

I think the question of why this policy shift has happened is honestly a really good question. I don't know the full answer.

It isn't too hard to suss out the answer. At least, not most of it, if not the full one.

And ultimately, that answer comes down to this: Lawmakers gonna make laws. Legislators gonna legislate. It's what they do. It's why they exist.

jct obliquely touched on this in his post, and it deserves some elaboration.

Doesn't have anything to do with that. There's literally dozens of good reasons to legalize weed and combine that with the fact that two-thirds of the public support legalization it was inevitable that politicians were eventually going to start supporting it. I can't imagine the "let's legalize weed to make people dumb" argument has motivated one politician to come out in support of legalization. The reason why they were so hesitant for many years is because parent anti-drug groups were once a very powerful political force back in the 1980's and that scared a lot of politicians away from the issue for a long time... but now a lot of them support legalization for "racial justice" and like I said a lot of other reasons but making people dumb doesn't have anything to do with it... that is mostly just based on a silly stereotype about weed anyways, the theory became popular ever since Tucker Carlson started spouting it off a few years ago.

After Prohibition ended, lots of G-men were left at loose ends. They had to find a justification for their continued existence - especially the "middle manager" administrative bureaucrats who faced the prospect of essentially having to start their careers all over again elsewhere (instead of continuing their steady march up the promotion-ladder of an already-existing hierarchy). The first fruit of their efforts was the Marihuana Tax act of 1937, and that fruit finally achieved its full ripening in Nixon's declaration of the "War on Drugs".

Over the course of this generational endeavor, politicians were more than willing to cooperate with opportunity-seeking career bureaucrats - because politicians are always on the lookout for excuses to make more laws. Making more new laws about more new things is, after all, the reason for the existence of their jobs in the first place. Add reaction to the "counter-culture" "revolution" to this, and something like the War on Drugs was all but inevitable. It gave legislators a perfect excuse to conjure up new laws and regulatory agencies (such as the DEA) with gleeful, fear-mongering abandon. (And if the creation of the DEA was not not a wet-dream-fulfilling windfall for promotion-seeking career bureaucrats, then what ever could be?)

This, of course, resulted in the development of constituencies dedicated to defending and expanding the regime, and exploiting the opportunities it afforded to the fullest. These constituencies were populated by people ranging from professional political opportunists to busybodies who had in their lives empty holes that could filled only by making others dance to their tune. This was more than enough to inspire legislative and regulatory action from politicians who otherwise could not have given less of a damn about drugs in general or marijuana in particular. It was just grist for their mill, and it even allowed them to wreathe themselves in the aura of an ostensibly noble cause. This process peaked in the "it's for the children" hysteria of the "Just Say No" '80s.

But from there, it was all downhill for the (marijuana) prohibitionists. Stupidity will out, and reality will sooner of later have its due. The limits of "Reefer Madness" propaganda, the obvious corruption of and abuses by law enforcement engendered by asset forfeiture policies (corruption and abuses which were acknowledged even by the creators of those policies), and the tireless efforts of organizations like NORML - among many other things (such as increasing awareness of the medical properties of cannabis in treating the symptoms of AIDS, glaucoma, etc.) - all took their toll. The tide of public opinion began to turn on the draconian War on Drugs, at least with respect to its "demon weed" bull$#@!.

And as noted before, legislators are always on the lookout for excuses to conjure up new legislation. So as support for continued marijuana prohibition was becoming more and more untenable, the smart politicians (i.e., the ones who had not become too enamored of inhaling their own flatulence) realized that this skepticism was an opportunity to be exploited. The prospect of new revenue sources and the opening up of new legislative and regulatory vistas became more attractive than trying to maintain the grizzled old "boogity boogity" bugbear. Legislatively speaking, marijuana prohibition has pretty much become a played-out mine, and it's time to move on to other more promising lodes - such as taxation and regulation, with all the opportunities they afford for things like cronyism and the erection of multifarious new bureaucratic bailiwicks.

And that's pretty much it. The details are myriad, but ultimately it distills down to this: the War on Marijuana is winding down and the "Peace" on Marijuana is ramping up for exactly the same reason that the War started to begin with.

Because lawmakers gonna make laws.

(But don't worry, though - there's still plenty of hysteria over things like amphetamines, opiates, etc. to keep the wars on those things going for a while longer before they, too, are assimilated by the legislative Borg.)

[Occam's Banana]

[Occam's Banana]

[Invisible Man]

Public support for legalizing marijuana is only one part of the explanation. By itself it's not sufficient, as we saw when much more overwhelming public support failed to stop the 2008 bank bailouts. In addition to public sentiment, there had to be shifts in the aims of, or relative amounts of power wielded by, various special interest groups who stood to gain or lose from the policy change.

[Slave Mentality]

I think the government is legalizing it to keep the population complacent and stupid. Don't get me wrong I do support legalization.

Really? Like you can’t get a damn pill for anything you can dream of, or buy enough liquor to kill yourself on every corner. Pot doesn’t cause people to become dumb contrary to what Reefer Madness tells you. Your doctors, lawyers, and engineers are all getting baked. They just can’t share that fact with closed minded fools.

Beer and foopbawl accomplishes more for “dumbness and complacency” than all drugs combined. The evidence is everywhere.

[kahless]

Hold the phone.

Immigration and the change in demographic makeup of the country that goes along with that, changes political policy????

Why am I told over and over again by the no borders crowd that that is impossible and is nothing more than hateful, collectivist, racist, xenophobia?

Because they are part of the plot to turn us communist.

That would include fake libertarians and the Libertarian party. However there are also many liberty folks, including Ron Paul that has warned us of the threat of allowing an authoritarian government have that kind of control over our movements. For all the talk here criticizing our authoritarian and corrupt government, I do not think people realize the blind spot that is our same authoritarian and corrupt government controls our borders.

[acptulsa]

For all the talk here criticizing our authoritarian and corrupt government, I do not think people realize the blind spot that that same authoritarian and corrupt government controls our borders.

One of the people you quoted seems to care. The other continually claims to be anti-communist, but proposes centralized federal control, dictatorial federal actions and big government "solutions" to everything that ever irritated him.

Is that a blind spot, or enemy action?

[Invisible Man]

Hold the phone.

Immigration and the change in demographic makeup of the country that goes along with that, changes political policy????

Why am I told over and over again by the no borders crowd that that is impossible and is nothing more than hateful, collectivist, racist, xenophobia?

I haven't heard that. But reading between the lines, it sounds like you agree with my assessment. Is that right?

[Swordsmyth]

That would include fake libertarians and the Libertarian party. However there are also many liberty folks, including Ron Paul that has warned us of the threat of allowing an authoritarian government have that kind of control over are movements. For all the talk here criticizing our authoritarian and corrupt government, I do not think people realize the blind spot that that same authoritarian and corrupt government controls our borders.

Immigration is a foreign policy issue and must be controlled at the federal level unless you are going to have immigration controls at state borders. (which would just increase the amount of enforcement needed and reduce the liberty of Americans to travel within the Union)

[pcosmar]

Because they are part of the plot to turn us communist.

“There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the U.S., and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing result from marijuana use. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others.”

said some ass.

https://cannabis.net/blog/opinion/is...st-term.523491

[Occam's Banana]

I was watching the video below and thinking how insane the history of this drug is. It was once a "schedule 1 drug" that people would get decades of jail time for. A couple of years later, it's now a funny/quirky thing that late night hosts are allowed to do on the air. Meanwhile, how many lives were ruined over this?! And if we lived in a just society, wouldn't there be an investigation into why the legality changed so greatly? Wouldn't it point to how corrupt our society was? And wouldn't it illustrate problems that still exist? (e.g. big business influencing laws and how that affects people's lives).

Conan Takes A Hit Of Seth Rogen’s Joint

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FXrJNExqIvs

Meanwhile in the real world (i.e., not Hollywood):

Article: https://fox17.com/news/local/maybe-a...jackson-county

Heroes don't wear capes ...

A Middle Tennessee woman told investigators there was "maybe an ounce" of marijuana on her farm [...]

Officers report they ended up recovering 20 pounds of marijuana from the home and 40 marijuana plants on the property. A search of a nearby residence yielded more growing and processed marijuana [...]

... and they definitely don't carry badges ...

The 15th Judicial Drug Task Force identified the woman as Peggy Brewington. [She] was arrested [after] a month-long investigation.

[...]

The Tennessee Bureau of Investigation and Tennessee Highway Patrol assisted in the investigation.

Three law enforcement agencies and a month-long investigation - all for a little old lady who had some pot ...

[69360]

Really? Like you can’t get a damn pill for anything you can dream of, or buy enough liquor to kill yourself on every corner. Pot doesn’t cause people to become dumb contrary to what Reefer Madness tells you. Your doctors, lawyers, and engineers are all getting baked. They just can’t share that fact with closed minded fools.

Beer and foopbawl accomplishes more for “dumbness and complacency” than all drugs combined. The evidence is everywhere.

Alcohol and perscription pills accomplish the same goal for the government.

[pcosmar]

Alcohol and perscription pills accomplish the same goal for the government.

Mind Control Drugs were developed by the Govt and Big Pharm
Alcohol and Most Pills are TOXIC..


Cannabis is NOT.

[jkr]

[acptulsa]

Mind Control Drugs were developed by the Govt and Big Pharm
Alcohol and Most Pills are TOXIC..


Cannabis is NOT.

Remember the t-shirt back in the day?

Man invented alcohol
God invented weed
Who do you trust?

Yes, an increasing number of people self-identify as godless. But quite a few of them shop at Whole Foods, too. I just don't get the mindset that leads to zealously parsing every morsel of food that goes in the body, but swallowing everything the doctor prescribes without asking a single question first.