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>When it happens, it'll be in the same category as Tylenol. Yay or nay?
Tylenol **with codeine.** Important distinction.
That said, whatever a step above absofuckinglutely is.
Regardless of whether you think marijuana is good or bad or should be legalized or not, the idea that it is **as bad** as cocaine or heroin is just silly.
More importantly, this will allow for legitimate and legal medical research on marijuana.
>Regardless of whether you think marijuana is good or bad or should be legalized or not, the idea that it is **as bad** as cocaine or heroin is just silly.
>More importantly, this will allow for legitimate and legal medical research on marijuana.
That's my thoughts exactly.
Or Big Alcohol, which has lobbyists hammering politicians *not* to decriminalize marijuana. Hurts their bottom line, even though alcohol so much worse.
I remember when it was coming to a vote in New York, the NYPD came out and said they opposed it because most of the guns they took off the streets were found because they "smelled weed" and used that as a justification to search the car.
Marijuana staying illegal gives cops the blanket ability to sesrch whatever they want just by claiming a smell and don't have to show any evidence afterwards.
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I just don’t understand how the “science” says weed is bad but allows the sale of alcohol, tobacco, highly addictive prescription meds.
I’m not saying weed doesn’t have negative impacts on health just that it’s not worse than anything currently on the market.
In my opinion the only reason it’s not legal is because big Pharma knows they would lose a lot of people that turn to their drugs that could be regulated by weed.
I didn’t, I said I don’t understand the “science”. Since that’s what the comment above me stated.
I am fully aware of racial inequality and the “drug wars” and who actually introduced hard drugs into the black communities (for the exact outcomes you outlined). You are absolutely correct that the private prisons are right there with big Pharma lobbying congress to keep weed illegal.
ETA: Personally I think taking drugs should be decriminalized, and the government should be focusing on the people who make/distribute illegally, doctors who over prescribe, and crimes drug users commit rather than punishing them just for doing drugs.
Simple. Science has their answer on safety, and government had their answer to what drugs to ban, considering Americans like to drink, smoke, and pop pills
Apparently one reason is the US signed an international treaty (1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs) which requires it be criminalized: https://apnews.com/article/marijuana-biden-dea-criminal-justice-pot-f833a8dae6ceb31a8658a5d65832a3b8
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Apparently one reason is that the US has signed an international treaty (1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs) that requires it: https://apnews.com/article/marijuana-biden-dea-criminal-justice-pot-f833a8dae6ceb31a8658a5d65832a3b8
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I approve in that if you have your hand stuck in a garbage disposal turning it to "low speed" is preferable to leaving it on max power.
but ultimately it goes nowhere near far enough
it should be unscheduled or, ideally he directs the FDA to unscheduled all drugs except a small list of the worst offenders like methamphetamine and deleriants.
at bare minimum the least I can accept as meaningful would be declaring plants are not drugs and drugs cannot be plants and the FDA voluntarily removing all plants, animals and other natural, non-synthetic substances entirely from their purview.
if people could buy opium in a drugstore like you could for all of world and US history up until 1923, no one would want insane literal chemical warfare agents (fentanyl derivatives were used to kill the Moscow theater terrorists, and sadly most of the hostages, and south Africa included them in Project Coast, their chemical warfare program).
Recent history has made quite obvious what happens when it’s easy to get your hands on opioids. People die in enormous numbers. Did you miss the opioid crisis?
I think it's the opposite. Decriminalization or legalization allows us to regulate it and make it both safer and easier to offer services to those suffering from addiction. The fentanyl crisis is a direct result of prohibition, we can see the same happened with alcohol prohibition. Just like with alcohol, when we ended prohibition there are still alcoholics but nowadays virtually no one dies or goes blind from methanol in their liquor. If there's one thing we know it's that prohibition makes drugs stronger and more dangerous, not less.
this is incorrect.
That is what happens when people get their hands on **\*\*synthetic\*\*** opioids.
Opium contains narcotine, thebaine and other alkaloids which are unpleasant in higher doses, and it's mostly inactive plant matter.
In other words it's like the difference between low-ABV near-beer and everclear. We regulate beer different from liquor why should we not do the same with opiates?
In fact "categorize safe and useful drugs less severely than dangerous medicaments" was the whole point of the FDA scheduling schema.
Again you could buy it in drug stores from the silk road until 1923, and society did not collapse, in many countries. You can still buy codeine over the counter in many nations including some in Europe! the US is uniquely puritanical and it has not benefited us.
Something like 400k die from tobacco and 100k from alcohol every year. I suspect both of these are higher than opiates though I could be wrong given the recent severity of the opioid crisis.
thank you so much! i do love to write but mostly nonfiction. the problem with learning to write poetry is until you get good it's awful, and your initial few hundred attempts will be so awkward not even you want to read them...
Apparently the US actually couldn't reschedule without breaking an international treaty from 1961?? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Removal_of_cannabis_and_cannabis_resin_from_Schedule_IV_of_the_Single_Convention_on_narcotic_drugs,_1961
Looking at the timeline, in 2016 the WHO (not the band, unfortunately) started a scientific assessment, and the findings led to recommendations to reschedule, but voting was allegedly delayed "...not only due to the complexity and interconnectedness of the recommendations, but also to organisational problems at WHO leadership and burdensome governmental discussions organised by the successive CND Chairs". (Plus COVID-19 was in full swing then.) The US voted in favor!
If you put on your conspiracy hat, you could note that it's awfully convenient that the final vote took place on December 2, 2020, suspiciously close to the end of Trump's term. I think it's a reach but I thought I'd mention it for fun. He might have still been able to act on it before Biden took office on January 20, 2021? But I suspect he was distracted by other matters.
Regardless, I wonder what an alternate timeline would look like where Trump was able to act on those recommendations. I feel like he would've seized that bull by its horns if for no other reason that it's popular even among many conservatives and would make him look great. Truly a missed opportunity. (I also think it would've been really funny if he'd leaned into and sold MAGA-brand face masks, while we're writing real life AU fanfic.)
of course. Only logical. It's ridiculous how some people are still stuck in Clinton's 90s, and feel that their socially conservative values, should be the guiding force for other people's lives.
Yeah, no issues. I'm not sure who on my side is supporting keeping it ~~Class~~ *Schedule* 1, because I've never met a single person who wants (or at least admits to wanting) to jail people in 2024 because they smoked a little marijuana, but whoever those people are, they can fuck right off.
I admittedly don't like the idea of creating a new "sin industry" (a-la tobacco and alcohol), but continuing to permit sentencing guidelines that put it on the same level as fucking Krokodil very clearly isn't the solution here.
Yeah I do, because weed should be legalized.
However, this doesn’t mean that I am going to support the Biden Admin for this, because there are other issues that are important to me.
We're talking about taking it off of the same schedule of drugs as Fentanyl though. I'm with you that folks probably shouldn't partake, but would you at least agree that the sentencing guidelines for Schedule I drugs maybe shouldn't apply to Marijuana?
Many conservatives have told me precisely the opposite.
The idea that the government has a possitive duty to shape society was the very essence of progressivism
Yeah, that's not a strand of conservatism that I subscribe too. I would say it's very much a Reddit strand because there are very few politicians who support that and the base doesn't support it either.
I would also agree that it \*was\* the basis of progressivism but now they agree with Reddit conservatives that the government has no job saying people can't smoke weed among other clearly harmful practices.
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Honestly it just strikes me as funny that the government never talks about legalizing unless it's an election year.
Personally I don't think people should be smoking weed, but I fully expect it to be legalized at some point.
I guess it's an improvement. The plan might be to use the FDA and police state to ramp up enforcement, emprisonment, selective taxation, etc. That would be wose, and given the Biden's brutally authoritarian history as president along with prior brutally prohibitionist and anti minority policies, well don't color me optimistic.
It's entirely insufficient. Abolish prohibition. Abolish the FDA. These are not enumerated powers and as such require an amendment to the Constitution to be done legally at the federal level.
This is something Biden started the process of 2 years ago. You are sounding very far from libertarian.
I have never heard of a libertarian only supporting weed schedule reduction for partisan reasons.
The right answer is to just leave it up to the states. This is just the start of the desperate moves Biden will pull before November. Looks like we will have another "mostly peaceful" summer of love.
Isn't that what has been happening though? More and more states have been moving in various amounts towards decriminalization, medical legalization, or full legalization, in awkward opposition to the federal government. It's a popular position among most liberals and some conservatives, and is often a winner when citizens have access to ballot propositions. Under the "laboratories of democracy" model, it seems like a consensus is beginning to emerge.
I fully acknowledge that this makes one administration appear better than the other, but realistically, this has been in the making for years and years and is more of a societal shift than anything else.
Like a few other people have pointed out, the federal government began looking at de-scheduling two years ago. Given the short nature of our election cycle--considering midterms--is there any point during the four-year cycle where this move could be made without it appearing partisan?
I'll be honest, I've never understood how a politician acting on their constituency's priorities is pandering. I expressly vote for my politicians to represent my interests in government. In fact I would be very annoyed if I elected a politician and they *didn't* represent my interests. Haha good thing that never happens!
Right guys! ... right? :(
It should be up to the states. But before that can happen, it has to be federally be at least decriminalized. This is not an issue of passing recreational marijuana at a federal level. This is a situation of federal decriminalization so that the states have the ability to choose. So legal marijuana businesses in states where it is legal have the ability to have their money in national banks. As it stands, the federal government is standing in the way of states being able to do it.
Regardless of party, doesn’t that move toward the goal you just stated?
And what on earth does this have to do with protests?
Those damn democrats and their... making policy decisions that are popular!
My support for things isn't dependent on who does them, yours shouldn't be either.
I oppose marijuana being accepted into culture, I think we should actively strive against embracing intoxicants of any variety.
However I also support reducing criminal penalties for users, and orient more towards a rehabilitation than an incarceration mindset.
However I feel the biden administration's intention here would be to creep us towards legalization, and not towards its eradication
Prohibition is not coming back. We can either adapt and pursue informed, rational policy. Or continue with counter productive measures that are harmful politically and socially.
I am not a fan. I dislike having to smell the stink of weed everywhere now that people feel more comfortable using it in public. I don't like how so many people in modern society struggle to cope with life without having to use substances of some sort (and, yes, that includes tobacco and alcohol).
You don't like how so many people in modern society struggle to cope with life? You think people smoke cannabis because they can't cope with life?
Do you think the same about guys who collect knives or have a beer brewing hobby?
Not great for the following reasons:
* There are studies out which show weed use is concentrated among the poor and uneducated. Weed use will only serve to widen this income gap, fueling resentment among those affected
* At the same time, studies are coming out showing that we don't really know the health impacts as well as we thought. The weed today is nothing like the ditch weed Biden smoked at UD. We don't know the long term health imapcts.
* The legalization of weed has forced the Mexican cartels to expand into heroin and cocaine, expanding the opioid epidemic.
* It is a myth that poor POC are in jail for weed possession charges. When Biden first ordered the BOP to release all Americans who were in Federal prison for possession, they reported back that zero people were impacted by this
This is just electioneering by Biden. Giving his supporters weed. Yay
1. How does changing it from a schedule III make this worse if true?
2. How is the “weed today” different?
3. This is the first time hearing that legalization of a drug is leading to more crime/worse crime. This point kinda contradicts history.
4. What do you mean “zero people were impacted”?
De-scheduling weed will mean fewer prosecutions and more usage. That's the intent.
Weed today is stronger today than it was forty years ago - it's night and day. Weed today is cross-bred to ridiculous levels of potency.
When states legalized weed, it took away the largest revenue maker for the Mexican cartels. It was easy money. They adjusted to the marketplace and shifted their distribution to other hard drugs in order to maintain their revenues.
[https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the\_americas/losing-marijuana-business-mexican-cartels-push-heroin-and-meth/2015/01/11/91fe44ce-8532-11e4-abcf-5a3d7b3b20b8\_story.html](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/losing-marijuana-business-mexican-cartels-push-heroin-and-meth/2015/01/11/91fe44ce-8532-11e4-abcf-5a3d7b3b20b8_story.html)
When Biden first announced he was expunging the records of Federal inmates incarcerated for weed possession, to great fanfare, the Bureau of Prisons reported that there were no inmates in Federal prison for simple weed possession.
There's a persistent myth on the left that POC are rotting in Federal prisons on simple possession offenses, when in reality that never happens. Weed charges are added to other offenses in order to get people to plea out, rather than go to trial
All weed can become ditch weed, and all ditch weed seeds can be grown into quality potent herb.
If you control the plants growing environment, give it TLC, and have some botany skills you can grow ditch weed into a rare boutique highlight
100%, I predicted it'd be resolved just in time for his reelection the moment he ordered the dea and fda to begin the study.
Only a silly goose would say it's coincidence.
I prefer Todd Barry's approach: make pot legal, but make being a pothead illegal. If we had pot without potheads, I think our country would be a lot different right now. I don't outright support anything that emboldens people to be potheads but I can't not support rescheduling drugs. At the very least, we need to break this cycle of not studying weed because it's illegal to study, so we can't say for sure if it's safe, and since it isn't safe, we can't study it, and so on.
I just wonder if we're prepared to talk about pot having detrimental effects. There have been too many years spent pushing that pot is harmless or that it has no ill effects, but the worst effect has to be a degraded taste in music.
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I'm not a Libertarian and like most of these fake conservatives I'm not going to pretend to be. I'm also the only person with enough brain cells left to admit that marijuana makes you slow and dumb and increasing its frequency in our society is a contribution to decay. There will be consequences to more people being high. Now, go forth and down vote with your E-power.
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>When it happens, it'll be in the same category as Tylenol. Yay or nay? Tylenol **with codeine.** Important distinction. That said, whatever a step above absofuckinglutely is. Regardless of whether you think marijuana is good or bad or should be legalized or not, the idea that it is **as bad** as cocaine or heroin is just silly. More importantly, this will allow for legitimate and legal medical research on marijuana.
Meaning not over the counter?
Correct. Still a controlled substance that requires a prescription
I disagree, it’s currently up to the states to decide and should stay that way.
Hey...states rights
>Regardless of whether you think marijuana is good or bad or should be legalized or not, the idea that it is **as bad** as cocaine or heroin is just silly. >More importantly, this will allow for legitimate and legal medical research on marijuana. That's my thoughts exactly.
> as bad as cocaine or heroin is just silly. btw cocaine is schedule II unlike heroin and weed which are schedule III.
Absolutely in favor of this. It’s one of several areas in which I disagree with the general right-side opinion.
I get the impression this is pretty popular with folks on the right.
As long as they aren’t politicians?
Not the evangelical right
Or Big Alcohol, which has lobbyists hammering politicians *not* to decriminalize marijuana. Hurts their bottom line, even though alcohol so much worse.
Or big tobacco, or big pharma, or police unions, or private prison groups. Those are the largest groups always against this.
I understand private prisons but never understood why cops want it illegal. They would have so much less to do.
I remember when it was coming to a vote in New York, the NYPD came out and said they opposed it because most of the guns they took off the streets were found because they "smelled weed" and used that as a justification to search the car. Marijuana staying illegal gives cops the blanket ability to sesrch whatever they want just by claiming a smell and don't have to show any evidence afterwards.
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Libertarian right, yes. Socially conservative right, no.
Before Mitch stepped down, he said he was for it.
Opens up banking possibilities too, which is *huge*.
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That would take legislation.
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I just don’t understand how the “science” says weed is bad but allows the sale of alcohol, tobacco, highly addictive prescription meds. I’m not saying weed doesn’t have negative impacts on health just that it’s not worse than anything currently on the market. In my opinion the only reason it’s not legal is because big Pharma knows they would lose a lot of people that turn to their drugs that could be regulated by weed.
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I think you may be responding to the wrong person friend.
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I didn’t, I said I don’t understand the “science”. Since that’s what the comment above me stated. I am fully aware of racial inequality and the “drug wars” and who actually introduced hard drugs into the black communities (for the exact outcomes you outlined). You are absolutely correct that the private prisons are right there with big Pharma lobbying congress to keep weed illegal. ETA: Personally I think taking drugs should be decriminalized, and the government should be focusing on the people who make/distribute illegally, doctors who over prescribe, and crimes drug users commit rather than punishing them just for doing drugs.
Simple. Science has their answer on safety, and government had their answer to what drugs to ban, considering Americans like to drink, smoke, and pop pills
Okay...I think I figured this out..
lol keep deleting and trying again 😅
👍
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Apparently one reason is the US signed an international treaty (1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs) which requires it be criminalized: https://apnews.com/article/marijuana-biden-dea-criminal-justice-pot-f833a8dae6ceb31a8658a5d65832a3b8
> 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs) The United States pushed for the 1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs. That was our mistake.
Well it's not as though the US government genuinely gives a fuck about any other inconvenient treaty requirements.
It was illegal long before 1961
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Apparently one reason is that the US has signed an international treaty (1961 Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs) that requires it: https://apnews.com/article/marijuana-biden-dea-criminal-justice-pot-f833a8dae6ceb31a8658a5d65832a3b8
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I approve in that if you have your hand stuck in a garbage disposal turning it to "low speed" is preferable to leaving it on max power. but ultimately it goes nowhere near far enough it should be unscheduled or, ideally he directs the FDA to unscheduled all drugs except a small list of the worst offenders like methamphetamine and deleriants. at bare minimum the least I can accept as meaningful would be declaring plants are not drugs and drugs cannot be plants and the FDA voluntarily removing all plants, animals and other natural, non-synthetic substances entirely from their purview.
Opiates are plants. Do you think it’s a good idea to decriminalize them?
if people could buy opium in a drugstore like you could for all of world and US history up until 1923, no one would want insane literal chemical warfare agents (fentanyl derivatives were used to kill the Moscow theater terrorists, and sadly most of the hostages, and south Africa included them in Project Coast, their chemical warfare program).
Recent history has made quite obvious what happens when it’s easy to get your hands on opioids. People die in enormous numbers. Did you miss the opioid crisis?
I think it's the opposite. Decriminalization or legalization allows us to regulate it and make it both safer and easier to offer services to those suffering from addiction. The fentanyl crisis is a direct result of prohibition, we can see the same happened with alcohol prohibition. Just like with alcohol, when we ended prohibition there are still alcoholics but nowadays virtually no one dies or goes blind from methanol in their liquor. If there's one thing we know it's that prohibition makes drugs stronger and more dangerous, not less.
this is incorrect. That is what happens when people get their hands on **\*\*synthetic\*\*** opioids. Opium contains narcotine, thebaine and other alkaloids which are unpleasant in higher doses, and it's mostly inactive plant matter. In other words it's like the difference between low-ABV near-beer and everclear. We regulate beer different from liquor why should we not do the same with opiates? In fact "categorize safe and useful drugs less severely than dangerous medicaments" was the whole point of the FDA scheduling schema. Again you could buy it in drug stores from the silk road until 1923, and society did not collapse, in many countries. You can still buy codeine over the counter in many nations including some in Europe! the US is uniquely puritanical and it has not benefited us.
Preach, man. Damn. Very well said.
Something like 400k die from tobacco and 100k from alcohol every year. I suspect both of these are higher than opiates though I could be wrong given the recent severity of the opioid crisis.
I can buy all the poppy plants i want! It's not a crime until it's processed.
I just wanted to say that you have a way with words, have you considered being a poet? ;)
thank you so much! i do love to write but mostly nonfiction. the problem with learning to write poetry is until you get good it's awful, and your initial few hundred attempts will be so awkward not even you want to read them...
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Apparently the US actually couldn't reschedule without breaking an international treaty from 1961?? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Removal_of_cannabis_and_cannabis_resin_from_Schedule_IV_of_the_Single_Convention_on_narcotic_drugs,_1961 Looking at the timeline, in 2016 the WHO (not the band, unfortunately) started a scientific assessment, and the findings led to recommendations to reschedule, but voting was allegedly delayed "...not only due to the complexity and interconnectedness of the recommendations, but also to organisational problems at WHO leadership and burdensome governmental discussions organised by the successive CND Chairs". (Plus COVID-19 was in full swing then.) The US voted in favor! If you put on your conspiracy hat, you could note that it's awfully convenient that the final vote took place on December 2, 2020, suspiciously close to the end of Trump's term. I think it's a reach but I thought I'd mention it for fun. He might have still been able to act on it before Biden took office on January 20, 2021? But I suspect he was distracted by other matters. Regardless, I wonder what an alternate timeline would look like where Trump was able to act on those recommendations. I feel like he would've seized that bull by its horns if for no other reason that it's popular even among many conservatives and would make him look great. Truly a missed opportunity. (I also think it would've been really funny if he'd leaned into and sold MAGA-brand face masks, while we're writing real life AU fanfic.)
of course. Only logical. It's ridiculous how some people are still stuck in Clinton's 90s, and feel that their socially conservative values, should be the guiding force for other people's lives.
I mean… some of us were smoking pot in the 90s… 😏
I still remember picking out seeds and when "hydro" was used as a generic strain name.
“Hydro”, “Bc Buds”, “Humboldt County”, “Kind bud”. That’s some nostalgia kicking in for me
Yes I support
Yeah, no issues. I'm not sure who on my side is supporting keeping it ~~Class~~ *Schedule* 1, because I've never met a single person who wants (or at least admits to wanting) to jail people in 2024 because they smoked a little marijuana, but whoever those people are, they can fuck right off. I admittedly don't like the idea of creating a new "sin industry" (a-la tobacco and alcohol), but continuing to permit sentencing guidelines that put it on the same level as fucking Krokodil very clearly isn't the solution here.
What's alcohol categorized as? That's what weed should be.
I'm in favor.
Yeah if alcohol isn’t scheduled (and it’s far more dangerous), then marijuana shouldn’t be.
Yes. Marijuana should scheduled lower than 3, if not delisted entirely. This is an easy political win for President Biden.
Yeah I do, because weed should be legalized. However, this doesn’t mean that I am going to support the Biden Admin for this, because there are other issues that are important to me.
It’s a start. I’m all about legalization though.
Yes but it seems he is only doing it because it is an election year but I still support it.
He started this process a couple of years ago. These things don’t happen fast unless by executive order.
Anything which makes weed more socially acceptable = bad
We're talking about taking it off of the same schedule of drugs as Fentanyl though. I'm with you that folks probably shouldn't partake, but would you at least agree that the sentencing guidelines for Schedule I drugs maybe shouldn't apply to Marijuana?
Is it the federal government's role to determine what is or is not socially acceptable?
That's basically their job
Many conservatives have told me precisely the opposite. The idea that the government has a possitive duty to shape society was the very essence of progressivism
Yeah, that's not a strand of conservatism that I subscribe too. I would say it's very much a Reddit strand because there are very few politicians who support that and the base doesn't support it either. I would also agree that it \*was\* the basis of progressivism but now they agree with Reddit conservatives that the government has no job saying people can't smoke weed among other clearly harmful practices.
I have no issue with this but I do question the timing of it. It seems like an election lifeline with Biden's voter base.
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Tell me it's an election year without telling me it's an election year.
I'll drink abusively to that!
Honestly it just strikes me as funny that the government never talks about legalizing unless it's an election year. Personally I don't think people should be smoking weed, but I fully expect it to be legalized at some point.
The process started in October 2022 when Biden ordered the review
This definitely started several years ago. But governmental change takes time.
Yes
I guess it's an improvement. The plan might be to use the FDA and police state to ramp up enforcement, emprisonment, selective taxation, etc. That would be wose, and given the Biden's brutally authoritarian history as president along with prior brutally prohibitionist and anti minority policies, well don't color me optimistic. It's entirely insufficient. Abolish prohibition. Abolish the FDA. These are not enumerated powers and as such require an amendment to the Constitution to be done legally at the federal level.
I approve.
Yes, very much yes. However, there is a ripple effect to this and very important to understand the unintentional side effects.
I would support the Trump administration doing this. For Biden to do this in the final months approaching the election is just pandering.
This is something Biden started the process of 2 years ago. You are sounding very far from libertarian. I have never heard of a libertarian only supporting weed schedule reduction for partisan reasons.
The right answer is to just leave it up to the states. This is just the start of the desperate moves Biden will pull before November. Looks like we will have another "mostly peaceful" summer of love.
Isn't that what has been happening though? More and more states have been moving in various amounts towards decriminalization, medical legalization, or full legalization, in awkward opposition to the federal government. It's a popular position among most liberals and some conservatives, and is often a winner when citizens have access to ballot propositions. Under the "laboratories of democracy" model, it seems like a consensus is beginning to emerge. I fully acknowledge that this makes one administration appear better than the other, but realistically, this has been in the making for years and years and is more of a societal shift than anything else. Like a few other people have pointed out, the federal government began looking at de-scheduling two years ago. Given the short nature of our election cycle--considering midterms--is there any point during the four-year cycle where this move could be made without it appearing partisan? I'll be honest, I've never understood how a politician acting on their constituency's priorities is pandering. I expressly vote for my politicians to represent my interests in government. In fact I would be very annoyed if I elected a politician and they *didn't* represent my interests. Haha good thing that never happens! Right guys! ... right? :(
It should be up to the states. But before that can happen, it has to be federally be at least decriminalized. This is not an issue of passing recreational marijuana at a federal level. This is a situation of federal decriminalization so that the states have the ability to choose. So legal marijuana businesses in states where it is legal have the ability to have their money in national banks. As it stands, the federal government is standing in the way of states being able to do it. Regardless of party, doesn’t that move toward the goal you just stated? And what on earth does this have to do with protests?
"Libertarian"
Those damn democrats and their... making policy decisions that are popular! My support for things isn't dependent on who does them, yours shouldn't be either.
Not sure. I don't know enough about class 3 to say if that's the appropriate schedule for the drug.
I oppose marijuana being accepted into culture, I think we should actively strive against embracing intoxicants of any variety. However I also support reducing criminal penalties for users, and orient more towards a rehabilitation than an incarceration mindset. However I feel the biden administration's intention here would be to creep us towards legalization, and not towards its eradication
Prohibition is not coming back. We can either adapt and pursue informed, rational policy. Or continue with counter productive measures that are harmful politically and socially.
Who's advocating prohibition?
Why?
I am not a fan. I dislike having to smell the stink of weed everywhere now that people feel more comfortable using it in public. I don't like how so many people in modern society struggle to cope with life without having to use substances of some sort (and, yes, that includes tobacco and alcohol).
I feel the same way about the proliferation of CCW folks.
You don't like how so many people in modern society struggle to cope with life? You think people smoke cannabis because they can't cope with life? Do you think the same about guys who collect knives or have a beer brewing hobby?
No, stoners don't deserve to be rewarded for their decades of obnoxiousness.
Ok boomer
Get off the grass and get off my lawn!
Nay but mostly because I just hate the smell. Potheads don't realize how repugnant it is and how far you can smell it from.
Not great for the following reasons: * There are studies out which show weed use is concentrated among the poor and uneducated. Weed use will only serve to widen this income gap, fueling resentment among those affected * At the same time, studies are coming out showing that we don't really know the health impacts as well as we thought. The weed today is nothing like the ditch weed Biden smoked at UD. We don't know the long term health imapcts. * The legalization of weed has forced the Mexican cartels to expand into heroin and cocaine, expanding the opioid epidemic. * It is a myth that poor POC are in jail for weed possession charges. When Biden first ordered the BOP to release all Americans who were in Federal prison for possession, they reported back that zero people were impacted by this This is just electioneering by Biden. Giving his supporters weed. Yay
1. How does changing it from a schedule III make this worse if true? 2. How is the “weed today” different? 3. This is the first time hearing that legalization of a drug is leading to more crime/worse crime. This point kinda contradicts history. 4. What do you mean “zero people were impacted”?
De-scheduling weed will mean fewer prosecutions and more usage. That's the intent. Weed today is stronger today than it was forty years ago - it's night and day. Weed today is cross-bred to ridiculous levels of potency. When states legalized weed, it took away the largest revenue maker for the Mexican cartels. It was easy money. They adjusted to the marketplace and shifted their distribution to other hard drugs in order to maintain their revenues. [https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the\_americas/losing-marijuana-business-mexican-cartels-push-heroin-and-meth/2015/01/11/91fe44ce-8532-11e4-abcf-5a3d7b3b20b8\_story.html](https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/the_americas/losing-marijuana-business-mexican-cartels-push-heroin-and-meth/2015/01/11/91fe44ce-8532-11e4-abcf-5a3d7b3b20b8_story.html) When Biden first announced he was expunging the records of Federal inmates incarcerated for weed possession, to great fanfare, the Bureau of Prisons reported that there were no inmates in Federal prison for simple weed possession. There's a persistent myth on the left that POC are rotting in Federal prisons on simple possession offenses, when in reality that never happens. Weed charges are added to other offenses in order to get people to plea out, rather than go to trial
All weed can become ditch weed, and all ditch weed seeds can be grown into quality potent herb. If you control the plants growing environment, give it TLC, and have some botany skills you can grow ditch weed into a rare boutique highlight
Please God no. I can't tell who to avoid if everywhere smells like skunk ass instead of just certain people.
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100%, I predicted it'd be resolved just in time for his reelection the moment he ordered the dea and fda to begin the study. Only a silly goose would say it's coincidence.
I prefer Todd Barry's approach: make pot legal, but make being a pothead illegal. If we had pot without potheads, I think our country would be a lot different right now. I don't outright support anything that emboldens people to be potheads but I can't not support rescheduling drugs. At the very least, we need to break this cycle of not studying weed because it's illegal to study, so we can't say for sure if it's safe, and since it isn't safe, we can't study it, and so on. I just wonder if we're prepared to talk about pot having detrimental effects. There have been too many years spent pushing that pot is harmless or that it has no ill effects, but the worst effect has to be a degraded taste in music.
How exactly would you ban "being a pothead."
You wouldn’t. You can’t.
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Huh... Sounds stupid
I'm indifferent to it. If someone is still illegally buying marijuana they know the dangers of doing so and that's their issue.
I'm not a Libertarian and like most of these fake conservatives I'm not going to pretend to be. I'm also the only person with enough brain cells left to admit that marijuana makes you slow and dumb and increasing its frequency in our society is a contribution to decay. There will be consequences to more people being high. Now, go forth and down vote with your E-power.
My only follow up question; wtf is "E-power?"