[Hash Zeppelin]

We have overgrown the federal government's power to effectively enforce marijuana laws. This was a 2 decade long, intentional act of civil disobedience, started by Marc Emery, and carried out by thousands of growers. It further proves that civil disobedience works, and that if the people don't like what the government does, then we can shut their agenda down with massive noncooperation.

https://uproxx.com/news/trump-marijuana-legal/

Why The Trump Administration’s Threat To Launch A War On Legalized Weed Might Be A Big Nothingburger

The Trump administration has made it clear that recreational marijuana is on their no-no list. Press Secretary Sean Spicer blamed it for the opioid epidemic, and current Attorney General Jeff Sessions has claimed that it “causes more violence than you might expect.” But the Trump administration’s bluster obscures a fairly serious legal problem for their agenda. That is, the states have already spoken, and besides that, the motives behind this effort seem like they may be more about publicity than real-life policy.

There’s also something else at work here: Amid these vocal assaults on the state of legal weed, the Trump administration said it wasn’t interested in pursuing medical marijuana, and privately, Jeff Sessions reportedly informed Republican senators that there will be no substantial policy change on the matter. Why all the bark without the bite? Because reinstating marijuana’s full illegality is, effectively, impossible.

The Limits Of Power
As Attorney General, Jeff Sessions could certainly enforce federal laws more strictly, but it would be a vast undertaking. Currently, only five states completely outlaw marijuana: Idaho, South Dakota, Kansas, Indiana and West Virginia. In eight states, and the District of Columbia — much to the frustration of conservatives — weed has been legalized completely. And in thirteen states, it has been both decriminalized and allowed for medical use. The rest of the states in the union tend to fall into various categories; some, like Texas, have only legalized marijuana with non-psychoactive properties, while others have only legalized it for medical use.

Most importantly, many of these states did so by popular vote, even in Republican strongholds. Arkansas, which went to Trump in the 2016 election, also voted to legalize medical marijuana with 53% of the vote. In fact, marijuana legalization had a banner 2016 for supporters of the cause.

All of this creates a problem if the Trump administration really wants to enforce federal marijuana laws, because that’ll mean it has to devote significant resources to enforcing a federal law that states don’t care about.

In fact, states that legalized pot are seeing a windfall that others are eager to emulate. Colorado, which heavily taxes marijuana, collected nearly $200 million in taxes from recreational pot use. Oregon expected a modest $10 million in tax revenue: Instead, it collected $60 million. Will the governors from these states — who rely on that tax revenue to fund their budgets — quietly shrug if that fight is brought to them?

Adding to the problem is that the Trump administration’s justification for cracking down on marijuana simply isn’t good policy, statistically or scientifically.

There Is No “There” There
Any link, positive or negative, between legalized marijuana and violent crime is questionable at best. Correlation is not causation, so while, say, Washington state saw violent crime drop from 2011 to 2014, that can’t be automatically chalked up to legalization. Still, the anti-legalization crowd has been caught cherry-picking evidence more than once. One common claim is legalized marijuana drove up Pueblo, CO’s murder rate, but the authorities in Pueblo point out that it’s opioids and black tar heroin causing the problem.

And the idea that marijuana is a “gateway drug” (which Spicer has advanced) similarly fails to hold up when you look at the available data. While a little less than half of all Americans have tried marijuana, only 15% try cocaine and 2% use heroin. Besides, it’s worth asking why marijuana is the only “gateway drug” that we hear about, especially when you consider that alcoholism is a well-known disease that costs the U.S. hundreds of billions of dollars. The beer, wine, and liquor industry spent approximately $27 million on lobbying in 2016, and there are allegations that they are, at least partially, behind anti-legalization initiatives, so perhaps the weed industry just needs better lobbyists.

The idea that marijuana could be causing the opioid crisis is questionable at best, especially as doctors themselves think opioids are simply a poorly considered bandage slapped over a much larger, festering problem. A University of Michigan overview of chronic pain treatment is critical of both opioids and marijuana, but notes the problem with opioids is how they’re prescribed:

Unfortunately, it is far faster and easier to give a patient an opioid than to work through the complex issues often present in chronic pain patients. As physicians begin to realize the problems with prescribing opioids for individuals with chronic pain, an increasingly common route to opioid addiction and death is the initial prescription of opioids for acute pain after a surgical or dental procedure or ER visit.


While it’s not clear how feasible marijuana itself is as a treatment for chronic pain, drugs derived from it have had enough success that further medical research is needed. But being open to that possibility and eliminating the stigma that seems inexorably linked to marijuana needs to happen in conjunction with any advance, or else what’s the point?

Old Views And A New Round Of Rhetoric
As a rule of thumb, the older a voter is, the more likely they are to vote Republican, and the gap between them and even the Baby Boomers is enormous on marijuana. While support has risen drastically in the last few years, still only one-third of our oldest voters are for marijuana legalization, according to Pew’s research. Oddly, white men, the most reliable Trump voter base, tended towards legalizing marijuana according to that same study; marijuana had the least support in the Hispanic community in the poll.

There is also the uncomfortable reality that marijuana laws are used as a weapon on non-white communities. The ACLU has found non-whites are nearly four times more likely to be arrested for marijuana possession and decriminalization has done nothing to change these numbers. That brings up a whole host of concerns, but specifically, Trump’s deportation campaign depends heavily on deporting anybody arrested on even the smallest crime, so the administration may want to keep these laws on the books to maintain that legal veneer.

With all that said, and despite Spicer and Sessions’ public remarks, in the end, this is unlikely to be much of a priority for the Trump administration. While it may appeal to a subset of voters, long-term, laws tend to snowball on a state by state basis, and marijuana legalization is too big and carroes too much momentum for any President to stop.

[Gypsy Nirvana]

Well I must say that is a very heartening article HZ.

But will they ever reclassify cannabis on a federal level?

Perhaps they will wait until every state has it legal, and then finally capitulate?

[Chevy cHaze]

Nice article Hash.
I agree and I think everything is underway. slowly but surely.
And we can safely say this: The more widespread cannabis use is, the more people have contact with cannabis, the less of that stupid 70-year-brainwash our society has been exposed to will stick. And when we look at cannabis prohibition in whatever form through the eye of knowledege and truth, we see how obsolete it is and it will eventually cease to exist.
Just my 5 cts...
CC

[Gypsy Nirvana]

Yes, it's always been about trying to get the plant normalized, and to do that people have to see the plant and grow it, to really know that it is a very beautiful and useful plant, and not some sort of laboratory produced 'drug' that is the root of all evil, which is the message that most of the worlds governments have propagandized, spouting to billions of this world's citizen for the best part of a century that cannabis leads to addiction, which leads to death etc. And we all know that it does not.

As people become more educated about cannabis, many feel very cheated by their governments for lying to them for so long, and deceiving them. Many others have had to face fines/bail/probation and spent years locked up as the victims of a victimless crime.

What a crime this prohibition has been, and continues to be. When will it ever stop?

[Douglas.Curtis]

Originally Posted by Gypsy Nirvana

As people become more educated about cannabis, many feel very cheated by their governments for lying to them for so long, and deceiving them. Many others have had to face fines/bail/probation and spent years locked up as the victims of a victimless crime.

What a crime this prohibition has been, and continues to be. When will it ever stop?

This is also building what I'm calling the "Pissed off Parents Brigade." Every day, another parent finds out their child could very likely have lived a much better, and certainly longer, life than they did. Every day, another parent finds out about other children with the same problem as their child who is being treated with cannabis. A treatment which has the child active and involved in normal life activities, vs their drugged out and dying child through 'modern medicine' practices.

The size of the group is reaching the tipping point. Feds don't do something soon, there's going to be blood. They're basically telling parents they have to commit felonies, to keep their child alive, happy and safe.

It's going to be a better world, after the storm.

[rolandomota]

Yea probation dont even remind me man.

[PDX Dopesmoker]

Thats nice sentiment, but if you read something like that and let your guard down and a while later some tool is weighing your root balls then you'll feel pretty foolish. Author is a college student, who knows if this article even got a passing grade.

[Gypsy Nirvana]

Originally Posted by Douglas.Curtis

It's going to be a better world, after the storm.

That maybe.... but this storm has been raging for years mostly against the poor and unconnected, even the big stars of sound and stage, have on occasion felt the bite of the prohibitionists, but they usually manage to lawyer themselves out of any heavy sentences.

The lives and families prohibition has wrecked or severely unsettled, the hopes, dreams and careers of millions of aspiring youths and adults prohibition has decimated are too numerous to fathom.

By criminalizing a simple non-toxic plant, that has for thousands of years been celebrated and even held to be sacred by many deities and religious concerns thru the ages, the powers that be have committed such a grave, un-just and long-lasting persecution of the worlds populace, that many who have fallen foul of these draconian laws, which the establishment enforces have long been forgotten, their lives and families shattered, their hearts broken, faded away in their own lives behind bars, because they grew, used and/or traded in this sacred plant.

This has all been going on for so long that enforcing cannabis prohibition has become a multi-billion dollar business for a multitude of the worlds nations, who all have signed some American led treaty to pledge that they will enforce cannabis prohibition, so at the stroke of a pen they criminalize vast swathes of relatively peaceful decent folk, who just happen to be enthusiastic about A PLANT, just like many people are interested in orchids or roses, saffron, tea or tobacco etc.

Yes, I am sure it will be a better world once this 80+ year old storm finally ceases and cannabis is once again seen for what it actually is, in all it's glory, and no-one ever again is persecuted and prosecuted over it.

But just remember today dark forces are still at play against cannabis enthusiasts, although we have seen some change towards the better in recent years.

There still is a very, very long way to go, and just as things could continue to progress towards full legalization, they could just as easily start to slip back again if a particular President decides to launch an anti-cannabis drive/program in the US, which will in turn get other heads of state to follow suit globally, so that millions more people will still suffer and continue to suffer until that treaty has been rescinded finally, and the requisite laws amended to no longer criminalize those who enjoy cannabis in all it's expressions, knowing that this much maligned and miss-understood plant is no longer treated like heroin or crack cocaine under the law in some parts.

For me the real big storm, is yet to come.

[GnarlsBarkley]

Originally Posted by PDX Dopesmoker

Thats nice sentiment, but if you read something like that and let your guard down and a while later some tool is weighing your root balls then you'll feel pretty foolish. Author is a college student, who knows if this article even got a passing grade.

I agree, I think talk like this is bad. It is not impossible and we need to not pretend it is impossible for the federal government to take our weed away because then everyone will assume it's all good and not fight to protect it and it'll be even easier for them to snatch from us.

Make no mistake, everything that has been fought for can be taken away. Cannabis was already legal once, it can go back and forth. Don't let your guard down, call your representatives and tell them to defend their constituents vote and their states right, normalize the plant and be a positive image for cannabis, and don't give up.

[Douglas.Curtis]

Originally Posted by Gypsy Nirvana

There still is a very, very long way to go, and just as things could continue to progress towards full legalization, they could just as easily start to slip back again if a particular President decides to launch an anti-cannabis drive/program in the US, which will in turn get other heads of state to follow suit globally

A particular president better not, the cat is out of the bag and they'll get bloody trying to stuff it back in.

The people, in multiple states, have been given the right to grow their own cannabis. This has allowed people to talk freely amongst themselves and share the truth. This truth has spread to all of the other states, through family and friends. The percentage may still be small but it's growing and has significant momentum.

I don't see continued prohibition ending well for the most staunchly ignorant in our legislature.