Remember Warren promising to introduce m4a in 2024. I'm sure they will get right on it in 2024 after definitely not losing the senate in 2022 and then not use the 2024 elections as an excuse to throw it on the back burner again.
We can't risk such a controversial piece of legislation when we have elections coming up.
Illinois -- not exactly a state known for efficient, above-board government -- signed their legalization bill on June 25, 2019 and opened the first dispensaries on January 1, 2020. 2023 (not to mention 2024) is laughable.
They need time to figure out how to game the market and make backroom deals with rich investor friends on making the industry as vertically integrated and cartelish as possible.
The need time to bust the major gro-ops so their friends can corner the market first.
I get six months or so, because while you can copy the general concept of what other states have done, you still have to arrange whatever regulatory capacity is needed and maybe write some custom administrative rules. Hell, maybe a year. But 2-3 years is indefensible.
yeah, maybe like a month to hire people and have lawyers draft the thing and .... oh.
oh it shouldn't take longer than a month?
huh.
To be fair, Illinois already had a pretty well developed medical cannabis market. And "liberal" Massachusetts took almost 3 years to open rec dispensaries after they legalized cannabis through a ballot initiative in 2016. Virginia currently has jack shit, and honestly, I would have guessed that VA would be the last state in the nation to legalize weed with all the super cops, super troops, and spooks that live there.
Lots of Democrats don't like legal marijuana, but in 2021 it's incredibly unpopular to be against it. Stalling is the next best thing.
I assume it has something to do with 2024 being an election year?
Either they think it will hurt their campaign if they’re the hippies who made pot legal or they want to campaign by saying republicans will cancel the plan to legalize weed if you don’t save the dem seats.
This is a bad take. State-level Democrats have made tons of real progress on legalization (up to and including legalization itself) all over the country. There's been a significant pro-legalization wing of the party for about a decade now, and Democrats have taken the issue seriously (which includes stuff like medical marijuana laws or decriminalization measures) for closer to two decades. Republicans are way behind -- I don't believe they've led any pro-pot movement anywhere in the country, and they picked noted drug warrior Jeff Sessions as AG a few years ago.
This is one area where there's actually a material difference between the two parties. The criticism of Democrats is that (1) they still have plenty of Drug War blood on their hands, (2) national Democrats lag far behind state and local Democrats on the issue, and (3) it's such an obvious opportunity for improvement that there's no excuse to not have passed it years ago. Still, parts of the party have done some real good here.
Republicans are way behind – I don’t believe they’ve led any pro-pot movement anywhere in the country, and they picked noted drug warrior Jeff Sessions as AG a few years ago.
Oklahoma has one of the biggest, laxest medical marijuana programs in the country. Their Republican AG actually overturned a bunch of proposed regulations for being too strict (things like banning everything but edibles from dispensaries or requiring a pharmacist be on site), and the state courts have shut down proposed restrictions. My guess is that this wil be a trend in other Red states in the next 10 years or so. It's going to be nanny state libs that make you have the Apple Store experience with product under lock and key and it's more expensive and shittier than what your dealer has. Red States will be more like how you expect - jars of weed that you pick out that are half the price.
Ahh, good catch.
It’s going to be nanny state libs that make you have the Apple Store experience with product under lock and key and it’s more expensive and shittier than what your dealer has. Red States will be more like how you expect - jars of weed that you pick out that are half the price.
I suppose this is possible, but given the last ~20 years of each party's approach to drug policy I'm not ready to give Republicans any unearned credit. Note also that some red states still have restrictive alcohol laws, so they haven't even ended our first disastrous prohibition experiment.
Republicans are stubborn, and there will be dry counties, but the cat is out of the bag when it comes to the drug war. Legal marijuana passed a ballot initiative in South Dakota last year with 54% of the vote!
Note also that some red states still have restrictive alcohol laws
A lot of blue/purple states do as well. Have you ever been to PA? Or Massachusetts, where you can't even have happy hours!
Here I am in Europe with no legalization in sight whatsoever :angery:
The UK is the world's largest exporter of medical cannabis, but there's probably like three people in the entire country who have prescriptions for it. Also, several regional police forces in the UK have basically issued statements saying that they don't give a shit about people growing weed
I don't see it changing any time soon, even though nobody gives a shit about it. Though I did just find this survey where apparently 31% of people think that if you smoked a joint once at uni you shouldn't be allowed to be an MP
Wasn't there some pretty obvious corruption as well around this main company being connected to some MP through family ties or something which made it possible that they alone would get licenses to produce medical weed?
I vaguely remember reading something along those lines.You're thinking of Victoria Atkins, I assume, the "Minister for Safeguarding" - her husband is the managing director for British Sugar, which grows cannabis for use in epilepsy medicine - Article
the democrats are not friends allies comrades or accomplices. they never have been and never will be.
at least the boogaloos hate things, which makes them, against our consent, accomplices when one of the hundred people they indiscriminately murder needed to go. i see where the left-right unity memes come from. they're painfully stupid, but I see them.
yeah but is it really worth the effort? im of the opinion that forcibly modifying someone's behavior is cruel and shitty and dehumanizing. also far more expensive than the alternative, which also makes great fertilizer.
