[HN Gopher] Delaware will become the 22nd state to legalize recr...
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Delaware will become the 22nd state to legalize recreational
marijuana
Author : geox
Score : 26 points
Date : 2023-04-23 21:56 UTC (1 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (delawarebusinesstimes.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (delawarebusinesstimes.com)
| umanwizard wrote:
| The 22nd state to stop _separately_ making marijuana illegal on
| top of federal laws.
|
| Since federal law applies everywhere, marijuana is still
| technically illegal everywhere in the US.
|
| It's fascinating, however, that under three presidents spanning
| both parties, the federal authorities have given up on enforcing
| the ban in states that have removed marijuana laws from their own
| books. Perhaps this is a glimpse into the long-term solution to
| the problem of the federal legislature being intractable
| deadlocked: states will simply start ignoring federal law more
| and more, and its relevance will fade over time.
|
| Or maybe not, and marijuana is a one-off situation. Time will
| tell.
| jjeaff wrote:
| Have the feds been enforcing anything in states that have not
| made marijuana legal? It seems that maybe only state level and
| below authorities are enforcing them.
|
| There are sometimes cases where laws that go unenforced for a
| long time can eventually become unenforceable. I wonder if this
| could happen federally to normal marijuana possession. The
| legal principle is called desuetude.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| The government has always selectively enforced laws, it's
| simply beneficial in this case. 22 states have legalized
| recreational marijuana and the world hasn't ended. Maybe it's
| okay federal statute isn't enforced in this particular
| circumstance, from a rationalist perspective.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_cannabis_by_U.S....
| umanwizard wrote:
| I never said it's a bad thing that the feds aren't enforcing
| this. All I said is:
|
| 1. It's inaccurate to claim that marijuana is legal anywhere
| in the US, and 2. The situation is fascinating.
| benatkin wrote:
| Cool story, I disagree, it's legalized here in CA.
| d1str0 wrote:
| You can disagree all you want. It's still illegal at the
| federal level. A fed could still cite you even though you
| are in CA, regardless of the CA legalization.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Caveat is Congress enjoined the DOJ from enforcing
| against medical marijuana use. Get a medical card
| (suuuuuuuper easy) and you're bulletproof. Sucks to have
| to hack around stupidity wrt federal policy on marijuana,
| but This Is America. It also reduces the tax you pay
| (typically, ymmv based on state).
|
| https://www.mpp.org/policy/federal/are-consumers-or-
| cannabis...
|
| > There are some exceptions. In each fiscal year since
| 2015, Congress has included provisions in appropriations
| acts that prohibit the U.S. Department of Justice from
| using funds to prevent states from "implementing their
| own laws that authorize the use, distribution,
| possession, or cultivation of medical marijuana." In
| effect, Congress prevents the DOJ from enforcing federal
| law in medical marijuana states. Courts have held up the
| provisions, and federal prosecutions of state-licensed
| businesses effectively stopped when it went into effect.
| However, those same protections haven't been extended to
| adult-use (recreational) program participants, who remain
| at risk.
| benatkin wrote:
| OK I'll keep disagreeing. It's legal here.
| candiddevmike wrote:
| On the flip side, the federal government is still prosecuting
| people for distributing cannabis, albeit at a decreasing
| rate: https://www.marijuanamoment.net/federal-marijuana-
| arrests-co...
|
| If the federal government isn't arresting folks in legal
| states, how can they have justify arresting others? We're
| close to half the US legalizing cannabis, when will the
| federal ban end?
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| When Congress becomes functional again.
| benatkin wrote:
| That's based on a straightforward interpretation of what the
| federal government can and can't do. In reality there is some
| flexibility on it.
|
| If nobody rolled their eyes at what you said, maybe it wouldn't
| be much work and the federal government could stop it. They
| can't without vastly changing how they operate though.
|
| Also if you get _extra technical_ it 's legal because of the
| constitution. Show me the constitutional amendment that says
| it's illegal.
| robotnikman wrote:
| >Perhaps this is a glimpse into the long-term solution to the
| problem of the federal legislature being intractable
| deadlocked: states will simply start ignoring federal law more
| and more, and its relevance will fade over time.
|
| I feel that this may be the best way to do things, since each
| state is unique in it people and geography.
|
| I also feel like universal healthcare on a state level would be
| the only thing to work at this point, it seems like the federal
| government is unable to budge at all when it comes to fixing
| it.
| htag wrote:
| It's still super illegal to transport cannabis across state
| borders. This is true even when transporting between legal
| states that share borders.
|
| It's mostly unenforced on the individual basis, but it is a
| huge aspect of the legal markets. Being able to do business
| across the entire country is a very large factor in USA's
| economic success. Removing the federal criminal laws on
| cannabis will remove this and many other inefficiencies of
| the cannabis industry.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I think there are a lot more people who'd move for universal
| healthcare than there are who'd move for pot, and those
| people are likely to be folks who impose a significant burden
| on the new system. (For example, I paid $48k out of pocket
| last year. I'd move in a heartbeat.)
| pySSK wrote:
| > I also feel like universal healthcare on a state lev would
| be the only thing to work at this point
|
| Even Canada does it per province, and even there, doing it at
| a federal level would be too intractable.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| Canada has a federal law _requiring_ (functionally; if you
| don 't, you also opt-out of federal _funding_ for your
| system) every province to offer it, though, with a minimum
| standard, right? That 's very different than California
| offering it on their own volition, and the other 49 states
| not.
| johnea wrote:
| > ...since each state is unique in it people and geography.
|
| This is just so wrong on so many levels it's hard to know
| what to respond to.
|
| Maybe try going outside, you'll find it's actually completly
| continuous, there is no species change when crossing state
| lines 8-)
|
| Even more to the point, typical (media prtrayed) state based
| differences all have gapping inaccuracies:
|
| - california has more republicans than texas - texas has more
| democrats than new york
|
| The division into states is one of the biggest problems
| facing actual democracy in the us. Coupled with first-past-
| the-post, and the electoral college, the us is far far from a
| government that enforces the public will.
|
| And as far as the specific issue of marijuana is concerned,
| this is such a poster child for how locked into the "leave it
| to beaver" american dream state of the 1950s the eastern us
| still is.
|
| The whole: "Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, like the little
| baby jesus intended" mindset.
|
| Having said that, I actually do agree that the state level is
| about the only place anything at all can be acomplished.
| Because the DNC and RNC have both blocked public health care
| repeatedly, and you're NEVER going to see either of those
| parties back any policy that disenfranchises their donor
| class.
| NERD_ALERT wrote:
| In most cases I believe states are threatened with penalties or
| withdrawal of federal funding when they try and disobey federal
| law. Even with other drug laws like alcohol, states have been
| threatened with losing funding for roads if they were to lower
| the legal age to 18. Marijuana is simply too negligible of an
| issue for the federal government to really do anything about
| it.
|
| https://abcnews.go.com/amp/US/Politics/story?id=4577105&page...
| pfannkuchen wrote:
| Is it because the illegality of marijuana is based on a
| questionable interpretation of the commerce clause which lots
| of other power is based on and no one in government really
| wants challenged in court?
| umanwizard wrote:
| There's a very good chance that that's at least part of the
| reason.
| hn_throwaway_99 wrote:
| Well, there is also the separate issue that the feds
| _basically_ legalized marijuana through a not-thought-out-too-
| well loophole when they passed the hemp farm bill in 2018.
|
| Hemp and marijuana are the same species, so the 2018 farm bill
| just defines "hemp" as a cannabis plant with less than 0.3%
| delta 9 THC by weight. So some enterprising folks decided to
| take these low-THC hemp plants, extract the THC from them, and
| put them into gummies. Since the gummies still need to be <
| 0.3% THC, they are just slightly larger gummies than "normal"
| marijuana gummies, but they're not gargantuan or anything, and
| they come in pretty standard 10-20mg per gummy doses.
|
| I live in a state that has hardly any legal marijuana (there is
| some medical but only for very limited conditions like
| epilepsy, and it's strictly enforced, unlike in some other
| states where anyone saying "my back hurts" can get
| prescription), and you can go into a well lit, clean CBD store
| in a strip mall on a major street where friendly employees will
| happily sell you these D9 gummies.
|
| IIRC Florida (ahh, Florida) was trying to close this loophole
| by limiting the _total_ amount of THC in any single package,
| but not sure where that went.
| andirk wrote:
| The governor who was against legalization said of his not veto:
| "I came to this decision because I believe we've spent far too
| much time focused on this issue, when Delawareans face more
| serious and pressing concerns every day. It's time to move on."
|
| It sounds like people are realizing it's an old, useless battle
| to fight against marijuana legalization. Finally.
| [deleted]
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(page generated 2023-04-23 23:00 UTC)