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The State of Washington's Attorney General says he will resist federal efforts to undermine his state's legalized cannabis laws:
With White House press secretary Sean Spicer suggesting Thursday that the Trump administration would crack down on states that have legal recreational marijuana, Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson vowed to defend Washington state's legal pot law. "I will resist any efforts by the Trump administration to undermine the will of the voters in Washington state," Ferguson said in an interview. Spicer said during a press briefing Thursday that the issue rests with the Justice Department. But he said, "I do believe that you'll see greater enforcement of it."
[...] Ferguson and Gov. Jay Inslee sent a letter to U.S. attorney general Jeff Sessions, dated Feb. 15 that laid out arguments for Washington's state-regulated pot industry. They said illegal dealing is being displaced by a tightly regulated industry that is projected to pay $272 million in taxes this fiscal year. That frees up law-enforcement officers to protect communities facing more pressing threats. They also noted that legal pot entrepreneurs must undergo criminal and financial background checks.
California's Attorney General is also on board:
"Until we see any sort of formal plan from the federal government, it's full speed ahead for us," said Alex Traverso, a spokesman for the California Bureau of Medical Cannabis Regulation. In Congress, Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Costa Mesa) plans to introduce legislation that could blunt Spicer's threat by preventing the Department of Justice from enforcing federal laws against the recreational use of marijuana in states that have legalized it, a spokesman said Friday. [...] California Atty. Gen. Xavier Becerra says he is ready to safeguard the rights of the 56% of voters who approved Proposition 64, which allows California adults to possess, transport and buy up to an ounce of marijuana for recreational use.
In other weed news, make sure to check your weed bales for nukes.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by frojack on Saturday February 25 2017, @07:18PM
Sessions is not likely to push this issue because the States that have decriminalized are perilously close to having enough votes to simply remove Cannabis totally from federal control. Further, the democrats would jump on that band wagon in a heart beat even if their own state hadn't decriminalized, just to pull his chain.
There's nothing quite so close to a pure state's rights issue as this, so lots of conservatives will also jump on.
There may still be national border issues, but those pretty well go away, or become food safety issues, when recreational use is legalized by a simple majority of states.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by Snotnose on Saturday February 25 2017, @07:23PM
Not to mention, soon as the feds crack down on the evil weed all local aid and support will dry up. Think the feds can be effective without the native's support? Think again.
My ducks are not in a row. I don't know where some of them are, and I'm pretty sure one of them is a turkey.
(Score: 1) by butthurt on Saturday February 25 2017, @07:46PM
General Sherman was fairly effective.
[...] should guerrillas or bushwhackers molest our march, or should the inhabitants burn bridges, obstruct roads, or otherwise manifest local hostility, then army commanders should order and enforce a devastation more or less relentless according to the measure of such hostility.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sherman's_March_to_the_Sea [wikipedia.org]
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 26 2017, @04:27PM
General Sherman was fairly effective.
So "General Sherman" is going to burn down Seattle because hippies smoke weed? Anyone idiotic enough to escalate to this extent is idiotic enough to not be able to deal with the consequences.
(Score: 2) by butthurt on Sunday February 26 2017, @08:06PM
According to John Ehrlichman,
The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I’m saying? We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities.
--
https://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/ [harpers.org]
The association of hippies with cannabis has, judging by your remark, endured. Mr. Nixon adopted the term "war on drugs," indicating that his initiative ought to be taken seriously. His Drug Enforcement Administration remains intact.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_Enforcement_Administration [wikipedia.org]
In 1861 Mr. Lincoln was saying he'd let slavery continue and would respect the rights of the states; he denounced the use of force:
Apprehension seems to exist among the people of the Southern States, that by the accession of a Republican Administration, their property, and their peace, and personal security, are to be endangered. There has never been any reasonable cause for such apprehension. [...] I declare that "I have no purpose, directly or indirectly, to interfere with the institution of slavery in the States where it exists. I believe I have no lawful right to do so, and I have no inclination to do so."
[...]
Resolved: that the maintenance inviolate of the rights of the States, and especially the right of each State to order and control its own domestic institutions according to its own judgment exclusively, is essential to that balance of power on which the perfection and endurance of our political fabric depend, and we denounce the lawless invasion by armed force of the soil of any State or Territory, no matter under what pretext, as among the gravest of crimes.
-- http://www.ushistory.org/documents/lincoln1.htm [ushistory.org]
The escalation from there was unfortunate but I hesitate to say it was idiotic. And if the leaders of the 1860s were idiotic, I'm not convinced that the present-day ones are wiser.
I don't propose that federal agents ought to start fires to extract suspects from their dwellings. However I'm not understanding why, in the absence of co-operation from the states, the DEA wouldn't be able to resume enforcing cannabis prohibition in the same way it's been enforcing laws against other drugs. Doesn't it have the staff, facilities, equipment, funding and legal framework to do so?
(Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday February 26 2017, @10:34PM
The association of hippies with cannabis has, judging by your remark, endured.
I believe that there are other reasons than half century old propaganda for why hippies might continue to be associated with marijuana.
The escalation from there was unfortunate but I hesitate to say it was idiotic. And if the leaders of the 1860s were idiotic, I'm not convinced that the present-day ones are wiser.
I don't so hesitate. For example, it was in the Confederacy's strategic advantage to avoid or delay escalation to war. There were a fair number of European powers that could have assisted the Confederacy with substantial military and economic assistance at the US's expense. But instead the South shot first, not only creating the easy pretext for the US to invade, but also discouraging any involvement by European military powers.
And once again, I did say that modern escalation to that extent would be idiotic. I agree that there is a glaring lack of wisdom among US leadership, but it still remains that they might not be quite that dumb.
The Fortune at the bottom of my page seems somewhat relevant:
cerb: we subscribed you to debian-fight as the moderator
cerb: list rules are, 1) no nice emails, 2) no apologies
(Score: 2) by Beryllium Sphere (r) on Saturday February 25 2017, @07:39PM
That's how a logical man would look at it.
Sessions, though he conveniently forgot about it later, is on record wanting to execute weed dealers. http://reason.com/blog/2017/02/01/heres-that-time-jeff-sessions-wanted-to [reason.com]
Two forces could drive a crackdown. One is Sessions' irrationality. The other is all the money and property that law enforcement could seize and keep now that the pot businesses have addresses.
(Score: 2) by linkdude64 on Sunday February 26 2017, @06:11PM
Weed dispensaries != drug/weed dealers
Subtle but important difference. Enforcement would make a lot more money if they simply supported a measure to heavily vice-tax pot, as is done with cigarettes and alcohol.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 25 2017, @07:44PM
We'll see. Trumpism isn't about building bridges to others, its about jazzing up your own base by hurting those others. That's a losing strategy in the long run, but its fricken easy and addictive because it requires no hard thinking, just gut instinct. Fucking with those immoral elitist hippies on the coasts fits that unspoken campaign promise to a T. Revenge of the fly-over states!!!
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 25 2017, @09:33PM
The flyover states like ... Colorado?
Against the elitist potsmoking hippies of .... Alaska?
I think you need to rethink your analysis.
(Score: -1, Flamebait) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 25 2017, @09:37PM
Lol, aren't you clever!
You found a minor flaw in a one-line hyperbolic summary.
Therefore its all wrong...
Autism FTL.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by julian on Saturday February 25 2017, @08:40PM
There's nothing quite so close to a pure state's rights issue as this, so lots of conservatives will also jump on.
There are not many voters or representatives who fit this definition of "conservative". They don't back states' rights on principle. It's a useful line of argument when they can't get their agenda pushed on all the states at the federal level. For example, they've failed for decades to ban abortion nation-wide so they instead eroded access at the state level to institute a de facto ban.
Cannabis legalization is, rightly or wrongly, associated with liberals. The GOP is, now more than ever, motivated not by their own ideas but by denying liberals anything and everything they want. There are a lot of representatives who's careers will live or die based on placating their Tea-Party populist base. These people are ideological and their main ideology is spite: don't work with liberals, deny them everything they want, shut down the government if you have to, be the party of NO.
And Sessions has a personal hatred of cannabis and the people who use it. His stance on private prisons dovetails nicely into a coming crackdown on small-time cannabis users and dealers. We had just started as a country to reverse this horrible vicious cycle of greed and human misery, but we may be facing a set back--which I hope proves to be only temporary.
The only thing that might save us is the tax revenue generated by the legalized and legitimized cannabis industry. Once states get a taste of that money they're not going to give it up without a fight.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 25 2017, @09:43PM
Whether or not you expect to find a lot of pro-states'-rights people depends on where you look. The South for instance is absolutely full of them, and has been for many decades. Something about some kind of difference of opinion in the middle of the nineteenth century. Ancient history, I know, but you know how they are down there.
I don't know how many real Tea Partiers you've known, but I know quite a few, and while I have my differences with them, I can't say that spite has been their determining characteristic. If there has been one thing that has been consistent, it's been anger about the perceived perfidy of their representatives, who sell them a line when it's election time, then throw it out of the window when they reach DC. It's not about spiting progressives so much as not compromising what they deem to be bedrock principles. Now, you may not agree with their principles (I certainly often differ with them) but to confuse consistency and spite is to do your own position a disservice.
As for the representatives who actually realise that their constituents mean what they say, it doesn't seem to me to be entirely unreasonable to ... you know, represent their constituents. I mean, it is kind of their job, right?
(Score: 3, Interesting) by julian on Saturday February 25 2017, @09:56PM
As for the representatives who actually realise that their constituents mean what they say, it doesn't seem to me to be entirely unreasonable to ... you know, represent their constituents. I mean, it is kind of their job, right?
That's a rather old argument in political science, and it's not quite that cut and dry. There's actually more than one school of thought. Your position would seem to be what's known as the "delegate" model of representation where the representative simply votes based on what their constituents want and ignores her own conscience, expertise, experience, and even common sense.
I prefer what's called the trustee model [wikipedia.org], which gives representatives more leeway and autonomy. Their full time job is to delve deep into policy. The average voter does not have the time, experience, or expertise, to decide public policy so their authority is placed in trust with someone who is given the time and resources to make better decisions.
It's part of my overall distaste for populism.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 25 2017, @10:17PM
The trustee model falls down on the reality that if they fail to act like delegates, they can be voted out of office.
I mean, I suppose you could go and ask all the people who feel betrayed, and are consequently angry, to trust that their representatives will totally do what's best for them, and totally not be corrupt, and will totally only walk back their campaign promises if they really, really feel that they have to - but alas, that's not been the observed track record, has it? In fact, corruption, dressed up in various forms, is practically the de facto norm in Congress.
So, yeah, if we need a trustee model, you need to find incentives that align with that model. Until then, the delegate reality holds sway.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anal Pumpernickel on Saturday February 25 2017, @11:32PM
The trustee model falls down on the reality that if they fail to act like delegates, they can be voted out of office.
They can be, but they aren't. Our so-called 'representatives' are utterly failing to represent us in any meaningful way, and yet many of stunningly high reelection rates.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 26 2017, @02:19AM
Except that that is precisely, exactly, literally what the Tea Partiers said that they would do, and did do.
Don't you remember all the interviews of them saying they were going RINO-hunting? And how the democrats were oh-so-happy that strong centrist republicans were getting nailed by scrappy tea party challengers that had no chance of winning (except that some of them did)?
And now many commentators on the left are suggesting that this is what the Berners should do, to make their voices heard as the Herbal Tea Party, because that's why the Tea Party now have a voice, and the Occupiers basically don't.
(Score: 2) by Anal Pumpernickel on Monday February 27 2017, @09:00AM
Except that that is precisely, exactly, literally what the Tea Partiers said that they would do, and did do.
Which isn't typical, and many of the people they voted in still don't represent them in any meaningful way. Last I checked, Congresspeople had something like a 90% reelection rate.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 27 2017, @04:14PM
Yes. You're right. Let's break that down a little.
First, the Tea Party made a positive demonstration that elected representatives respond, quite strongly, to the prospect of being replaced in the next election. The real win for the Tea Party wasn't the few people they elected, or removed. It was all the others that started taking them very seriously.
Next, the Tea Party also demonstrated as a consequence of the above that this strategy works. Scaring politicians with: "We can and will replace you." really does work. This argument really resonates with people who want more responsiveness from their representatives, hence the call for a Herbal Tea Party.
Even if there was a silent consensus (ignoring a few half-drunk angry sumbitches who pound the bar between boilermakers) that the trustee model was the right way to go, that consensus is now over. The folks in office abused it for so long that it's no longer credible.
Result: any hope of restoring a trustee model will have to wait on the creation of incentives for members of Congress to behave accordingly.