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The Center for American Progress reports
On [February 27], days after White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters to expect stricter enforcement of federal pot law, Attorney General Jeff Sessions recycled discredited drug war talking points in remarks of his own.
"I believe it's an unhealthy practice, and current levels of THC in marijuana are very high compared to what they were a few years ago, and we're seeing real violence around that", Sessions said. "Experts are telling me there's more violence around marijuana than one would think and there's big money involved."
In reality, violent crime rates tend to decrease where marijuana is legalized.
Denver saw a 2.2 percent drop in violent crime rates in the year after the first legal recreational cannabis sales in Colorado. Overall property crime dropped by 8.9 percent [PDF] in the same period there, according to figures from the Drug Policy Alliance. In Washington, violent crime rates dropped by 10 percent [PDF] from 2011 to 2014. Voters legalized recreational marijuana there in 2012.
Medical marijuana laws, which have a longer track record for academics than recreational pot legalization, are also associated with stable or falling violent crime rates. In one 2014 study of the 11 states that legalized medical pot from 1990 to 2006, there was no increase in the seven major categories of violent crime and "some evidence of decreasing rates of some types of violent crime, namely homicide and assault."
[...] Elsewhere in his remarks, Sessions unwittingly made the case against treating pot activity like serious crime. "You can't sue somebody for drug debt". he said. "The only way to get your money is through strong-arm tactics, and violence tends to follow that."
Legalizing, regulating, and taxing the sale of marijuana is the surest way to remedying that exact tendency for pot commerce to trigger violent score-settling. Legalization invites pot business into the light, granting cannabusinesses at least partial access to official modes of recourse when they are defrauded.
8 states and the District of Columbia have legalised marijuana for recreational use.
Ever see anyone use cannabis and become more aggressive rather than more mellow?
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Thursday March 02 2017, @11:14PM (1 child)
To win [...] the general election [...], you have to get more votes
Actually, the Blues did that.[1]
They still lost the presidency.
The efforts they made in key Rust Belt states were inadequate.
You're right that Hillary was absolutely the wrong candidate.
She (and the Neoliberal class) don't give a shit about the wellbeing of Blue Collar types.
If you don't have a white collar and multiple college degrees, you simply don't matter to them.[2]
DNC Chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz (who was reelected in her Florida congressional district, BTW) put personal loyalties above what the Blues needed to win.
The same with other Blue elites.
The Blues have been moving ever more toward Plantation Capitalism and a police state (the top right of the political palate) since they lost the presidency in 1972.
They just refuse to leave Clintonism behind and they will continue to lose.
When it came time to elect leadership in the 2017 Congress, the Blues there chose Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi.
The Establishment Blues just can't bring themselves to break with Neoliberalism.
[1] The Electoral College is an anachronism (assuming that it was ever justified).
USA is unique in the world having one of those.
(All other places on the globe chose winners by a popular vote tally.)
If the Big 2 parties won't kill off that remnant of Classism and a slave-owning past (and it is clear that they believe it is NOT in their best interest to do that), then the players have to adopt a strategy that at least acknowledges its existence.
Hillary was claimed to be "experienced", yet she muffed the Electoral College vote.
[2] Hillary changed her -rhetoric- on TPP, minimum wage, etc., but everyone knew her proclivities.
A significant number of Trump voters were mostly voting -against- Hillary.
Like you, I'm pretty sure if it wasn't for the Blues' back-shooting in the primaries, Bernie--especially with a bit of specifics--would have stomped Trump.
...and it's a real shame more folks didn't make an effort to discover Jill Stein and her Green New Deal notion.
polling numbers showing Sanders as being far more popular
In the future, you will need to chose your polls very carefully.
Most were an abysmal failure in 2016.
...and, hey, you can still abandon the Neoliberals and find candidates who are Worker-friendly.
Pretty sure you're going to have to leave the Blues behind to do that.
-- OriginalOwner_ [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Friday March 03 2017, @01:57AM
The Electoral College wouldn't be a bad idea if it weren't for the "winner takes all" system that most states have in place. The Electoral College is analogous to how Congress is made to reflect individual states equally, but give an edge to the ones with more people.
Democrats succeeded in the same strategies that they always pull against liberal third party candidates. I still can't believe they've gotten away with the illegal shit they've done to suppress votes in the past (especially involving Nader).