
NY Comptroller: Legalise marijuana, tax it and end wrongheaded war on pot - ingve
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/aug/17/legalise-marijuana-tax-nyc
======
616c
As someone with a friend who, in a different state and different
circumstances, foolishly was detained on a road trip in a state with a strict
no-tolerance policy, was subsequently arrested and tried by some small prick
DA in the middle of nowehre to teach a lesson with his "sorry, I don't make
exceptions because we want to look hard on drugs" apologism, I hope
decriminalization succeeds at least in the short term.

That friend had trouble finding work and grad school for years because this
haunted him, and everyone asks in advance about your criminal record. It was
all over a dime bag, and using crooked legal tactics.

Another friend, reminiscent of an article previously posted here, was in the
Midwest (we grew up on the East Coast) and stopped for a busted headlight.
They then found a negligible amount of weed. He was detained and then arrested
on the spot. He was told he either call his parents, as he was a minor, and to
pay a wopping 1,000 USD fine, or face charges and a court date, in which case
pleading innocent and receiving a guilty verdict would mean doubled fines and
potential jail time. You can guess what his parents did when they got that
phone call in the middle of the night.

And don't worry, they never had a problem scrubbing this from their record, as
youths who had fun. Their record would never ruin their adult (+21) lives, no?

All I have to say is, what the hell is wrong with us as society we penalize
people so harshly (let's not kid, the non-white kids I knew got worse
variations of these stories) for something so much less powerful than alcohol
(I would love to see someone argue with me re this point after four years in
the very wet college environment in contemporary America)?

Screw it. I hope this guy, and those like him win. But there is something so
disgustingly Puritan and fascist, I feel myself working up the "he was a real
reactonary" voice of Big Lebowski, full of snark.

Sorry, end rant.

~~~
bjourne
Why don't employers want to hire people who have smoked weed?

~~~
brazzy
They don't care _what_ the "crime" was, a criminal record just disqualifies
you. It's the same kind of HR idiocy that would forego hiring someone who has
5 years of Rails experience but did not list HTML as a skill, because HTML is
in the checklist.

~~~
bjourne
The reason for that is because HR departments doesn't know the difference
between RoR and HTML and therefore doesn't think someone lacking the latter is
capable of performing the job. Ignorance in other words. Are you claiming it
is the same kind of ignorance that causes companies to not hire weed smokers?

~~~
brazzy
I think both have the same root cause: not ignorance but laziness. Bad HR
people tasked with filtering resumes don't want to hire the best people, they
want to do as little work (and as little thinking) as possible while appearing
to do a useful job.

So they just love rules that filter a lot of resumes, can be applied without
thinking and make superficial sense. Understanding how skills relate is more
work than comparing lists, looking at the specifics of a criminal conviction
is more work that just using it as a binary exclusion criterium.

------
ck2
Most neighborhoods I've lived in my life, people drink too much. Every six
months or so, there is a DUI arrest where a cop has actually followed the
idiot all the way home at (and I've seen people get into/out of the car so
drunk they go to the bathroom on the side of their car).

I don't care if people smoke pot in their apartments. But once it's legal,
it's not going to stop there and I am not sure what can be done about
respecting others, if anything, since that is probably a core problem of
personality far beyond pot smoking.

I worry if everyone is going to be walking around everywhere smoking it
because they don't think anyone is going to stop them. I personally don't care
for it and I suspect my right to not be bothered by it is not going to be
respected in the least.

If there is a solution to making others respect smoking only in their homes,
I'd love to hear it.

~~~
mbrock
"Your right not to be bothered by it" sounds really spurious. Being "bothered"
is an extremely subjective judgment. If we outlaw everything that's
potentially bothersome, that's complete paralysis... It's not a defensible
right. Why should people hide in their homes to partake in something that you
don't personally care for?

~~~
mikeash
Your right to consume drugs (which I fully support) stops when you begin to
pollute the air I breathe.

People shouldn't have to hide in their houses, but neither should they be
allowed to spew smoke where others will breathe it.

The problem is that this is really an air pollution issue but is being painted
as a drugs issue, from both sides. Grandparent poster thinks that air
pollution from portable fires is somehow related to the legal status of
cannabis. Conversely, lots of smokers probably think that efforts to restrict
their ability to pollute is some sort of effort to outlaw their drug.

~~~
wreckimnaked
> Your right to consume drugs (which I fully support) stops when you begin to
> pollute the air I breathe.

Really? The air you breathe is mostly polluted by fossil fuel combustion. We
should by that logic ban cars and power plants, not cigarettes.

~~~
mikeash
We should, _and do_ , heavily regulate those activities. Banning them
altogether is impractical, but we don't just give people carte blanche to dump
whatever they feel like into the air.

------
uptown
Liu is running for mayor, losing badly, and fishing for votes. His campaign
treasurer and a fundraiser were also convicted on fraud charges for
fabricating donor information.

[http://gothamist.com/2013/05/02/john_lius_ex-
campaign_treasu...](http://gothamist.com/2013/05/02/john_lius_ex-
campaign_treasurer_fun.php)

~~~
mason55
Hopefully the pushes De Blasio further in the legalization direction. As of
now he's waffling on even medical marijuana and he's actually the most
conservative of all the Democratic candidates when it comes to marijuana
reform. It's interesting that Speak Quinn is so liberal on the matter given
her ties to Commissioner Kelly and her love of Stop n Frisk

------
alan_cx
What I want to know is why governments support all illegal drug dealing, and
dont get a cut of the action themselves. The illegality is pretty much what
makes it profitable. All the "war" on drugs does is keep the prices up. Mean
while the government just pours our tax money down the drain, get zero in
return.

Legalize it and the government can tax it. Dealers get wiped out, and with
them, a lot of the violence. The tax money raised can pay for a lot of rehab,
and the police can concentrate on actual crime with the saved resources.

I could go on...

~~~
cransa
Because they're already making a lot of money from weed and other drugs being
illegal. It's the prison industrial complex, man. The government isn't
interested in stopping violence. If so, we'd have much saner drug laws. Drug
busts are easy and when you do them the DEA and federal government give you
money to buy shiny toys like tanks and new body armor.

~~~
rayiner
It's phat to blame the prison industrial complex, but they're just taking
advantage of the Puritan strain in American society. Remember, we're a country
that actually passed a Constitutional amendment to make alcohol, even beer,
illegal.

I'm sure the DEA loves the status quo, but that's not where the votes come
from. The votes come from everyone who bought into Nancy Reagan's "Just Say
No" campaign. People like my mom, who thinks pot causes young men to give up
on life and not get jobs or girlfriends and just play video games all day, and
supports keeping it illegal because she thinks that's bad for the country. If
you poll your mom and her friends, I bet you see that viewpoint pretty well-
represented.

~~~
jlgreco
The government runs propaganda campaigns
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Youth_Anti-
Drug_Media_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Youth_Anti-
Drug_Media_Campaign)) to convince people like your mother that drugs are the
worse thing imaginable. Those people then turn around and support the
government in its opposition to drugs.

So why do they want to convince the public that drugs need to be pursued in
the first place? If they were merely responding to pressure from the public,
then that would be one thing, but they are _fueling_ that sentiment. They
_want_ the public to think that way.

Do they want to sway the public because they are themselves 'true believers'?
Or are there less noble motivations?

I suspect it is a combination of both.

~~~
rayiner
As I've said before, I think the power of marketing is less extensive than
regularly believed. If the government could create demand for the drug war,
then Microsoft could've made Windows RT happen...

My mom, who isn't a native English speaker, doesn't consume American media.
And her Indian movies aren't being interrupted by ads for a Drug Free America.

The fact is that prohibition is a natural tendency in many societies. Whether
its Jews not eating shrimp or Muslims not drinking alcohol, prohibitions have
existed since long before modern marketing campaigns. In the U.S., prohibition
of alcohol was not the result of government propaganda and powerful interests,
but a grass roots movement, fully supported by women in particular. Just as
that generation saw alcohol as an attack on their husbands, this generation of
mothers sees marijuana as an attack on their teenagers.

~~~
jlgreco
So your mom _didn 't_ lap up Nancy Reagan's _" Just say no."_?

 _" Just say no"_ was a propaganda campaign and you _rightly_ describe it as
widely influencing the population. _Somebody_ told your mom that _" pot causes
young men to give up on life and not get jobs or girlfriends and just play
video games all day"_, she didn't dream that up all by herself.

~~~
tptacek
Um, I hate to be the one to tell you this, but pot really does cause some
young men to "give up on life" (whatever that means) and not get jobs or
girlfriends and just play video games all day.

There actually is a such thing as a stoner. I don't hate them or want to
outlaw them or anything, but they do exist. Nancy Reagan didn't invent them.

~~~
jlgreco
Typical strawman from tptacek; I am not disputing that pot, alcohol,
television, or plain laziness sometimes cause people to become burntout bums.
The myth is that all, or even most, people who smoke pot become burnout hippy
bums and that it is a phenomenon uniquely caused by pot.

You are both absolute lunatics if you think government run propaganda
campaigns have nothing to do with that perception.

Let's review:

1) rayiner describes the 'status quo' as stereotyping pot users, calls out
media campaigns as one cause of this, and calls out his mother specifically as
an example of this.[1]

2) _I agree with rayiner_.[2]

3) rayiner does not like it when people agree with him, and backpedals.[3]

4) I call him out for backpedaling.[4]

5) You "jump into the fray" damn near a day after rayiner's comment with a red
herring large enough to make a professional fisherman blush.

 _Try reading the goddamn conversation before tagging in for your buddy._

[1] _" The votes come from everyone who bought into Nancy Reagan's "Just Say
No" campaign. People like my mom, who thinks pot causes young men to give up
on life and not get jobs or girlfriends and just play video games all day, and
supports keeping it illegal because she thinks that's bad for the country."_

[2] _" The government runs propaganda campaigns
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Youth_Anti-
Drug_Media_...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Youth_Anti-
Drug_Media_...)) to convince people like your mother that drugs are the worse
thing imaginable. Those people then turn around and support the government in
its opposition to drugs."_

[3]
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6233377](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=6233377)

[4] _" So your mom didn't lap up Nancy Reagan's "Just say no."?"_

~~~
rayiner
You're taking my comment about Nancy Reagan out of context and putting words
in my mouth by characterizing it as propaganda. The sentence before that was
"It's phat to blame the prison industrial complex, _but they 're just taking
advantage of the Puritan strain in American society_."

I don't think "Just Say No!" _created_ the demand for drug prohibition nor do
I think it is propaganda. I think for most people who push the message, Nancy
Reagan included, it is a genuine and organic sentiment, consistent with
Americam Puritanism. When I say my mom and others "bought in" to the message,
I don't mean that government propaganda convinced them to believe something
they would otherwise not. Rather, I think what you have is a group of voters
with Puritan tendencies and authoritarian dispostitions who "bought in" and
got behind a program that plays to those characteristics.

I think chalking it up to propaganda is short sighted, because it punts on the
issue of how to convince the electorate. It makes it seem like if the
propaganda went away, the drug war would go away. But the fact is that my mom
and many people like her believe its the governments job to keep people from
doing harmful things to themselves. They see drugs (along with alcohol and sex
and a raft of other things) as something the government should regulate for
the betterment of society. The culture associated with marijuana use, which is
in many respects antithetical to what tjhey think is healthy for society,
reinforces their belief that it should be made illegal, for people's own good.

Look, we live in a country where until recently I couldn't buy beer on Super
Bowl Sunday in downtown Atlanta. A place where you can be arrested for walking
down the street with a cup of beer. It's not big money and the DEA
perpetuating that status quo. It's grass roots. You think the voters who
passed blue laws all over the country need propaganda to decide people
shouldn't be allowed to get baked?

------
shoo
"David Simon, creator of The Wire, says new US drug laws help only 'white,
middle-class kids'"

[http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/25/the-wire-
creato...](http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/may/25/the-wire-creator-us-
drug-laws)

~~~
jlgreco
I don't get it. Marijuana laws are used against minorities all the time, not
just middle class white kids[1]. Furthermore he talks of decriminalization as
the solution, not legalization. Plenty of states have already decriminalized
marijuana , but only two have legalized
([http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decriminalization_of_non-
medici...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decriminalization_of_non-
medicinal_marijuana_in_the_United_States)). Decriminalization allows the state
to continue using pot as a weapon against the people, legalization doesn't to
any appreciable degree.

I get that he wants the whole thing to fall at once _(but at the same time
wants decriminalization, not legalization?)_ , but that simply isn't something
that we can accomplish in any foreseeable future, not for several more decades
at least. Just getting the public to turn around on pot (something that is
genuinely mild, not physically addictive, and is _plainly_ mis-classified as
Schedule I) has taken a _ton_ of effort. Furthermore the only reason that
effort has been so successful is because pot is so widely used; somewhere
around half of all Americans have smoked pot at some point in their life. You
don't have any sort of similar base on which to launch a publicity campaign
for crack _(in the specific case of crack, at least we 've got the Fair
Sentencing Act. Certainly a good start, but that has a hell of a long way to
go)._

[1] Per TFA: _" Since Mayor Bloomberg took office in 2002, there have been
almost 460,000 misdemeanor marijuana arrests. And while blacks and Hispanics
make up 45% of pot smokers in New York City, they account for 86% of
possession arrests."_ Saying that legalization of pot only helps middle class
white kids is just plain wrong. It is _so_ stunningly wrong that it seems
almost _maliciously_ so.

~~~
saraid216
I think part of his point is that, for "10-12%" of Americans, these laws
actually make them go from unemployed in the official sense to actually having
no meaningful income in the literal sense. In other words, it will make many
bad situations even worse.

> As a result, "drugs are the only industry left in places such as Baltimore
> and east St Louis" – an industry that employs "children, old people, people
> who've been shooting drugs for 20 years, it doesn't matter. It's the only
> factory that's still open. The doors are open."

I'm certainly not going to agree that that's a reason not to do what we have,
but that race/poverty line point he's making isn't just about arrests.

~~~
jlgreco
Those arrests cause broken families and drive away potential employers. The
arrests are absolutely key.

If anything, keeping other drugs illegal while legalizing marijuana would
provide a transition period for those impoverished drug dealers, a transition
period that would be unavailable if the whole deal fell with one blow as he
seems to desire.

~~~
saraid216
> If anything, keeping other drugs illegal while legalizing marijuana would
> provide a transition period for those impoverished drug dealers, a
> transition period that would be unavailable if the whole deal fell with one
> blow as he seems to desire.

Or we could fix poverty.

~~~
jlgreco
Certainly we should try that, but keeping pot illegal so that poor people can
continue to sell it isn't a solution by any means.

~~~
saraid216
> I'm certainly not going to agree that that's a reason not to do what we have

~~~
jlgreco
Aye. I think we don't disagree.

------
antihero
It is utterly disgusting that the government feels that they can tell us what
to do when there is pretty much zero effect on other people.

I can sort of understand government intervention for harder more addictive
drugs, though it is horrendously misguided and broken (focus should be on
rehabilitation), however for stuff like weed, MDMA, speed, even Ketamine or
shrooms, the government has no fucking business locking people up for using,
selling, or creating these drugs until they actually commit some sort of crime
that affects people.

------
corporalagumbo
Looks like the tide is really turning on legalisation - more and more
political rats are turning over and claiming they have always been in favour
of legalisation. Tacky, but still a sign of progress.

~~~
dalek_cannes
But will it bring back hemp? America lost a billion dollar crop when it lost
hemp:
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemp#Uses](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemp#Uses)

~~~
coreyja
In colorado with Amendment 64 there is a distinction between Hemp and
marijuana. So one can safetly grow hemp for use in papers or bracelets or
whatever else you want. It isn't regulated like Marijuana will be.

For those who are unaware, it is possible to grow hemp that does not contain
the THC that gives people a high which is found in marijuana. Though I suspect
most people here already know that.

------
pr0xy
If they did legalize it, what would happen to the thousands sitting in jail /
probation for pot offenses. Oh were sry, it's ok now?

~~~
jlgreco
Hopefully, yes. I think that pardons would be in order for those convicted of
only pot offenses _(carrying an illegal handgun while also dealing would of
course not be pardoned)_.

In reality I expect we would let them continue to rot in jail since they were
technically breaking the law at the time.

~~~
harshreality
_carrying an illegal handgun while also dealing would of course not be
pardoned_

Why? If dealing pot shouldn't be a crime, why should being prepared to defend
yourself with a handgun while dealing pot be a crime?

I don't understand the "illegal" qualifier. Isn't it always illegal to carry a
handgun when dealing pot? Isn't having a handgun while committing a federal
crime also a federal crime?

Obviously there are drug dealers who are aggressively violent, but if they
haven't been caught for being aggressively violent why should they be punished
as if they were? What other aspects of "innocent until proven guilty" should
we do away with?

Even violent drug dealers represent a philosophical problem. Practically I
don't think I'm willing to support letting them out of prison, but rationally
I have some sympathy for some of them. Their involvement in the drug market
shouldn't be a crime, and the violence in that profession is almost always due
to the fact that it's a black market, with extremely high profit to be made
and no legal protection against getting ripped off.

Their aggressive violence is not something to be condoned or accepted in
society, but neither are laws that establish black markets that lead to such
violence. Drug criminalization advocates claim all sorts of reasons why
they're not at fault, from drug dealers being inherently evil due to bad
parenting or genetics or whatever, to proximity to the criminal act and free
will (no doubt legislators are further removed from the crime than the drug
dealer who pulls the trigger). But who's really more at fault? The socially
marginalized drug dealer from a relatively poor background who probably had
poor schooling, who gets caught up in drug dealing, and who kills someone
because his drug organization needs him to? Or a legislator with (supposedly)
much more wisdom, who nevertheless votes to create a black market that leads
to conditions where violence is commonplace?

I'm not condoning the violence. I simply think the root cause is not the drugs
or the guns, or even the drug dealers themselves. Scapegoating gun-carrying
drug dealers for the violence is just that... scapegoating. I think it's
ultimately unproductive if we want to fix the problem.

~~~
jlgreco
Because carrying an illegal/unlicnesed handgun in NYC, with our without also
being a drug dealer, is, well, illegal. Maybe that isn't right, but that is
the reality of that situation.

If this were Vermont that we were talking about, then the situation would be
different.

~~~
harshreality
I take a strongly libertarian view of that issue. Not only should gun carry by
itself not be a crime, but the only reason most of these drug dealers carry
guns is because they are in a business where the legal system won't protect
them, not to mention the reason they usually get caught carrying guns is that
they were also involved in drug dealing. Cops go looking for drugs, and they
find drugs and guns. If they weren't looking for drugs, they mostly wouldn't
find guns either.

We're talking about a hypothetical ideal legal policy with regard to drugs,
right? Why the return to the status quo the moment guns are in the picture?

~~~
jlgreco
My thinking here is that NY changing their pot laws seems more plausible than
them changing their gun laws... Certainly changing pot laws is what is being
proposed here, not gun laws.

------
bdcravens
It's important to note that it's not "free the weed, man!"

It would be grown by government approved vendors and taxed. Private growing
would likely be illegal. Sales by non-government approved vendors would likely
be illegal. I'm certain the government would allow allow a single FDA approved
variety: you wouldn't see the higher powered varieties or growing techniques.
It would more highly regulated than cigarettes or alcohol. I have no clue
about the number of how all this would work out, but it could be more
expensive than it is now.

If you get caught with a cheaper variety, or more powerful variety, etc, then
what? Probably the same thing that happens today. After all, you _can_ get
arrested for carrying around prescription drugs that aren't properly labeled;
you'd probably see the same thing with government marijuana. Moreover, you can
then be charged with tax evasion.

~~~
moocowduckquack
That isn't what has happened with amendment 64 in Colorado. You can grow up to
six plants for personal use, no licence required. Funnily enough, the current
situation of having legalised personal use without legalising trade is very
similar to what was proposed by Hunter S. Thompson when he was running for
Sheriff of Aspen.

~~~
bdcravens
I'm only responding to the article, and the comptroller's proposal, which is
independent of actions taken in Colorado.

4th paragraph: _under my proposal, only adults age 21 and over would be
allowed to possess up to one ounce of marijuana – which would be grown,
processed, and sold by government-licensed businesses for recreational or
medicinal purposes._

As written, this seems to imply those licenses won't be issue arbitrarily to
individuals.

~~~
jlgreco
I am not familiar with the Colorado system, but that sounds similar to the
Washington system. In order to grow or sell you need to buy a license
(available in November I believe). This system is not going to restrict
strains or products in any meaningful way. No more so than government issued
licenses for medical grow ops have restricted strains... As most here are
probably aware, the existence of government licensed growers has had the
_opposite_ effect as what you are hypothesising.

I _believe_ Colorado has commercial growers obtain a license as well, though I
cannot say that for sure.

~~~
zevyoura
There's an excellent overview of Colorado's system in this Fresh Air
interview: [http://www.npr.org/2012/11/13/164981433/legalizing-and-
regul...](http://www.npr.org/2012/11/13/164981433/legalizing-and-regulating-
pot-a-growth-industry)

Colorado has the most strictly regulated system anywhere, including the
ability to trace all retail sales back to the plant they were grown on, 24
hour video surveillance of all legal growers, and background checks that
should eliminate most of the criminal element in the trade (which is a huge
problem in California).

~~~
jlgreco
Gotcha. And correct me if I'm wrong, but I believe that the pot scene is
diverse and thriving despite this. Certainly not a _" government growers only
selling shitty government cheese^W^W ditch weed"_ situation.

------
smewpy
Yet another datapoint that marijuana vaporizers are a great bet for a hardware
startup.

~~~
threeseed
Any basic hardware like this is quickly commoditised by the China
manufacturing machine. So no. It isn't a great bet for a hardware startup.

~~~
omarchowdhury
The Chinese can't turn branding into a commodity.

------
fingerprinter
It obviously bothers me that marijuana is still illegal, but I'm more upset
about the lack of marijuana medical research in the past. I'm glad the medical
establishment is looking into it more these days. It is just sad it took so
long for them to come around b/c of the stigma.

The next thing I'm also very, very upset with is the still illegal nature of
hormonal supplementation _. People say free the weed? I say free the
testosterone and hgh. If anything will give people longer, healthier and more
productive lives, it is those.

_ Note: I know TRT and HRT are becoming big business in the US, but it is
still quite difficult to actually get these without the right insurance.

------
newnewnew
It looks like hacker news is in favor of legalizing marijuana.

~~~
e40
Perhaps that's because technical people tend to look at facts when they
analyze a situation?

~~~
pravda
Ummm...also because they like to get toasted.

I think this plan is discriminatory.

"under my proposal, only adults age 21 and over would be allowed to possess up
to one ounce of marijuana"

Why shouldn't 18-20 year olds have the right to blaze up? Those are the prime
toking years.

~~~
jchrisa
These are the years it's most likely to tip certain folks over the precipice
into mental illness. A tiny minority are at risk, but those are the years.

~~~
Zigurd
There is a whole industry of Drug War sponsored quack science that is no more
legit than tobacco company sponsored "science."

~~~
threeseed
There is plenty of objective, non-sponsored research that shows marijuana to
have at least in some cases a negative effect. But nice work blanketing all of
the research you disagree with as illegitimate.

~~~
Zigurd
I painted it as illegitimate because it is. ONDCP does propaganda, not
science.

~~~
tzs
[http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/08/22/1206820109.abst...](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2012/08/22/1206820109.abstract)

~~~
Zigurd
Subsequently debunked as an uncontrolled study. That's a prime example of the
kind of research and researchers bought by ONDCP.

~~~
tzs
Citation for this debunking?

~~~
Zigurd
Here:
[http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/01/09/1215678110.abst...](http://www.pnas.org/content/early/2013/01/09/1215678110.abstract)

And, as a bonus, here is a debunking of a similar, and similarly widely touted
study that made it into the Lancet.
[http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19560900](http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19560900)

The point is: The whole purpose of these heavily funded studies is to
penetrate mainstream journals. They were hyped in the mainstream press with
the full weight of government behind the press blitz.

------
northwest
The thing is, the owners of the private prisons want to get richer and invest
serious money so their cells are kept as full as possible:

[http://www.republicreport.org/2012/marijuana-lobby-
illegal/](http://www.republicreport.org/2012/marijuana-lobby-illegal/)

See "2.) Private Prisons Corporations"

Lobbying is legalized corruption, in most cases.

It's obvious that we need to get rid of it if we want to fix the country.

------
conformal
it's been pretty apparent to me for some time now that "the war on drugs" is
actually a mechanism to drive _up_ the price of street drugs, and i would go
so far as to claim this is done intentionally.

without ridiculously stiff penalties for drug crimes, the sky-high premium
placed on the drugs themselves would be unreasonable. a higher price on street
drugs leads to a similar near-linear relationship with the amount of USD
exported outside the US. in this way "the war on drugs" is actually a
mechanism to increase demand and circulation of the USD.

softening the penalties for drug "crimes" makes a lot of sense, just look at
portugal and other areas that have decriminalized/legalized possession of
small amounts of drugs. i hope the US continues along the current vector of
softening its approach with drug "crimes".

------
asgard1024
I am for legalization of drugs, but at the same time, advertising them should
be made illegal.

I am worried about commercialization of it. Look at the tobacco industry and
its lies.

------
Daniel_Newby
I support more strict laws against marijuana.

Why? To give the IQ ≤ 100 voters something scary but harmless to criminalize.
We know what happens when you criminalize pot, and it ain't that bad.

Create a punishment vacuum and they will cook up some mad new criminalization
scheme, as surely as the dog returns to its vomit. The FSM only knows what
insanity they will foist on us. Maybe they'll recriminalize condoms, it got so
many votes last time. Inflation busting is always popular too, nearly made FDR
president for life.

