>At the time, it had more to do with “who uses the drug than the drug itself,” said Trela.
It was under President Richard Nixon that marijuana was added to the list under the most restricted category – first, only provisionally until more of the science could be settled, Trela said.
Nixon’s racism echoes today. Lots of folks in jail for smoking reefer.
Republicans cause damage for centuries.
I think the DEA Drug Enforcement Agency could make their announcement before the March 7th, 2024 Democrat State of the Union address.
This would highly appeal to the Youth and minority voters.
However, just going to “Schedule 3” is not enough, it needs to be “Deschedueled” by taking Cannabis off the CSA Controlled Substance Act completely.
“We need to join the 21st century and make marijuana legal.” – Elizabeth Warren on Twitter
Don’t need to click to know it’s going to affect prison population thus black people. It’s about money.
The laws around weed in my state are so fucked up. In Atlanta if you get caught with a quarter bag it’s a ticket. But get caught with the same bag 40 mins north, and you’re going to jail for 90 days if you don’t want to pay thousands of dollars for bullshit probation.
Legalize the legal lies!
Because despite all the delusional bullshit Americans spoon-feed themselves about “freedom”, they are incredibly repressed by financial lobbyists working against them.
The entire civilized world has some form of public healthcare – not the US. Too much money to be made scamming the peasants.
Legalize cannabis? No can do. Too much money to be made off imprisoning black people to keep them working in for-profit prisons as slave labourers.
Maternity leave? Holidays? Time off to spend with family? LOL! GTFOH with that “socialism” bullshit – the CEO needs a fourth yacht.
Americans are “free” to think they’re “free”, but that’s about it. NOTHING in America is free – there is a price on it all.
Canada legalized cannabis over 5 years ago and nothing much changed except for the windfall of taxes and the hundreds of jobs it created for budtenders. People who didn’t partake didn’t start and those who do are happy.
The entire war on drugs is 100% based on controlling certain sectors of the population, and maintaining another income stream for the military industrial complex. For the ruling class, it provides another gigantic, bureaucracy into which they can funnel taxpayer dollars.
Legalization of ALL drugs, and overseeing the manufacturing and distribution, would come close to eliminating organized crime in the US. Pouring all the taxes into rehab and education would accomplish more in a year than the war on drugs has in 30 years.
Speaking from direct first-hand experience of Canada’s legalization, I can safely say that the politicians are holding it up because they’re figuring out how to make sure they get all the profits while the little guy gets nothing.
However, as another commenter pointed out, the US version of legalization also has to figure out how to make up the loss of money from the for-profit prison system that is largely filled with non-violent drug offenders.
If the politicians can’t keep the prison money AND add the weed money, they’ll never sign off on legalization.
Cynical take? Maybe.
Correct take? Probably.
I dunno – I figure at least part of the reason is beer, wine and hard liquor lobbyists tossing a bunch of money at politicians to keep weed illegal.
edit: Oh, yeah – I forgot about Big Pharma – they probably don’t want to see weed legalized either 🙂
Shorter answer: There is tons of money to be made in keeping in illegal.
If it becomes federally legal will my city job stop testing for it?
My state still has dry counties. We couldn’t purchase mixed drinks in bars until the 1980s and that took several votes to pass.
Almost 80% of the state population wants legalized marijuana, but we are Gerrymandered and have no referendums. The last legalize marijuana bill would have passed with democratic votes, but Republicans refused to let it go to the floor unless 100% of Republicans were for it.
The legislators pander to their minority religious red rural base and ignore the majority of us.
Because you are millennial or younger. You own nothing and can convince nobody with power to do anything for your benefit. It might make sense but we live in a world of give and take and you have already given everything you have.
They need to come up with a legal limit driving test. Like alcohol.
If Biden promises to legalize it if elected he’s a landslide. Lol
Here’s the real reason. Private prisons and the hedge funds that back them; both Biden and Trump received money from these funds. Police departments and by extension their unions get billions in civil asset forfeiture related to marijuana related arrests. If you have more than an ounce and some sandwich baggies in your house it can be seized. There’s an entire prison/legal industrial complex that thrives around pot being illegal. Judges, DAs, lawyers, investigators, prison wardens and cops make billions off pot being illegal. It’ll never be legal until money gets out of politics.
America claims to be a young country but it has definitely dug in its heels when it comes to laws established decades ago. Much older countries make more frequent changes to their laws and how their governments operate.
Legalizing means freeing many people imprisoned – who were convicted of something that’s no longer a crime.
Freeing that many people hurts the for profit prisons.
Naked corruption
Their fascists and could care less what the outcome of elections are?
It will disrupt systemic segregation through for-profit prisons. Gotta figure that out first!
Conservatives wield outsized power that is influenced by the prison industrial complex who use weed as an excuse to extract labor and wealth from the country to give the wealthy more money.
>!racism.!<
Yeah, we wanted it when Carter was president and guess who stuck their nose in. The religious right and Reagan as their drug czar. Only set us back 5 decades, sound familiar? Had a piss test lately? Only weed would reliably show up.
Because the liquor and tobacco lobbyists have a stranglehold on political cowards
In high school it was easier to get than alcohol. Now I can order it on an app, have it delivered to my door, pay cash, and rinse and repeat in a month.
Just make it like this everywhere.
Even if you wanted to smoke “all the time”, why would that make you a dirtbag. This military made with functional alcoholics from the bottom to the top and some of them are called go getters, and even leaders.
It was made illegal via racist propaganda, there has never been a valid reason.
Gotta move the investment portfolio from the prison industry to the pot industry, shit takes time.
Cuh dey bored
Selective drug enforcement is a tool used to keep poor down and protect the rich. You never hear of police raiding frat houses or Wall Street firms for drugs.
Hint: they don’t want to have to release their slave prison labor by making it legal and having to release those who had minor offenses. I bet CA has a ton of 3 strikes people in prison for life just for weed related charges.
Sorry, that’s not it.
Medical marijuana does not want free market competition. Medical marijuana (big pharma working through shell companies and mobster run pharmaceutical subcontractors) neither wants nor welcomes ‘free market pot’ now that they’ve sewn up the pot market with government approval.
Medical marijuana and “illegal marijuana” are identical – yet government protects and promotes “medical marijuana” and prosecutes those involved with “illegal marijuana”.
They are the same products. The government says one is okay but not the other.
The government has been bribed from front to back to say “medical marijuana is okay and can help you” while also saying “if you use marijuana it is a crime and we will punish you”.
Pretty much the usual bullshit – some corporation buys off a bunch of legislators in order to make their product legal.
Don’t believe me? Now let’s look at the gun lobby…
I also feel like big pharma doesn’t want it legalized because it knows it’ll lose a lot of profit to people using Marijuana instead of overpriced drugs.
Because it lowers the pool of slave legal slaves available.
Cause lobbyist that’s why.
Lobbyists
This article didn’t mention the biggest force against legalizing weed: Big Pharma.
The fact the alcohol; a truly destructive drug, is so prevalent in our society and pot isn’t is insane and I don’t even get high.
The reality is cannabis will never fit inside the drug schedule as the drug scheduling scheme has no mechanism to allow for recreational use of any drug.
It really needs to be tossed over into the other “vices” agency the BATFE which covers stuff that can’t be legal under standard consumer or drug laws.
Legal pot would screw up the vetting for clearance investigations for government and military contractors big time. It’s an exclusive club and weed is a great litmus test when it comes to separating the eagle scouts from the evildoers.
Duh. It’s the GOP. They are too busy wasting time and money fighting non-issues to actually tackle things citizens want. Plus their sky daddy says cannabis is bad so they HAVE to fight it. Bunch of idiots.
Gotta keep filling and building those prisons. There’s money to be made!
Politicians are ridiculously and stupidly old (and I say that as an older male) for politics. They don’t represent our society’s demographics. Further, politically they are overly religious, MAGA, and conservative and again, don’t represent the demographics of society. HOWEVER, they vote as a block and they are loud and proud.
Here in Wisconsin the brewer lobbyists have the republicans controlled state senate by their nads. It’s pathetic, especially when literally every state we border with has legal marijuana in some form.
Because it’s a great way to keep the prison system filled with slave labor
49 comments
>At the time, it had more to do with “who uses the drug than the drug itself,” said Trela.
It was under President Richard Nixon that marijuana was added to the list under the most restricted category – first, only provisionally until more of the science could be settled, Trela said.
Nixon’s racism echoes today. Lots of folks in jail for smoking reefer.
Republicans cause damage for centuries.
I think the DEA Drug Enforcement Agency could make their announcement before the March 7th, 2024 Democrat State of the Union address.
This would highly appeal to the Youth and minority voters.
However, just going to “Schedule 3” is not enough, it needs to be “Deschedueled” by taking Cannabis off the CSA Controlled Substance Act completely.
“We need to join the 21st century and make marijuana legal.” – Elizabeth Warren on Twitter
[https://twitter.com/SenWarren/status/1757537806337835334](https://twitter.com/SenWarren/status/1757537806337835334)
Don’t need to click to know it’s going to affect prison population thus black people. It’s about money.
The laws around weed in my state are so fucked up. In Atlanta if you get caught with a quarter bag it’s a ticket. But get caught with the same bag 40 mins north, and you’re going to jail for 90 days if you don’t want to pay thousands of dollars for bullshit probation.
Legalize the legal lies!
Because despite all the delusional bullshit Americans spoon-feed themselves about “freedom”, they are incredibly repressed by financial lobbyists working against them.
The entire civilized world has some form of public healthcare – not the US. Too much money to be made scamming the peasants.
Legalize cannabis? No can do. Too much money to be made off imprisoning black people to keep them working in for-profit prisons as slave labourers.
Maternity leave? Holidays? Time off to spend with family? LOL! GTFOH with that “socialism” bullshit – the CEO needs a fourth yacht.
Americans are “free” to think they’re “free”, but that’s about it. NOTHING in America is free – there is a price on it all.
Canada legalized cannabis over 5 years ago and nothing much changed except for the windfall of taxes and the hundreds of jobs it created for budtenders. People who didn’t partake didn’t start and those who do are happy.
The entire war on drugs is 100% based on controlling certain sectors of the population, and maintaining another income stream for the military industrial complex. For the ruling class, it provides another gigantic, bureaucracy into which they can funnel taxpayer dollars.
Legalization of ALL drugs, and overseeing the manufacturing and distribution, would come close to eliminating organized crime in the US. Pouring all the taxes into rehab and education would accomplish more in a year than the war on drugs has in 30 years.
Speaking from direct first-hand experience of Canada’s legalization, I can safely say that the politicians are holding it up because they’re figuring out how to make sure they get all the profits while the little guy gets nothing.
However, as another commenter pointed out, the US version of legalization also has to figure out how to make up the loss of money from the for-profit prison system that is largely filled with non-violent drug offenders.
If the politicians can’t keep the prison money AND add the weed money, they’ll never sign off on legalization.
Cynical take? Maybe.
Correct take? Probably.
I dunno – I figure at least part of the reason is beer, wine and hard liquor lobbyists tossing a bunch of money at politicians to keep weed illegal.
edit: Oh, yeah – I forgot about Big Pharma – they probably don’t want to see weed legalized either 🙂
Shorter answer: There is tons of money to be made in keeping in illegal.
If it becomes federally legal will my city job stop testing for it?
[Legalizing marijuana reduces rapes](https://www.reddit.com/r/stoprape/comments/19cvt9j/legalizing_marijuana_reduces_rapes/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3).
Cause we elect 90 year olds, boomers and such
My state still has dry counties. We couldn’t purchase mixed drinks in bars until the 1980s and that took several votes to pass.
Almost 80% of the state population wants legalized marijuana, but we are Gerrymandered and have no referendums. The last legalize marijuana bill would have passed with democratic votes, but Republicans refused to let it go to the floor unless 100% of Republicans were for it.
The legislators pander to their minority religious red rural base and ignore the majority of us.
Because you are millennial or younger. You own nothing and can convince nobody with power to do anything for your benefit. It might make sense but we live in a world of give and take and you have already given everything you have.
They need to come up with a legal limit driving test. Like alcohol.
If Biden promises to legalize it if elected he’s a landslide. Lol
Here’s the real reason. Private prisons and the hedge funds that back them; both Biden and Trump received money from these funds. Police departments and by extension their unions get billions in civil asset forfeiture related to marijuana related arrests. If you have more than an ounce and some sandwich baggies in your house it can be seized. There’s an entire prison/legal industrial complex that thrives around pot being illegal. Judges, DAs, lawyers, investigators, prison wardens and cops make billions off pot being illegal. It’ll never be legal until money gets out of politics.
America claims to be a young country but it has definitely dug in its heels when it comes to laws established decades ago. Much older countries make more frequent changes to their laws and how their governments operate.
Legalizing means freeing many people imprisoned – who were convicted of something that’s no longer a crime.
Freeing that many people hurts the for profit prisons.
Naked corruption
Their fascists and could care less what the outcome of elections are?
It will disrupt systemic segregation through for-profit prisons. Gotta figure that out first!
Conservatives wield outsized power that is influenced by the prison industrial complex who use weed as an excuse to extract labor and wealth from the country to give the wealthy more money.
>!racism.!<
Yeah, we wanted it when Carter was president and guess who stuck their nose in. The religious right and Reagan as their drug czar. Only set us back 5 decades, sound familiar? Had a piss test lately? Only weed would reliably show up.
Because the liquor and tobacco lobbyists have a stranglehold on political cowards
In high school it was easier to get than alcohol. Now I can order it on an app, have it delivered to my door, pay cash, and rinse and repeat in a month.
Just make it like this everywhere.
Even if you wanted to smoke “all the time”, why would that make you a dirtbag. This military made with functional alcoholics from the bottom to the top and some of them are called go getters, and even leaders.
It was made illegal via racist propaganda, there has never been a valid reason.
Gotta move the investment portfolio from the prison industry to the pot industry, shit takes time.
Cuh dey bored
Selective drug enforcement is a tool used to keep poor down and protect the rich. You never hear of police raiding frat houses or Wall Street firms for drugs.
Hint: they don’t want to have to release their slave prison labor by making it legal and having to release those who had minor offenses. I bet CA has a ton of 3 strikes people in prison for life just for weed related charges.
Sorry, that’s not it.
Medical marijuana does not want free market competition. Medical marijuana (big pharma working through shell companies and mobster run pharmaceutical subcontractors) neither wants nor welcomes ‘free market pot’ now that they’ve sewn up the pot market with government approval.
Medical marijuana and “illegal marijuana” are identical – yet government protects and promotes “medical marijuana” and prosecutes those involved with “illegal marijuana”.
They are the same products. The government says one is okay but not the other.
The government has been bribed from front to back to say “medical marijuana is okay and can help you” while also saying “if you use marijuana it is a crime and we will punish you”.
Pretty much the usual bullshit – some corporation buys off a bunch of legislators in order to make their product legal.
Don’t believe me? Now let’s look at the gun lobby…
I also feel like big pharma doesn’t want it legalized because it knows it’ll lose a lot of profit to people using Marijuana instead of overpriced drugs.
Because it lowers the pool of slave legal slaves available.
Cause lobbyist that’s why.
Lobbyists
This article didn’t mention the biggest force against legalizing weed: Big Pharma.
The fact the alcohol; a truly destructive drug, is so prevalent in our society and pot isn’t is insane and I don’t even get high.
The reality is cannabis will never fit inside the drug schedule as the drug scheduling scheme has no mechanism to allow for recreational use of any drug.
It really needs to be tossed over into the other “vices” agency the BATFE which covers stuff that can’t be legal under standard consumer or drug laws.
Legal pot would screw up the vetting for clearance investigations for government and military contractors big time. It’s an exclusive club and weed is a great litmus test when it comes to separating the eagle scouts from the evildoers.
Duh. It’s the GOP. They are too busy wasting time and money fighting non-issues to actually tackle things citizens want. Plus their sky daddy says cannabis is bad so they HAVE to fight it. Bunch of idiots.
Gotta keep filling and building those prisons. There’s money to be made!
Politicians are ridiculously and stupidly old (and I say that as an older male) for politics. They don’t represent our society’s demographics. Further, politically they are overly religious, MAGA, and conservative and again, don’t represent the demographics of society. HOWEVER, they vote as a block and they are loud and proud.
Here in Wisconsin the brewer lobbyists have the republicans controlled state senate by their nads. It’s pathetic, especially when literally every state we border with has legal marijuana in some form.
Because it’s a great way to keep the prison system filled with slave labor