Marijuana Legalized In Oregon, Alaska, and Washington DC

Robotron23 writes: Coinciding with the midterm elections yesterday were state ballots proposing the legalization of cannabis. All three territories where full legalization was tabled approved the measure, joining Washington state and Colorado. The narrowest vote was that of Alaska at a roughly 52% to 48% margin. Washington D.C. meanwhile saw the vote strongly tipped in favor of legalization, at about 69% to 31% opposed. Oregon passed its measure by a vote of 55% to 45%. Buoyed by the news, advocates of legal cannabis are already contemplating the next round of state ballots in 2016.

Comments

America is a RINO

[TheNastyInThePasty]

Yesterday's election was a message to Washington that America wants conservatives to represent them! Also, they want legalized pot, increased minimum wage, the right to have an abortion, insurance-provided contraception, and required paid time off at work!

Wait, what?

Re:America is a RINO

[gman003]

No, yesterday's election message was "fuck Democrats", just as 2008's was "fuck Republicans". The system just doesn't really allow a message of "fuck BOTH of them", probably because the system was made by both of them.

Re:America is a RINO

[i kan reed]

It's a little more complicated than that.

The republicans gerrymandered the fuck out of the country in 2010. That's not to implicitly forgive any past gerrymanderings by democrats or anything, but the house doesn't even remotely represent the popular sentiment of the country. My states' 2012 elections were more than enough evidence of that. 51% of voters voted for democratic candidates, 9 out of 13 seats went to republicans, with another really close. Nothing has changed since then.

The senate, on the other hand, has always leaned a little disproportionately republican, because low-population, rural-as-hell states are overrepresented by constitutional design. Democratic control of the body is more a fluke than not, even though the soft majority of total votes tends to lean democratic.

The people of this country are more liberal than the government of this country. Not by a huge margin, but a bit.

Re:America is a RINO

[The Ickle Jones]

The system just doesn't really allow a message of "fuck BOTH of them"

It does. It's just that voters are retarded.

Re:Well, let's criminalize Du Pont Nylon now.

[CRCulver]

Yawn. Everytime a story on marijuana comes up on a US-centric site, someone suggests that hemp is a miracle material, and it had to be banned so other industries wouldn't be threatened. If hemp is so great, then why is interest in it so relatively low in the many other industrialized countries around the world where industrial hemp has always been legal and easy to grow, even state-subdizied?

Re:Well, let's criminalize Du Pont Nylon now.

[TubeSteak]

If hemp is so great, then why is interest in it so relatively low in the many other industrialized countries around the world where industrial hemp has always been legal and easy to grow, even state-subdizied?

It's a chicken and egg problem.
There isn't much hemp cultivation, so nobody is designing purpose built harvesting machinery.
And since there isn't any purpose built harvesting machinery, it's much harder to grow hemp on a large scale.

There's also a reality that even though hemp can be used in just about everything, it's not always the best (or currently the cheapest) option.
This could change if hemp harvesting and processing ever catches up on the decades of R&D that synthetics and cotton have received.

Re:But DC is different,no?

[cogeek]

Obama has stated that this issue is not of major concern to him and will not be seeking prosecution.

That's what he's stated, but not what he's done. They've raided several marijuana dispensaries and farms here in Colorado.

How do you know when a politician is lying? When their lips are moving.

Re:But DC is different,no?

[BVis]

What they're really doing when you get forced to take a pre-employment piss test is asserting their power over you, even before they start paying you. You're a criminal/drug addict until you provide a bodily fluid to "prove" otherwise (as urine tests have varying degrees of accuracy). With marijuana especially, they're asserting control over your body (as you could smoke on the first of the month and spike a positive for pot at the end of the month) even during the hours you're not working for them (although, if you're an "exempt" employee, there are no hours that are truly yours; being an "exempt" employee means that you trade having to punch a clock for a fixed salary, no overtime, and the possibility of being required to work 120 hours a week, all legal).

It's time we stood up to our corporate masters and told them "It's none of your fucking business what's in my urine."