Still brand new, but alternate real time rails are available [1] [2]. I know that finding banking in the cannabis space can be...challenging. Hopefully policy gets fixed soon [3].
To be fair, this is just debt cards. While I don't approve of them blocking this at all, I am guessing there was also a bit of fraud involved, even with the pin numbers.
On a more personal level, I'm not sure why people would use anything other than cash to buy weed... who wants these companies tracking you anyway.
Update: The comments below prompted me to look a bit further into my fraud speculation... quick google search found this:
Thanks for the link. I was scratching my head trying to figure out the evident disparate treatment (Why not Visa? Why not credit cards?) but that explained a lot.
The basic problem here is that it's not 'lawful', it's just mostly quietly ignored by the feds because people would riot if they actively did much about it. It's hardly surprising that big financial companies would want to be completely disassociated from the situation.
I disagree. You can buy marijuana openly in a very nice brick and mortar store less than six blocks from the White House, and 8 blocks from United States Capitol. It's openly advertised. This is just a government trying to maintain control.
An un-enforced felony is still a federal crime, you just know your not going to get in trouble for it… The thing is MasterCard and Visa as part of being allowed by various laws, are not allowed to facilitate people making money from committing federal crimes… which the businesses selling (state) legal cannabis are doing.
It’s pretty simple. They either need federal legislation to say it’s ok for them to be doing this, or it needs to stop being a federal crime, otherwise they are legally required to do exactly what they are doing.
By your right about it being government control stuff, psychological resistance to letting go of the War on Drugs is pretty high, and unless it changes it’s going to remain in the current status quo until enough of them get too old to hold their seats in the House/Senate and new people with less fossilised opinions get to vote on legislation regarding the topic.
A more cynical interpretation is that normally non-enforced laws are a great way for the government to provide extra pressure when desired. It's not just stodgy politicians, but massive federal agencies with vested interest keeping the status quo. Say the FBI wants info from a person and can use recreational Marijuana procession as a nice leverage point, etc.
Well, that's the whole problem, from the feds' point of view they are not operating lawfully. I'm no fan of the Visa/MC duopoly but from a legal point of view they don't really have a choice here.
Not a lawyer, but I’d strongly suspect that funds flows crossing state lines and using Federal Reserve wire transfers for settlement would make Fed jurisdiction quite possible.
Might surprise you to learn there is precedent to refute that. Flow of money isn’t material to the law: flow of good and staying within State boundaries is the point.
Wickard v. Filburn (1942) pretty much blew away any limitation on the federal government’s use of the commerce clause. In that case even a farmer’s subsistence crop of wheat for personal use was found to be in violation of a federal wheat quota because such activity in aggregate could hypothetically affect national prices. If that can be regulated as interstate commerce surely all cannabis production and consumption can as well.
That amendment only covers medical usage, not recreational. And it only applies to the justice department’s enforcement of the laws, doesn’t actually change the law. Federal banking regulators are unaffected, for example.
You probably never dealt with payment processing - otherwise you'd know nearly all payment processing reject and close account of perfectly fine legally operating businesses.
And very often without any explanations. Sometimes even without releasing acquired funds, like the last street robber (looking at paypal).
Let aside saying that whole industry is drowning in endless useless KYCs, often requiring documents on your grand grand mother, may gods treat her soul well.
It is really irritating that debit cards get treated as second class payment. It was particularly galling that the IRS wouldn't accept them as ID confirmation for corona stimulus. Ultimately, US debit cards can use the same credit charge rails. It's just silly turf wars that make them sporadically unusable.
And making cards legal tender would be quite absurd, since it would require anyone being owed any money to get a terminal and card acceptance contract in case their debtor decides to collect some credit card points.
Debit is problematic at gas stations and some stores that prompt you to select debit or credit and then lock you out if you select debit.
You don't see MasterCard threatening to cut off credit payments here. That's unequal treatment. If their issue is really with federal compliance they should cut off all payment processing. What they really want is the sweet merchant fees they lose out on when debit payment is used.
> Debit is problematic at gas stations and some stores that prompt you to select debit or credit and then lock you out if you select debit.
Merchants aren’t required to let you make that choice, so this is probably a misconfigured terminal.
And if a debit card works when you press “credit”, what’s the issue? There is almost never a benefit to you for making that (quite technical) choice yourself.
To clarify further, no cannabis seller can accept debit cards as a payment method. Instead they can certify their machines as mobile ATM providers that just happen to let you withdraw an amount of cash that just happens to be approximately the same amount of money you might happen to want to pay to the person holding the mobile ATM terminal plus a modest tip. (Yes, really, this is how the industry functions).
Here even contactless payment on debit works perfectly well on any gas station. Show card, maximum of 50€ gets charged. Then fill up either you get only 50€ worth of gas or soon enough the sum is lowered to what you got...
LexisNexis has a service for accessing electronic police reports for a fee. New York requires parties to a report to have free access. The process you follow involves purchasing the report to confirm your ID and then that is refunded. A debit card works for that.
There is no problem using debit anywhere in the US as well. In fact in lots of places (like gas stations and small restaurants) you get a discount for using debit cards over credit.
Cannabis businesses and banking and payments is a real land mine right now. It is still illegal at the Federal level, and the States all have different laws.
What companies are trying to do is ensure transactions don’t potentially cross into a realm where the Feds or a State where cannabis is still illegal could potentially claim jurisdiction and go after the banks / payment companies.
Some banks and other financial institutions are trying to court these businesses, but they have to do it with carefully vetted business structures and infrastructure to keep them as legally safe as possible.
Story time: A former coworker's brother got hired in Colorado as a dispensary's first CFO. He soon discovered that employees were making cash pickups every day from their locations using their personal cars - which isn't good for the personal safety of the employees, and way too tempting for theft by the employees. He called a couple of armored car companies - none of which wanted his business. They were concerned over the possibility of mingling his cash with that of other businesses, and the banks (who were their main customers) objecting. Banks, being federally regulated, are not allowed to take deposits from cannabis businesses, even accidentally.
So he started a subsidiary armored car business that only served the cannabis market.
One of the banks I have worked with have done something similar, they are targeting cannabis businesses entirely through a dedicated subsidiary that is firewalled from the rest of the organization.
This feels like a step back in the opposite direction. Surely they've assessed the cost of lobbying the government vs the loss of revenue from banning payments?
"THREAD: It’s official. Today, I am formally announcing my plan to decriminalize marijuana at the federal level. It’s time we allow states, once and for all, to have the power to decide what works best for them."
The Republicans are pretty clear in what they want to ruin no hiding behind the curtain. That sort of honesty is something. They are terrible but at least they dont really play as many games as Democrats. They scare you into voting for Democrats and then the Democrats disappoint you so much that you stop voting. Thats how the system works.
I kinda see what you're getting at, but the way the Republicans get there is through a lot of theatrics and manipulation. I mean how many times has MTG or Gates shown up to a congressional meeting, given their sound clip, and then just left? While the new members have been doing more of this, there was the whole Tea Party thing, Trump (look at how many sitting congressmen hated him in 2015 and then flipped), or the whole "I have a snowball, lol what's global warming" like stunts. It's a different kind of theatrics, but it is still theatrics.
But I'll give you this, you're right that Republicans aren't trying to play some 4D chess. That Democrats are, but doing so with five heads. It's all theater and it is hard to watch.
I don't really get the point of states regulating a substance. That sounds like a recipe for crossed incentives, smuggling, and bad faith.
It's bad enough for alcohol, and we do have a whole federal department to manage it. Why not just let the 21st century be the 21st century, with planes and roads that make state lines practically meaningless.
The US was more intended to be not too dissimilar from say the EU. The fed grew and took more power, but that was part of "the grand experiment." I'm not saying one way is right or wrong, but this is why people frame things as state issues. I mean we are talking about states with the land mass and economic worth of European countries.
Horse shit. We tried the loose federation thing and it nearly led to the end of the US before it really even started. The point of the constitution was a strong federal government. The supremacy clause is extremely clear that anything the feds make a law on IS the law, no matter what an individual state wants.
Yes and the period of what was essentially Governor run Fiefdoms of states was EVEN WORSE than the articles of confederation at building a state that wasn't going to have constant petty land struggles internally. A significant part of the building of the US was convincing those governors to give up their total power in exchange for survival. It was literally "We either come together and be strong or die separately"
Maybe regulate the substances, but regulating the interstate trade of those substances which can be significant is certainly Constitutional. Sure, the power over interstate trade has also been stretched, but that is ubiquitous across all products.
Not just stretched, but convoluted beyond recognition. The prohibitionists were a bit fanatical but at least they did it properly and passed an amendment for it.
"Amendment X. The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the states, are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people."
The Federal government should only exercise enumerated powers. Thomas Jefferson struggled with the Louisiana Purchase because buying land is not an enumerated power. Of course this document also has a Necessary and Proper Clause and an Interstate Commerce Clause.
In practice judges on special courts decide if they value drug prohibition or the semi-sovereignty of states more.
- 59% of Americans believe it should be legal for recreational and medical
- 30% believe should be legal for medical only
- 10% don't want legalization
([0] for source) At the very least decriminalize it and reduce the schedule. Let states handle it if you want. Just do SOMETHING.
Clearly our representatives are not aligned with our values. The only age group that doesn't support it is 75+ (18% rep, 30% ind, 51% dem). House's median age: 58, Senate's: 65 [1]
I don't care what side of the isle you sit on, there is an abundance of issues that the people are in agreement upon, and have been for years, and our politicians still fight against and claim it is the other side preventing them from resolving. The party isn't the issue, it's who's hosting.
> our politicians still fight against and claim it is the other side preventing them from resolving. The party isn't the issue, it's who's hosting
It could also be the guests. A bill was entered into the last Congress [1]. It failed to generate excitement. A lighter version has been entered into this one [2].
If you care about this issue, call or write to your electeds and let them know this is something that could motivate you to turn out to their next primary or general.
Sure, I'm not going to say there aren't plenty of guests at the problems. But the hosts are making a lot of rules that are wildly held as unpopular and "dumb." I'm not surprised when guests get rowdy when hosts are treating them poorly and enforcing weird rules.
Fwiw, I do contact my representatives about multiple issues.
Excitement? Congress is now a needy manager who needs to be told they are doing a good job?
Also, Wikipedia has to say this about the vote[0]:
> Following debate on the House floor on December 3, a vote was scheduled for December 4,[17] when the bill passed with a 228–164 majority, mostly along party lines, marking the first time a chamber of Congress approved legislation to end federal marijuana prohibition.[18] 222 Democrats voted for the bill, while Cheri Bustos, Henry Cuellar, Conor Lamb, Dan Lipinski, Chris Pappas, and Collin Peterson were the six Democrats voting against.[19] 158 Republicans voted against the bill, while Matt Gaetz, Brian Mast, Tom McClintock, Denver Riggleman, and Don Young were the five Republicans voting in favor.[20] The sole Libertarian in the House, Justin Amash, also voted for the bill.[19]
> Congress is now a needy manager who needs to be told they are doing a good job?
Yes. Elected representatives, like everyone else, respond to incentives. Pointing to inbounds is one way an e.g. Congressperson can convince a Senator that the issue has pickup.
As the article and above comment allude, the states do not currently have enough authority for legalization at the state level to be meaningful in many contexts. Until the federal level restrictions are removed it doesn't matter if 100% of states legalize it for recreational use, many of the problems still exist.
> Meaningful enough that whole businesses have been based on it.
What's the highest valuation of any of those companies? Now what percentage of MasterCard's current 380 billion market cap or Visa's 485 billion market cap is that?
There's other factors with porn at play that have been discussed. But yeah, I don't think a multi-hundred billion dollar company is going to risk having all its assets seized for engaging in activities that are considered illegal by the federal government. Small companies can take this risk. These aren't the same.
Honestly that figure makes the argument of legalization more compelling. Taxes
Fwiw, my argument is that compared to Visa or Mastercard, you weren't going to find a company that has anywhere near the valuation. You're still well under 1% of either of them, and pointing to a company that's been around just under a decade. I'm not saying they aren't big, just that the risk to Visa and Mastercard is very high and it would be idiotic to risk all that just to accept payments for weed.
Businesses were based off of it when it was completely illegal at all levels too, they just couldn't be as public about it. These businesses are still limited quite heavily by the lack of federal legalization, and in more ways than just payment processing.
> especially if like you alluded to, weighting by voter participation.
I don't think this is nearly as bad as everyone internalizes. Voting by age (with weed positions at the side by full/med only/illegal) is
- 51% for 18-24 (72/20/7 age 18-29)
- 63% for 25-44 (62/26/10 age 30-49)
- 71% for 45-64 (54/34/11 age 50-64)
- 76% for 65-74 (53/34/10)
- 72% for 75+ (30/51/16)
There is a correlation, but literally only one group has a <50%, and it is still 81% for medical. There's still a HUGE disalignment no mater what age demographic we're discussing. It's not old people, it is old people who are in politics.
Edit: forgot to cite the census other numbers are from the same pew above
You provided a lot of very precise numbers that you pulled from some source you researched, but you didn’t share that source with us so your numbers are useless.
I think it's also a pretty big thing to unwind, right?
Do they keep all the people who are in the system because of something related to weed in, or do you let them go? Do they assume culpability for fines, imprisonment, damages, defamation...
I'd say it seems to be in the best interest of the ruling class to orchestrate a slow deflation. States legalize it against the will of the federal government, this gets people out of the system for related charges. After some critical mass they homologate it with alcohol/tobacco and there's no catastrophic secondary motion. In the linked maps, many of the areas with the highest drug use, which I assume predicts potsmoking rates, also so happen to be the ones which have elected to legalize in some capacity. Whether that stands up to statistical tests of significance is another matter...
Anyways, these policies were put into action by the federal government, repealing them may appear to be an admission of fault - and fault that appearing increasingly to have retarded important research on a number of candidates for a variety of therapies while also crushing countless thousands of lives for behaviors that are, I (and I think many others) would argue, fundamental to humans.
> Do they keep all the people who are in the system because of something related to weed in, or do you let them go?
Easy, you let them go. You shouldn't be in jail for something that is legal. Now, if there's more to the crime than possession (and honestly I don't personally care about distribution), then that's a different story. But that different story needs to include something that is illegal with current laws.
Which like... If you were a prisoner for instance, how do you think you'd feel if they pretty much admitted that "Hey, we were wrong, we put you up for x years."
Personally I think it makes it tantamount to false imprisonment and a miscarriage of justice, and blatantly admitting to fault with no reluctance whatsoever.
Not to mention in any cases where it the crime was registered as - felonious we're talking the restoration of rights to these folks.
But then there's damages. I was refused an entry level job at a convenience store over possession/consumption charges which at the time had occurred 4 years prior. Those were misdemeanor charges. How many people have had their balls busted over "trafficking of a controlled substance" because they were on an interstate, wound up with a felony charge, probation, prison/jail time, and a record that haunted them for years. I went straight because I had a decent job laid in my lap that turned a blind eye to my record - a lot of people in a lot of places won't have that opportunity.
And if they acknowledge that, then they'll also have to acknowledge that they were also reasonably at fault for poor outcomes which proceeded from their intervention. You go into the College of Criminals with an AS in potsmoking and graduate with a PhD in dealing meth and an MS in criminal violence - no surprise the recidivism rate is so high.
> Do they keep all the people who are in the system because of something related to weed in, or do you let them go?
That's something each state will have to decide the Feds (Biden) have already allowed you to be pardoned [1] but a Presidential Pardon only applies to federal crimes so if a state convicted you (quite common!) then it does nothing.
By default, if an action you did was illegal at the time of performance & conviction then you'll remain in prison if the action becomes legal later on and won't be a valid basis of appeal. Your only hope is for a pardon.
> Jurisdiction legality across the US population is 48% recreational [1] and 28% medical only [2].
So 76% approval. Seems like more than ample popularity for the fed to at minimum let the states handle it. I mean states, and even counties handle alcohol.
The issue isn't the states though, it's the fact that it's still scheduled (and thus completely illegal) at the federal level. So those states that have legalized it are in a bit of a gray area: the past few presidents have basically said they won't enforce anything, but that's not exactly the most stable legal foundation on which to build. Especially if you're, say, a multi-billion dollar payment processor.
If the popular consensus is that this is something that should be left up to the states, then federal legislation to that effect should be passed. The status quo is clearly farcical.
That said, my state has technically issued licenses for exactly two (2) dispensaries, and yet there's one on every corner. All of which accept card. So I have my doubts as to whether this is anything other than CYA by Mastercard.
Porn is legal and they still blackball it. Legalisation won't help this particular problem. The problem is having a cartel/duopoly for digital payment processing.
I'm not going to disagree with your main point but the legal status does jeopardize any payment processing system. So it's at least a part of the issue that has to be resolved before we can talk about yours.
The situation is more nuanced than that. Porn is sold online which introduces fraud issues. Much more importantly though it has an extremely (extremely!) high chargeback rate due to partners seeing a bill, confronting the payer, and then that payer claiming the charges are unauthorized and doubling down instead of admitting the purchase.
Cannabis is physical retail with the most stringent ID verifications of any purchase in US history, so the fraud issue is almost nonexistent.
I think the whole chargeback thing is a bullshit excuse - it’s the customers that are abusing the chargeback, not the businesses. Why should they suffer for it. If a customer abuses the chargeback feature, punish them, not an entire sector of industry. It’s lenders like Visa being precious about their own customer’s behavior and I have no sympathy whatsoever.
Taking them at face value though, they're saying they're disallowing payments here specifically because it's illegal, rather than a disinclination to be associated with it for PR/as a value judgement:
> "The federal government considers cannabis sales illegal, so these purchases are not allowed on our systems," the statement continued.
I don't fully understand the US system but it feels weird to me that the power to legalise could be both devolved to the states but still federally illegal… Is it that it's illegal on an interstate level, like you can't purchase from out of state?
No, you understand the system perfectly fine. The current situation is completely dysfunctional. The federal government has absolute authority and supremacy on this matter, and has the legally uncontested ability to lock away any person involved in the production, distribution, sale, possession, and consumption of cannabis. However the people who are in charge of those federal police are fully aware of how deeply unpopular that would be, so they just turn a blind eye on a national scale and just choose not to take any action. Every now and then a random cannabis store will be raided by federal police as some kind of publicity stunt. Then the news articles and protests will flare up. Then we go back to the current situation of utter insanity.
As a result of this illegal status, all banking surrounding the business is completely broken, and the entire industry runs on burly people with guns driving around duffel bags of cash, even to pay taxes to state and local governments.
> The interpretation of interstate commerce is obviously wrong.
Eh... I mean, yes, but not in the way you want.
The constitution is clear about the federal government having the authority to regulate interstate commerce. Running a payment processor in, say, New York for customers (businesses) in California is very clearly interstate commerce. Your NY-based business is selling a service (payment processing) to another business in California. New York and California are difference states. You are engaging in commerce across state lines.
There's no consistent way to interpret "[The Congress shall have Power] To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes" in any meaningful way that still a) gives the federal government any control over interstate commerce; and b) prohibits the federal government from regulating this kind of interstate commerce.
Wickard v. Filburn (which was overturned more than 25 years ago) was pretty obviously a stupid decision because there was nothing that wasn't interstate commerce under that ruling. I say it's stupid because why would the constitution give the congress the power to regulate specifically interstate commerce if it really meant they could regulate all commerce? That obvious contradiction is why it was overturned.
It sounds like you're asking for a Wickard v Filburn-style decision, but in the other direction: Nothing is interstate commerce. I guess they could do that if you take the Justice Thomas approach that all the rules are made up, but then what's the point? Let's just dissolve congress and the supreme court and just have the president rule as he chooses.
> if you take the Justice Thomas approach that all the rules are made up
Why the out-of-nowhere attack on the judge who adheres most closely to the law and the Constitution?
With respect to the matter at hand, I think that your analysis is correct: the federal government has the authority to prohibit a NY-based payment processor from processing certain payments in California. But it has no authority to prohibit that NY-based payment processor’s California-based subsidiary from processing those payments within California.
I was referring to Lopez, and I'll concede that "overturn" is probably too strong a word. But it was the first time in 60 years that SCOTUS didn't roll over when congress claimed to have authority under the commerce clause and marked the beginning of increased skepticism of commerce clause claims.
Moreover, the majority in Lopez proposed a four-part test, the first of which was whether the activity being is economic in nature. Previously under Wickard v. Filburn, the standard was whether the regulated activity could substantially impact interstate commerce.
To see just how absurd this is (and how Lopez changes it), consider this: Can the federal government regulate whether I ride my bike to work?
The government is charged with protecting national security. And part of that is ensuring adequate supplies of raw materials needed to prosecute a war. Fossil fuels are one such necessary material. If everyone rides a bike to work, oil producers and refiners may go out of business, thus substantially impacting interstate commerce for a domain in which the federal government clearly has a legitimate interest. Therefore, under Wickard v. Filburn the federal government has clear constitutional authority to make it illegal for me to commute to work by bicycle.
That's insane.
And this is very analogous to what Filburn did that led to the case Wickard v. Filburn: By riding a bicycle, my impact on interstate commerce is caused by the fact that I am simply declining to participate in interstate commerce. Filburn grew wheat for his own consumption.
However, under US v. Lopez my bicycle commute is a noneconomic activity, and not something that can be regulated. This removes an enormous class of activities from congress's regulatory authority.
> I think the credit card fees would be subject to federal oversight but not the fundamental transaction facilitated.
Sure, fine. But MasterCard won't process your payments if they can't charge you a fee for facilitating your transactions. The constitution gives congress broad authority to regulate interstate commerce. They are well within that authority to say "you may charge fees for payment services for X but not for Y".
> The federal government has absolute authority and supremacy on this matter
No, it really doesn’t. It has absolute authority over interstate commerce and federal property, among other powers. It has no constitutional authority to regulate intrastate commerce.
It also has the power to impose excise taxes, but I think that constitutionally must imply reasonable excise taxes: i.e., it may not impose a $1 billion/quart excise tax on ethanol rather than amending the Constitution to permit federal prohibition. I can see how reasonable people might disagree with that reading, but in conjunction with the 10th Amendment I find it compelling.
The Constitution is really not that complex a document. It doesn’t always say what any one of us would like it to say (and we are free to advocate for its amendment!), but it pretty clearly says what it says (most of the time … there are a few gaps, as above).
The entirety of the supremacy clause of the United States Constitution:
>This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding
There is ZERO wiggle room there. The Federal government made a law saying you can't grow weed or sell weed. States cannot undercut that.
The interstate commerce nonsense has always been a distraction.
> >This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding
> There is ZERO wiggle room there.
Agreed: ‘the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof.’
Those laws of the United States, which are made in pursuance of the Constitution, are 100% the supreme law of the land (as are treaties made under the authority of the United States).
That same Constitution also provides, ‘The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.’ So a law of the United States that is not under one of the powers delegated to the United States is … not made in pursuance of the Constitution. And there is no power to regulate intrastate commerce.
So yeah, zero wiggle room: the federal government has no constitutional authority to ban growing or selling marijuana within a state.
Recall the holding in Raich: Congress has the power to regulate local activities that are part of a class of activities that affect interstate commerce.
> The interstate commerce nonsense has always been a distraction.
The interstate commerce discussion is about whether Congress had the power to make such a law in the first place. An act of Congress outside of its Constitutional authority is no law, and the Supremact Clause doesn’t save it, it just puts Constitutional acts of Congress above contrary acts of states.
It's illegal in all states of the US. Some states have decided to make it legal, but that only protects you from prosecution by the state. If you enter a federal facility or you're stopped by a federal agent, then you can still go to jail despite the states' stance on cannabis.
As I understand it since the Obama first administration DOJs stance has been to not pursue cannabis crimes in any state that has legalized it (“Cole memo”) which was rescinded by Sessions, but with no follow through by prosecutors. Barr again deprioritized cannabis and Garland has gone even further.
The issue for banks and financial firms is they sit at both an interstate commerce point of view, which is firmly federal, but they also exist in a highly regulated and scrutinized world. Until the law changes DOJ deprioritizing cannabis enforcement helps them not at all - they’re still facilitating a crime, and can be held to account by a later administration on the whims of the electorate and they would be clearly in violation of the law.
> As I understand it since the Obama first administration DOJs stance has been to not pursue cannabis crimes in any state that has legalized it (“Cole memo”) which was rescinded by Sessions, but with no follow through by prosecutors
The Cole Memo stopped being the important bar to prosecution with the Rohrbacker-Farr Amendment erecting a statutory bar since 2014 (which DoJ initially tried to dodge hard but got slapped down by a trial court in 2015 and the Ninth Circuit in 2016, and seems to have mostly given up after that.)
But that amendment is a provision of spending bills restricting prosecution, not a legalization, and could easily be dropped and expose conduct to prosecution back as far as the statute of limitations.
> If a law is changed, there is protection from ex-post-facto prosecution.
The law criminalizing and punishing the conduct hasn’t been changed. Every spending bill since 2014 has just placed a temporary prohibition on DoJ spending money to prosecute certain violations while that funding authorization is in effect.
So, there is no ex post facto issue: the conduct is criminal and subject to punishment under existing law, and can be prosecuted any time Congress allows DoJ to spend money for that purpose (unless barred for some other reason, like the statute of limitations.)
This fact very much impacts the contours of the state-legal marijuana business, including who is willing to be involved with it, and how they do business.
A policy (whether executive policy as existed under the Cole Memo, or legislative policy) against prosecution is substantially different in legal effect than actually removing conduct from the scope of criminal prohibition. If it had been legalized (even conditionally on state law), yes, ex post facto would be an issue if the policy changed. As it is, though, it is not.
It's federally illegal in all states of the US. And that illegality is probably constitutional, provided that whoever is prosecuted is doing something related to interstate commerce (growing in Nevada, selling in California, for example)
It isn't clear to me that simple possession (or even a cash sale between a grower and consumer in the same state) stands up to constitutional scrutiny, in the post-Wickard v. Filburn era. So, I think you could appeal the constitutionality of federal possession charges and have them overturned on constitutional grounds.
However, the problem for MasterCard is that they are based in New York, and are engaged in selling their payment services to businesses outside New York. That's very clearly interstate commerce and thus federal laws clearly apply here.
The US Federal Government doesn't devolve powers, the States have thier own powers (the part of the constitution that says any power not reserved for the Federal is for the states). But yes, technically it is the interstate commerce provision, and various rulings that have broadened what that means. State vs Federal power is complex and still a bit disputed.
You should look into the GirlsDoPorn case where the actresses were forced into signing their contracts under duress. When they wanted their content removed because of this, PornHub enacted the most useless content recognition software ever, which ignored almost all the re-uploads, allowing them to continue making money off of the content. And the company that produced the content sent people to harass the women day and night. This was just a few years ago. While I am sure not every video was produced this way, this also cannot be a one-off, and saying it's purely harmless is incorrect. Unless your analogy about water is that it only harms you in a large amount, or when it has extreme force behind it?
My analogy is that water is fine until it's used in excess or in the wrong contexts. I dislike your use of "only" trying to restrict the reach of the analogy, though. Everything you described isn't related to porn, it's related to the porn industry. What you're really criticizing here is corporatism, not porn.
I'm interested that you're personally able to separate "porn" the product from "the porn industry" (whatever that is; I'm surprised that you think it's some kind of monolithic singular thing).
It's weird as if "porn" could move through the world, created by nobody in particular, and distributed by nobody else in particular, and consumed by nobody who matters, not damaging anyone's body, morals, or psyche along the whole supply chain. Baffling. Beggars belief.
Are you American? How would you feel about repealing FOSTA-SESTA? I mean, if nobody's getting hurt, why ban slavery?
The product of the industry is still a product of, and dependent on, that industry. Otherwise the industry would not exist, and the product would exist, but in much different form than most people encounter it today.
This isn't even remotely true. Go to any regular old porn studio that has to comply with laws around casting and provide an address at the start of ever video you can write to in order to receive consent forms with ID verification of everyone in the film you're about to see, and every credit card on the planet will gladly allow you to make the purchase.
What they block are open platforms that host user-generated content from anywhere in the world that make no attempt to comply with performer consent and age-verification laws of the jurisdictions they're attempting to sell in.
Well, the porn industry basically as a whole regularly pressures and somewhat "forces" women to do things they did not initially agree to. This is exploitative and rampant in the industry currently.
But that doesn't make porn inherently bad, but rather that a grey market industry has ample opportunity to pressure the people in it to be exploitable.
Our political party system is extremely dysfunctional. If the Democrats manage to actually pass this legislation, they will lose the “civil liberties” voting bloc so there is a perverse incentive for them to appear to be trying without actually succeeding.
And yet Democratic state governments have been legalizing cannabis left and right and none of them seem to lose whatever the ""civil liberties" voting bloc" is, curious!
Calling it. If it does get legalized, it'll only be as Schedule 2.
As Schedule 2, it's dispensing, use, and possession will be strictly controlled by physicians licensed by the DEA. The guidelines for legal dispensing will basically limit it only to people using for glaucoma/pain relief. This will not greenlight it for recreational use.
As a result of being Schedule 2, all the supply chain controls will kick in, and dispensaries will be required to only produce in response to quotas set by... you guessed it... DEA.
Any other manufacturers/dispensaries will still be operating in a gray/illegal fashion. Banks will still not touch the majority of dispensaries.
...If it somehow happens in any other exceptional fashion, I'd be angry enough to try to push for the wholesale dismantling of the DEA, because if effing weed isn't Schedule 2, then Adderall shouldn't be either. And we all know that ain't gonna happen. If weed gets off schedule 2, and Adderall doesn't; then I truly think that very foundation and purpose behind the DEA's existence is far from any type of sane enforcement. This nonsense with "the war on drugs" has grown far too long in the tooth.
As far as I can tell, it's the only Federal Agency that basically "centrally plans" the economy; something even the Federal Reserve does everything in their power to pretend they aren't doing.
> because if effing weed isn't Schedule 2, then Adderall shouldn't be either
I was with you until here. The solution to misclassifying weed as schedule-2 is not declassifying a controlled substance habitual users never take less of.
You can only smoke so much weed before you pass out. The most damage you'll do is to your intestines trying to digest a family-size bag of Doritos.
Adderall abusers (~1000mg+ snorted over 1wk IME) get to that point because they only ever seek more, and end up terrorizing everyone around them with their high-functioning, semi-coherent psychosis. After a week of no sleep people become these weird, babbling troll creatures that mimic human behavior while reacting with violence to imaginary slights, clawing their skin off and otherwise acting like Smeagol-turned-Gollum. It's the sort of characterization I've only ever heard used to describe meth users. (I haven't had the copper ripped out of my walls yet, but I've had my house and car ransacked, safe broken into and my identity stolen!)
It's a godsend for ADHD, but it's a loaded P320 in the hands of anyone else. This stuff is no joke.
So, I wanted to readdress this, because my post was done at about 3 in the morning, because sleep just would not come, and all the disparate trains of thought I had appear to have piled up.
So... To reemphasize/reput a few points to stay:
A) If marijuana avoids Schedule 2 at the Federal level, then Schedule 2 is little more than a political contrivance, because even the common sense underlying something being on Schedule 2; high abuse potential, but medical use, is apparently less a matter of objectivity and more a matter of what someone's opinion is. I hate few things more than arbitrarily carving things out for reasons. All ot does is create more suffering and complexity to navigate.
B) DEA is on my Federal Agency shitlist. Not only do they unabashedly centrally plan, but they've repeatedly been caught out violating the public trust, and using engaging in less-than-legal investigation techniques that flagrantly violate U.S. citizens fundamental civil rights. Either through things like regular use of parallel construction, implementation of surveillance apparata that'd make the Stasi blush, and such nonsense that's such a close proxy to unabashed racism it isn't even funny. See the difference in severity between possession and use of cocaine vs. possession and use of crack. It's so damn transparent there I have increasingly more trouble recognizing them as being worthy of being afforded the benefit of legitimacy.
Now... In response to what you brought up, and to clean up some of the confusing mess in my deschedule Adderall thing.
>The solution to misclassifying weed as schedule-2 is not declassifying a controlled substance habitual users never take less of.
I disagree that marijuana is not something that should be on Schedule 2. It is a narcotic, it has high abuse potential, and it has medical uses. Schedule 2 period. Further: your assertion no one ever takes less Adderall is incorrect. I'm a living, walking, talking counterexample, thank you very much.
>Adderall abusers (~1000mg+ snorted over 1wk IME)
At that point you're already far out of the regime of intended use. All forms of Adderall are calibrated to be introduced to the body orally. If you're bypassing that, that's on you.
1000mg a week is over 140mg per 24 hours. As an individual who has been on this stuff for over 2 decades for ADHD, and has flirted with the very tippy tops of the dosage envelope (I was not a light individual), that regime of use by anyone uner 280->300 lbs is a heart attack waiting to happen.
>and end up terrorizing everyone around them with their high-functioning, semi-coherent psychosis.
...Could you elaborate more on your subjective metric for measuring psychosis? One of the interesting bits I learned as part of a set of coping strategies for being on these types of meds is to keep logs and measure things/look them off. There are times where yes, it can absolutely hose your ability to perceive errors in cognition. However, there are also just as many examples I have of times people were adamant I was wrong, but it turned out they couldn't understand/were incorrectly understanding the situation. Bout a 50/50 mix in my case. That's after applying a pessimum adjustment against me.
Telling the differrnce between the two of those situations is not an easy skill to come by. The subtlety of the deleterious side effects are actually one of the reasons I've sort of come around to getting away from them if possible.
>After a week of no sleep people become these weird, babbling troll creatures that mimic human behavior while reacting with violence to imaginary slights, clawing their skin off and otherwise acting like Smeagol-turned-Gollum.
...yes... Agreed. Not seen Adderall directly causing that.
>It's the sort of characterization I've only ever heard used to describe meth users.
Neurotransmitter fuckery does that.
> It's a godsend for ADHD, but it's a loaded P320 in the hands of anyone e...
For a large number of significant issues, the minority rule. This is how the political system is structured. Political & legal appointments are made to ensure that even when a party has minority voter support, it has functional control of the country. Businesses both influence and align with those in power for mutual benefit.
The War on Drugs was never about drugs. It was always about breaking up families and jailing minorities and leftists. Why would they hurry up to legalize it when it's a great source of revenue though the legal system?
Absolutely agree. Adding to this the most naturally powerful and deadly drugs on earth grow in just about every field in most of the northern United States and in parts of northern Europe. Those other weeds are not and have never been illegal nor could they practically be made illegal as they are near impossible to get rid of. Singling out marijuana AFAIK was initially about stopping competition in the paper industry and the system never corrected itself when it started feeding the prison industrial complex and allowing cops to lock up specific groups of people they disliked and justifying bigger budgets and entirely new agencies to be created.
I do not have any good ideas for how to fix this. Maybe replace MJ with the more deadly stuff until the system implodes under its own weight whilst accepting the casualties? Henbane may be safer than eating tide pods.
> always about breaking up families and jailing minorities and leftists
Possible, but unlikely. It's a shameful legacy that disproportionately affected minorities, but it's unlikely the original Nixon war on drugs was a direct assault on hippies and Blacks. More likely, Nixon was simply terrified of drugs [0] and overreacted and this bad policy was extended by future presidents for decades. The canard about targeting specific demographics originates with John Ehrlichman in a 2016 Harper's story [1]. Ehrichman had a real grudge for doing jail time for Watergate. Nixon's own drug czar, Jerome Jaffe, is somewhat of a pioneer in non-retributive, therapeutic treatments [2].
> The canard about targeting specific demographics originates with John Ehrlichman in a 2016 Harper's story [1]
Note that that is a story relating an interview in 1994, which you've copied off of a Wikipedia page and apparently misunderstood. But that still kind of fails to explain how I knew about Nixon's War on Drugs targeting blacks and hippies back in ~1991.
Also, why did Nixon "just hate drugs"? Was it because of the association with blacks and hippies?
And why did his administration support his efforts? When considering the motivations behind policies we shouldn't fall victim of explanations that revolve entirely around cults of personality. Even if Nixon didn't support it for racist and anti-leftist reasons, he still needed the support of his administration, and the application of the war on drugs could have still been racist and anti-leftist due to the actions of the many thousands of people who had to prosecute it.
It literally would not change anything. Sing up for merchant account at any payment gateway[0] and you will be provided with long list of totally legal stuff that Visa/MC won't allow to pay with cards.
[0] or you will get refused, just due to you sector/trade
Visa should immediately make a statement that they will not discriminate against purchases made at legal merchants allowed to operate in states. This is a great opportunity for Visa to gain favor amongst the many people that do not appreciate payment processor restricting legal purchases. Anyone that says the Feds will take them to task for it are bringing up a red herring. The Feds have effectively done nothing yet about legal cannabis shops. Why the sudden move by Mastercard?
I think you should learn more about the extensive history of Visa banning business verticals from its payment network. They are extremely conservative. I won’t provide a specific source in this case because the phenomenon is so widespread that I don’t want to pre-bias your learning adventure.
Give merchants an excuse to avoid credit card processor fees, and give the customers someone other than the shop to blame for it? Is an ill wind indeed that blows no good.
If there was some CBDC scheme that worked at all; how long would the credit cards last? They'd lose so much of the business the currently have as the default electronic payment system. Perhaps that has something to do with how hard it has been to get digital banking / payments to happen for the last 20 years?
This is maybe indirectly a good thing. Cash has a lot of advantages from a privacy perspective and I feel like it has lost a lot of luster with younger people in general. This may keep it alive.
Another poster mentioned that buying weed with cash is just a good idea as having credit card transactions at Bill's weed shop forever on your permanent record isn't a good idea.
There is no privacy in cannabis transactions, as the state legalization laws require extensive reporting, retention (!), and verification of identity for every sale. It’s not like alcohol sale laws where ID is only required at point of sale for age verification, the seller must keep a complete copy of identification on file for every customer/sale.
Yes, but those records live with the state and not the Federal government. This matters a lot, particularly for people who may need to undergo Federal background checks.
I have no idea what you are talking about. I have bought marijuana in at least 5 states (CA, WA, NY among them) and the only ID check is some dude at the door, similar to a bar. You buy whatever you want with cash and walk out.
Who has these kinds of requirements you are talking about?
I go into a dispensary here and I have to show my photo ID and redcard to the person first at the entry cordon, then at the register when I make a purchase.
Might be different for recreational in other states but here in the PA medical program, every single item dispensed is tied to your medical card #. Every single sales unit whether it's a few milliliters of tincture or an ounce of flower is uniquely identified with a serial/lot number.
The state also requires high def video surveillance of basically every angle in the dispensary and forces them to retain the data for 6 months for "investigative purposes".
So not only do they have record of the exact item I bought, when, and where, they have me on camera doing it AND can trace that item all the way back to seed.
I would hope a recreational program if the state were ever to adopt one would not be so invasive...but you never know.
An important bit of context for people here who have not purchased cannabis with a card: no cannabis seller can accept debit cards as a payment method. Instead they can certify their machines as mobile ATM providers that just happen to let you withdraw an amount of cash that just happens to be approximately the same amount of money you might happen to want to pay to the person holding the mobile ATM terminal plus a modest tip. (Yes, really, this is how the industry functions).
Maybe I shouldn't give them any ideas, but cannabis is still technically illegal in the Netherlands to the point that coffeeshops (euphemism for cannabis dispensaries) cannot buy their stock legally (growing is prosecuted) or charge certain taxes like VAT. Yet almost all accept card payments, including Mastercard. For some reason this is an American problem.
Maybe the difference is that the shops are allowed to sell it? When I was young, many decades ago, I had hoopt that our gedoogbeleid would turn into full legality, but ah well.
I don't disagree in the shortest term, but remember it can easily be inflated (deliberately) into oblivion such that carrying a valuable amount is impossible. The logical extension of this sentiment is a gold backed currency. While we're at it, end the Fed.
As far as I've heard, the rationale is that it's still federally illegal. Many dispensaries get around it by using some kind of "ATM mode" on the keypads, where they round up your purchase to the nearest $10 then give you change.
Keep cash alive. I wouldn't pay with card at a dispensary anyway because someone would see it on your statement and use it to make decisions about you. Stay cautious. It is annoying that Mastercard are like they are, but it's a convenience issue more than a liberty issue to me.
204 comments
[ 2.9 ms ] story [ 223 ms ] thread[1] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=36801491 (FedNow Is Live)
[2] https://www.axios.com/2023/07/20/federal-reserve-fednow-paym...
[3] https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/1996
On a more personal level, I'm not sure why people would use anything other than cash to buy weed... who wants these companies tracking you anyway.
Update: The comments below prompted me to look a bit further into my fraud speculation... quick google search found this:
https://digboston.com/no-more-atms-is-the-smell-of-money-com...
Cash back is a laundering problem.
It’s pretty simple. They either need federal legislation to say it’s ok for them to be doing this, or it needs to stop being a federal crime, otherwise they are legally required to do exactly what they are doing.
By your right about it being government control stuff, psychological resistance to letting go of the War on Drugs is pretty high, and unless it changes it’s going to remain in the current status quo until enough of them get too old to hold their seats in the House/Senate and new people with less fossilised opinions get to vote on legislation regarding the topic.
Wickard v. Filburn (1942) pretty much blew away any limitation on the federal government’s use of the commerce clause. In that case even a farmer’s subsistence crop of wheat for personal use was found to be in violation of a federal wheat quota because such activity in aggregate could hypothetically affect national prices. If that can be regulated as interstate commerce surely all cannabis production and consumption can as well.
And very often without any explanations. Sometimes even without releasing acquired funds, like the last street robber (looking at paypal).
Let aside saying that whole industry is drowning in endless useless KYCs, often requiring documents on your grand grand mother, may gods treat her soul well.
I can go on and on, but that's the gist of it.
In what way?
And making cards legal tender would be quite absurd, since it would require anyone being owed any money to get a terminal and card acceptance contract in case their debtor decides to collect some credit card points.
You don't see MasterCard threatening to cut off credit payments here. That's unequal treatment. If their issue is really with federal compliance they should cut off all payment processing. What they really want is the sweet merchant fees they lose out on when debit payment is used.
Merchants aren’t required to let you make that choice, so this is probably a misconfigured terminal.
And if a debit card works when you press “credit”, what’s the issue? There is almost never a benefit to you for making that (quite technical) choice yourself.
This is because these places can't accept credit card payments, only cash. Debit cards (and cash) were the only payment they accepted.
Here even contactless payment on debit works perfectly well on any gas station. Show card, maximum of 50€ gets charged. Then fill up either you get only 50€ worth of gas or soon enough the sum is lowered to what you got...
I’m not aware of any name/identity verification method natively based on Visa/Mastercard payment cards.
What companies are trying to do is ensure transactions don’t potentially cross into a realm where the Feds or a State where cannabis is still illegal could potentially claim jurisdiction and go after the banks / payment companies.
Some banks and other financial institutions are trying to court these businesses, but they have to do it with carefully vetted business structures and infrastructure to keep them as legally safe as possible.
So he started a subsidiary armored car business that only served the cannabis market.
Which promptly went bankrupt when he got repeatedly robbed by the San Bernardino Sheriff's Department.
https://abc7.com/fbi-san-bernardino-county-sheriffs-departme...
"THREAD: It’s official. Today, I am formally announcing my plan to decriminalize marijuana at the federal level. It’s time we allow states, once and for all, to have the power to decide what works best for them."
Name me any party who's modus operandi isn't akin to Kabuki theater
But I'll give you this, you're right that Republicans aren't trying to play some 4D chess. That Democrats are, but doing so with five heads. It's all theater and it is hard to watch.
It's bad enough for alcohol, and we do have a whole federal department to manage it. Why not just let the 21st century be the 21st century, with planes and roads that make state lines practically meaningless.
You're talking about a period of time that is 100 years after the time I'm talking about.
Would be sad to see the feds go after Oregon/Alaska in the same way.
What part of the constitution limits congresses ability to regulate a substance
The Federal government should only exercise enumerated powers. Thomas Jefferson struggled with the Louisiana Purchase because buying land is not an enumerated power. Of course this document also has a Necessary and Proper Clause and an Interstate Commerce Clause.
In practice judges on special courts decide if they value drug prohibition or the semi-sovereignty of states more.
- 59% of Americans believe it should be legal for recreational and medical
- 30% believe should be legal for medical only
- 10% don't want legalization
([0] for source) At the very least decriminalize it and reduce the schedule. Let states handle it if you want. Just do SOMETHING.
Clearly our representatives are not aligned with our values. The only age group that doesn't support it is 75+ (18% rep, 30% ind, 51% dem). House's median age: 58, Senate's: 65 [1]
I don't care what side of the isle you sit on, there is an abundance of issues that the people are in agreement upon, and have been for years, and our politicians still fight against and claim it is the other side preventing them from resolving. The party isn't the issue, it's who's hosting.
[0] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2022/11/22/americans...
[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/01/30/house-get...
It could also be the guests. A bill was entered into the last Congress [1]. It failed to generate excitement. A lighter version has been entered into this one [2].
If you care about this issue, call or write to your electeds and let them know this is something that could motivate you to turn out to their next primary or general.
[1] https://www.congress.gov/bill/117th-congress/house-bill/3617
[2] https://joyce.house.gov/posts/joyce-jeffries-reintroduce-bip...
Fwiw, I do contact my representatives about multiple issues.
Also, Wikipedia has to say this about the vote[0]:
> Following debate on the House floor on December 3, a vote was scheduled for December 4,[17] when the bill passed with a 228–164 majority, mostly along party lines, marking the first time a chamber of Congress approved legislation to end federal marijuana prohibition.[18] 222 Democrats voted for the bill, while Cheri Bustos, Henry Cuellar, Conor Lamb, Dan Lipinski, Chris Pappas, and Collin Peterson were the six Democrats voting against.[19] 158 Republicans voted against the bill, while Matt Gaetz, Brian Mast, Tom McClintock, Denver Riggleman, and Don Young were the five Republicans voting in favor.[20] The sole Libertarian in the House, Justin Amash, also voted for the bill.[19]
[0] : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marijuana_Opportunity_Reinvest...
Yes. Elected representatives, like everyone else, respond to incentives. Pointing to inbounds is one way an e.g. Congressperson can convince a Senator that the issue has pickup.
42% of states have legalized recreational use.
Legalization lags public sentiment but not hugely, especially if like you alluded to, weighting by voter participation.
Politicians will take easy wins all day long.
The trouble with payment processing isn't equivalent to legality. See adult entertainment.
What's the highest valuation of any of those companies? Now what percentage of MasterCard's current 380 billion market cap or Visa's 485 billion market cap is that?
There's other factors with porn at play that have been discussed. But yeah, I don't think a multi-hundred billion dollar company is going to risk having all its assets seized for engaging in activities that are considered illegal by the federal government. Small companies can take this risk. These aren't the same.
Green Thumb Industries. [1] Current market cap $1.6 billion. [2]
Look, you're right: the federal prohibition definitely has consequences. But also, there are 8 and 9-figure companies operating in this space.
[1] https://www.gtigrows.com/
[2] https://finance.yahoo.com/quote/GTBIF
Fwiw, my argument is that compared to Visa or Mastercard, you weren't going to find a company that has anywhere near the valuation. You're still well under 1% of either of them, and pointing to a company that's been around just under a decade. I'm not saying they aren't big, just that the risk to Visa and Mastercard is very high and it would be idiotic to risk all that just to accept payments for weed.
E.g. the largest tomato producer in the U.S. is Lipman and they have ~$350 million [1] revenue, with probably a 1x multiple.
[1] https://www.zoominfo.com/c/lipman-family-farms/346563103
I don't think this is nearly as bad as everyone internalizes. Voting by age (with weed positions at the side by full/med only/illegal) is
- 51% for 18-24 (72/20/7 age 18-29)
- 63% for 25-44 (62/26/10 age 30-49)
- 71% for 45-64 (54/34/11 age 50-64)
- 76% for 65-74 (53/34/10)
- 72% for 75+ (30/51/16)
There is a correlation, but literally only one group has a <50%, and it is still 81% for medical. There's still a HUGE disalignment no mater what age demographic we're discussing. It's not old people, it is old people who are in politics.
Edit: forgot to cite the census other numbers are from the same pew above
https://www.census.gov/newsroom/press-releases/2021/2020-pre...
Do they keep all the people who are in the system because of something related to weed in, or do you let them go? Do they assume culpability for fines, imprisonment, damages, defamation...
I'd say it seems to be in the best interest of the ruling class to orchestrate a slow deflation. States legalize it against the will of the federal government, this gets people out of the system for related charges. After some critical mass they homologate it with alcohol/tobacco and there's no catastrophic secondary motion. In the linked maps, many of the areas with the highest drug use, which I assume predicts potsmoking rates, also so happen to be the ones which have elected to legalize in some capacity. Whether that stands up to statistical tests of significance is another matter...
Anyways, these policies were put into action by the federal government, repealing them may appear to be an admission of fault - and fault that appearing increasingly to have retarded important research on a number of candidates for a variety of therapies while also crushing countless thousands of lives for behaviors that are, I (and I think many others) would argue, fundamental to humans.
It's interesting to look at some maps:
US Population Map:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Population_by_U.S._s...
Map of Cannabis Status:
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Map_of_US_state_cann...
Maps of Drug Statistics:
https://www.pewtrusts.org/-/media/post-launch-images/2018/03...
Easy, you let them go. You shouldn't be in jail for something that is legal. Now, if there's more to the crime than possession (and honestly I don't personally care about distribution), then that's a different story. But that different story needs to include something that is illegal with current laws.
Personally I think it makes it tantamount to false imprisonment and a miscarriage of justice, and blatantly admitting to fault with no reluctance whatsoever.
Not to mention in any cases where it the crime was registered as - felonious we're talking the restoration of rights to these folks.
But then there's damages. I was refused an entry level job at a convenience store over possession/consumption charges which at the time had occurred 4 years prior. Those were misdemeanor charges. How many people have had their balls busted over "trafficking of a controlled substance" because they were on an interstate, wound up with a felony charge, probation, prison/jail time, and a record that haunted them for years. I went straight because I had a decent job laid in my lap that turned a blind eye to my record - a lot of people in a lot of places won't have that opportunity.
And if they acknowledge that, then they'll also have to acknowledge that they were also reasonably at fault for poor outcomes which proceeded from their intervention. You go into the College of Criminals with an AS in potsmoking and graduate with a PhD in dealing meth and an MS in criminal violence - no surprise the recidivism rate is so high.
That's something each state will have to decide the Feds (Biden) have already allowed you to be pardoned [1] but a Presidential Pardon only applies to federal crimes so if a state convicted you (quite common!) then it does nothing.
By default, if an action you did was illegal at the time of performance & conviction then you'll remain in prison if the action becomes legal later on and won't be a valid basis of appeal. Your only hope is for a pardon.
[1]: https://www.justice.gov/pardon/presidential-proclamation-mar...
Assuming age ranges have the same size, according to your #s, the electorate is 53% in favor recreational, 34% in favor of medical only.
Jurisdiction legality across the US population is 48% recreational [1] and 28% medical only [2].
And those numbers are trending up rapidly. Ten years ago, recreational legalization was literally zero.
Democracy is basically working, for better or worse.
[1] https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/13/facts-abo...
[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_cannabis_in_the_United... 76% of states have medical marijuana...but I didn't do the population math.
So 76% approval. Seems like more than ample popularity for the fed to at minimum let the states handle it. I mean states, and even counties handle alcohol.
Once feds get power over something, it's very difficult to get it away.
If the popular consensus is that this is something that should be left up to the states, then federal legislation to that effect should be passed. The status quo is clearly farcical.
That said, my state has technically issued licenses for exactly two (2) dispensaries, and yet there's one on every corner. All of which accept card. So I have my doubts as to whether this is anything other than CYA by Mastercard.
Cannabis is physical retail with the most stringent ID verifications of any purchase in US history, so the fraud issue is almost nonexistent.
> "The federal government considers cannabis sales illegal, so these purchases are not allowed on our systems," the statement continued.
I don't fully understand the US system but it feels weird to me that the power to legalise could be both devolved to the states but still federally illegal… Is it that it's illegal on an interstate level, like you can't purchase from out of state?
No, you understand the system perfectly fine. The current situation is completely dysfunctional. The federal government has absolute authority and supremacy on this matter, and has the legally uncontested ability to lock away any person involved in the production, distribution, sale, possession, and consumption of cannabis. However the people who are in charge of those federal police are fully aware of how deeply unpopular that would be, so they just turn a blind eye on a national scale and just choose not to take any action. Every now and then a random cannabis store will be raided by federal police as some kind of publicity stunt. Then the news articles and protests will flare up. Then we go back to the current situation of utter insanity.
As a result of this illegal status, all banking surrounding the business is completely broken, and the entire industry runs on burly people with guns driving around duffel bags of cash, even to pay taxes to state and local governments.
Please send help, our government is very broken.
Eh... I mean, yes, but not in the way you want.
The constitution is clear about the federal government having the authority to regulate interstate commerce. Running a payment processor in, say, New York for customers (businesses) in California is very clearly interstate commerce. Your NY-based business is selling a service (payment processing) to another business in California. New York and California are difference states. You are engaging in commerce across state lines.
There's no consistent way to interpret "[The Congress shall have Power] To regulate Commerce with foreign Nations, and among the several States, and with the Indian Tribes" in any meaningful way that still a) gives the federal government any control over interstate commerce; and b) prohibits the federal government from regulating this kind of interstate commerce.
Wickard v. Filburn (which was overturned more than 25 years ago) was pretty obviously a stupid decision because there was nothing that wasn't interstate commerce under that ruling. I say it's stupid because why would the constitution give the congress the power to regulate specifically interstate commerce if it really meant they could regulate all commerce? That obvious contradiction is why it was overturned.
It sounds like you're asking for a Wickard v Filburn-style decision, but in the other direction: Nothing is interstate commerce. I guess they could do that if you take the Justice Thomas approach that all the rules are made up, but then what's the point? Let's just dissolve congress and the supreme court and just have the president rule as he chooses.
Why the out-of-nowhere attack on the judge who adheres most closely to the law and the Constitution?
With respect to the matter at hand, I think that your analysis is correct: the federal government has the authority to prohibit a NY-based payment processor from processing certain payments in California. But it has no authority to prohibit that NY-based payment processor’s California-based subsidiary from processing those payments within California.
That is entirely opinion.
Please expand on this...
Are you talking about U.S. v Lopez? Just because some limit was found on the Commerce clause did not vacate the original decision.
I think the credit card fees would be subject to federal oversight but not the fundamental transaction facilitated.
Moreover, the majority in Lopez proposed a four-part test, the first of which was whether the activity being is economic in nature. Previously under Wickard v. Filburn, the standard was whether the regulated activity could substantially impact interstate commerce.
To see just how absurd this is (and how Lopez changes it), consider this: Can the federal government regulate whether I ride my bike to work?
The government is charged with protecting national security. And part of that is ensuring adequate supplies of raw materials needed to prosecute a war. Fossil fuels are one such necessary material. If everyone rides a bike to work, oil producers and refiners may go out of business, thus substantially impacting interstate commerce for a domain in which the federal government clearly has a legitimate interest. Therefore, under Wickard v. Filburn the federal government has clear constitutional authority to make it illegal for me to commute to work by bicycle.
That's insane.
And this is very analogous to what Filburn did that led to the case Wickard v. Filburn: By riding a bicycle, my impact on interstate commerce is caused by the fact that I am simply declining to participate in interstate commerce. Filburn grew wheat for his own consumption.
However, under US v. Lopez my bicycle commute is a noneconomic activity, and not something that can be regulated. This removes an enormous class of activities from congress's regulatory authority.
> I think the credit card fees would be subject to federal oversight but not the fundamental transaction facilitated.
Sure, fine. But MasterCard won't process your payments if they can't charge you a fee for facilitating your transactions. The constitution gives congress broad authority to regulate interstate commerce. They are well within that authority to say "you may charge fees for payment services for X but not for Y".
No, it really doesn’t. It has absolute authority over interstate commerce and federal property, among other powers. It has no constitutional authority to regulate intrastate commerce.
It also has the power to impose excise taxes, but I think that constitutionally must imply reasonable excise taxes: i.e., it may not impose a $1 billion/quart excise tax on ethanol rather than amending the Constitution to permit federal prohibition. I can see how reasonable people might disagree with that reading, but in conjunction with the 10th Amendment I find it compelling.
The Constitution is really not that complex a document. It doesn’t always say what any one of us would like it to say (and we are free to advocate for its amendment!), but it pretty clearly says what it says (most of the time … there are a few gaps, as above).
>This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding
There is ZERO wiggle room there. The Federal government made a law saying you can't grow weed or sell weed. States cannot undercut that.
The interstate commerce nonsense has always been a distraction.
> There is ZERO wiggle room there.
Agreed: ‘the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof.’
Those laws of the United States, which are made in pursuance of the Constitution, are 100% the supreme law of the land (as are treaties made under the authority of the United States).
That same Constitution also provides, ‘The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people.’ So a law of the United States that is not under one of the powers delegated to the United States is … not made in pursuance of the Constitution. And there is no power to regulate intrastate commerce.
So yeah, zero wiggle room: the federal government has no constitutional authority to ban growing or selling marijuana within a state.
The interstate commerce discussion is about whether Congress had the power to make such a law in the first place. An act of Congress outside of its Constitutional authority is no law, and the Supremact Clause doesn’t save it, it just puts Constitutional acts of Congress above contrary acts of states.
The issue for banks and financial firms is they sit at both an interstate commerce point of view, which is firmly federal, but they also exist in a highly regulated and scrutinized world. Until the law changes DOJ deprioritizing cannabis enforcement helps them not at all - they’re still facilitating a crime, and can be held to account by a later administration on the whims of the electorate and they would be clearly in violation of the law.
The Cole Memo stopped being the important bar to prosecution with the Rohrbacker-Farr Amendment erecting a statutory bar since 2014 (which DoJ initially tried to dodge hard but got slapped down by a trial court in 2015 and the Ninth Circuit in 2016, and seems to have mostly given up after that.)
But that amendment is a provision of spending bills restricting prosecution, not a legalization, and could easily be dropped and expose conduct to prosecution back as far as the statute of limitations.
If a law is changed, there is protection from ex-post-facto prosecution.
The law criminalizing and punishing the conduct hasn’t been changed. Every spending bill since 2014 has just placed a temporary prohibition on DoJ spending money to prosecute certain violations while that funding authorization is in effect.
So, there is no ex post facto issue: the conduct is criminal and subject to punishment under existing law, and can be prosecuted any time Congress allows DoJ to spend money for that purpose (unless barred for some other reason, like the statute of limitations.)
This fact very much impacts the contours of the state-legal marijuana business, including who is willing to be involved with it, and how they do business.
A policy (whether executive policy as existed under the Cole Memo, or legislative policy) against prosecution is substantially different in legal effect than actually removing conduct from the scope of criminal prohibition. If it had been legalized (even conditionally on state law), yes, ex post facto would be an issue if the policy changed. As it is, though, it is not.
It's federally illegal in all states of the US. And that illegality is probably constitutional, provided that whoever is prosecuted is doing something related to interstate commerce (growing in Nevada, selling in California, for example)
It isn't clear to me that simple possession (or even a cash sale between a grower and consumer in the same state) stands up to constitutional scrutiny, in the post-Wickard v. Filburn era. So, I think you could appeal the constitutionality of federal possession charges and have them overturned on constitutional grounds.
However, the problem for MasterCard is that they are based in New York, and are engaged in selling their payment services to businesses outside New York. That's very clearly interstate commerce and thus federal laws clearly apply here.
My analogy is that water is fine until it's used in excess or in the wrong contexts. I dislike your use of "only" trying to restrict the reach of the analogy, though. Everything you described isn't related to porn, it's related to the porn industry. What you're really criticizing here is corporatism, not porn.
Blood diamonds only harm people if they swallow too many?
It's weird as if "porn" could move through the world, created by nobody in particular, and distributed by nobody else in particular, and consumed by nobody who matters, not damaging anyone's body, morals, or psyche along the whole supply chain. Baffling. Beggars belief.
Are you American? How would you feel about repealing FOSTA-SESTA? I mean, if nobody's getting hurt, why ban slavery?
What they block are open platforms that host user-generated content from anywhere in the world that make no attempt to comply with performer consent and age-verification laws of the jurisdictions they're attempting to sell in.
But that doesn't make porn inherently bad, but rather that a grey market industry has ample opportunity to pressure the people in it to be exploitable.
Calling it. If it does get legalized, it'll only be as Schedule 2.
As Schedule 2, it's dispensing, use, and possession will be strictly controlled by physicians licensed by the DEA. The guidelines for legal dispensing will basically limit it only to people using for glaucoma/pain relief. This will not greenlight it for recreational use.
As a result of being Schedule 2, all the supply chain controls will kick in, and dispensaries will be required to only produce in response to quotas set by... you guessed it... DEA.
Any other manufacturers/dispensaries will still be operating in a gray/illegal fashion. Banks will still not touch the majority of dispensaries.
...If it somehow happens in any other exceptional fashion, I'd be angry enough to try to push for the wholesale dismantling of the DEA, because if effing weed isn't Schedule 2, then Adderall shouldn't be either. And we all know that ain't gonna happen. If weed gets off schedule 2, and Adderall doesn't; then I truly think that very foundation and purpose behind the DEA's existence is far from any type of sane enforcement. This nonsense with "the war on drugs" has grown far too long in the tooth.
As far as I can tell, it's the only Federal Agency that basically "centrally plans" the economy; something even the Federal Reserve does everything in their power to pretend they aren't doing.
I was with you until here. The solution to misclassifying weed as schedule-2 is not declassifying a controlled substance habitual users never take less of.
You can only smoke so much weed before you pass out. The most damage you'll do is to your intestines trying to digest a family-size bag of Doritos.
Adderall abusers (~1000mg+ snorted over 1wk IME) get to that point because they only ever seek more, and end up terrorizing everyone around them with their high-functioning, semi-coherent psychosis. After a week of no sleep people become these weird, babbling troll creatures that mimic human behavior while reacting with violence to imaginary slights, clawing their skin off and otherwise acting like Smeagol-turned-Gollum. It's the sort of characterization I've only ever heard used to describe meth users. (I haven't had the copper ripped out of my walls yet, but I've had my house and car ransacked, safe broken into and my identity stolen!)
It's a godsend for ADHD, but it's a loaded P320 in the hands of anyone else. This stuff is no joke.
So... To reemphasize/reput a few points to stay:
A) If marijuana avoids Schedule 2 at the Federal level, then Schedule 2 is little more than a political contrivance, because even the common sense underlying something being on Schedule 2; high abuse potential, but medical use, is apparently less a matter of objectivity and more a matter of what someone's opinion is. I hate few things more than arbitrarily carving things out for reasons. All ot does is create more suffering and complexity to navigate.
B) DEA is on my Federal Agency shitlist. Not only do they unabashedly centrally plan, but they've repeatedly been caught out violating the public trust, and using engaging in less-than-legal investigation techniques that flagrantly violate U.S. citizens fundamental civil rights. Either through things like regular use of parallel construction, implementation of surveillance apparata that'd make the Stasi blush, and such nonsense that's such a close proxy to unabashed racism it isn't even funny. See the difference in severity between possession and use of cocaine vs. possession and use of crack. It's so damn transparent there I have increasingly more trouble recognizing them as being worthy of being afforded the benefit of legitimacy.
Now... In response to what you brought up, and to clean up some of the confusing mess in my deschedule Adderall thing.
>The solution to misclassifying weed as schedule-2 is not declassifying a controlled substance habitual users never take less of.
I disagree that marijuana is not something that should be on Schedule 2. It is a narcotic, it has high abuse potential, and it has medical uses. Schedule 2 period. Further: your assertion no one ever takes less Adderall is incorrect. I'm a living, walking, talking counterexample, thank you very much.
>Adderall abusers (~1000mg+ snorted over 1wk IME)
At that point you're already far out of the regime of intended use. All forms of Adderall are calibrated to be introduced to the body orally. If you're bypassing that, that's on you.
1000mg a week is over 140mg per 24 hours. As an individual who has been on this stuff for over 2 decades for ADHD, and has flirted with the very tippy tops of the dosage envelope (I was not a light individual), that regime of use by anyone uner 280->300 lbs is a heart attack waiting to happen.
>and end up terrorizing everyone around them with their high-functioning, semi-coherent psychosis.
...Could you elaborate more on your subjective metric for measuring psychosis? One of the interesting bits I learned as part of a set of coping strategies for being on these types of meds is to keep logs and measure things/look them off. There are times where yes, it can absolutely hose your ability to perceive errors in cognition. However, there are also just as many examples I have of times people were adamant I was wrong, but it turned out they couldn't understand/were incorrectly understanding the situation. Bout a 50/50 mix in my case. That's after applying a pessimum adjustment against me.
Telling the differrnce between the two of those situations is not an easy skill to come by. The subtlety of the deleterious side effects are actually one of the reasons I've sort of come around to getting away from them if possible.
>After a week of no sleep people become these weird, babbling troll creatures that mimic human behavior while reacting with violence to imaginary slights, clawing their skin off and otherwise acting like Smeagol-turned-Gollum.
...yes... Agreed. Not seen Adderall directly causing that.
>It's the sort of characterization I've only ever heard used to describe meth users.
Neurotransmitter fuckery does that.
> It's a godsend for ADHD, but it's a loaded P320 in the hands of anyone e...
Absolutely agree. Adding to this the most naturally powerful and deadly drugs on earth grow in just about every field in most of the northern United States and in parts of northern Europe. Those other weeds are not and have never been illegal nor could they practically be made illegal as they are near impossible to get rid of. Singling out marijuana AFAIK was initially about stopping competition in the paper industry and the system never corrected itself when it started feeding the prison industrial complex and allowing cops to lock up specific groups of people they disliked and justifying bigger budgets and entirely new agencies to be created.
I do not have any good ideas for how to fix this. Maybe replace MJ with the more deadly stuff until the system implodes under its own weight whilst accepting the casualties? Henbane may be safer than eating tide pods.
Possible, but unlikely. It's a shameful legacy that disproportionately affected minorities, but it's unlikely the original Nixon war on drugs was a direct assault on hippies and Blacks. More likely, Nixon was simply terrified of drugs [0] and overreacted and this bad policy was extended by future presidents for decades. The canard about targeting specific demographics originates with John Ehrlichman in a 2016 Harper's story [1]. Ehrichman had a real grudge for doing jail time for Watergate. Nixon's own drug czar, Jerome Jaffe, is somewhat of a pioneer in non-retributive, therapeutic treatments [2].
[0] http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/drugs/intervie...
[1] https://harpers.org/archive/2016/04/legalize-it-all/
[2] https://mashable.com/article/nixon-war-on-drugs#uqUHc3dQzuqZ
Note that that is a story relating an interview in 1994, which you've copied off of a Wikipedia page and apparently misunderstood. But that still kind of fails to explain how I knew about Nixon's War on Drugs targeting blacks and hippies back in ~1991.
Also, why did Nixon "just hate drugs"? Was it because of the association with blacks and hippies?
And why did his administration support his efforts? When considering the motivations behind policies we shouldn't fall victim of explanations that revolve entirely around cults of personality. Even if Nixon didn't support it for racist and anti-leftist reasons, he still needed the support of his administration, and the application of the war on drugs could have still been racist and anti-leftist due to the actions of the many thousands of people who had to prosecute it.
That's an ad hominem and should be irrelevant to the argument.
He didn't though.
Desperate voters would rubber stamp anything.
“all the flowers have to be grown in-state by licensed grower.
There will be 10 licences.
They go to my 10 buddies and last 25 years.”
Alcohol is also highly taxed, there's nothing wrong with taxing drugs
[0] or you will get refused, just due to you sector/trade
If there was some CBDC scheme that worked at all; how long would the credit cards last? They'd lose so much of the business the currently have as the default electronic payment system. Perhaps that has something to do with how hard it has been to get digital banking / payments to happen for the last 20 years?
Another poster mentioned that buying weed with cash is just a good idea as having credit card transactions at Bill's weed shop forever on your permanent record isn't a good idea.
ID was checked for age when you entered stores.
After that, you can pay cash. It’s anonymous.
Who has these kinds of requirements you are talking about?
Who knows!
The state also requires high def video surveillance of basically every angle in the dispensary and forces them to retain the data for 6 months for "investigative purposes".
So not only do they have record of the exact item I bought, when, and where, they have me on camera doing it AND can trace that item all the way back to seed.
I would hope a recreational program if the state were ever to adopt one would not be so invasive...but you never know.
So, presumably, that could be tracked?
Every licensed dispensary in CA tracks what customers are purchasing. That's the whole point of seed to sale tracking and METRC.
Whether it's sent to the government and which part of it is another question.
https://catalog.usmint.gov/coins/coin-programs/american-eagl...
Dealers will sell boxes of 500 silver eagles for around $18,000.
If I recall correctly, I paid for weed with my VISA debit card both in The Netherland and Spain without any issues.
I've never thought about this. Future employers and anyone who buys such background data knows I've partaken.