In general, I think I’ve kept my shit together about President Elect Trump more so than other progressives I’ve seen here, on social media, and in real life. I don’t think he is going to do a straight repeal Obamacare, deport millions of undocumented immigrants, build the stupid wall, or some of the other outrageous things he campaigned on. But one thing I do fear is added pressure on state and local police to continue/revert back to a ‘stop and frisk’ model of policing. Now, I think stop and frisk’ and other profiling methods are a terrible idea and bring out the worst in our criminal justice system. But I DO think the impact will be blunted by the wave of marijuana decriminalization we have seen lately in major US cities.
The first question is what will Trump do about national marijuana policy. Right now marijuana is still illegal under federal law. The only reason states are able to legalize marijuana is because of the Cole Memo issued under Eric Holder which essentially states that the Federal government won’t interfere with states that decide to legalize it. But the Cole Memo can be overturned unilaterally by a new Attorney General.
I understand your reasoning, but I’m afraid the justice department is likely to enforce marijuana prohibition in spite of state legalizations.
From what I’ve read, Trump is in favor of medical and always has been while he’s sorta against recreational but he considers it a states rights matter.
It depends on who Trump names as his attorney-general. Ted Cruz, for example, shares Trump’s hands-off philosophy. Someone like Jeff Sessions, who is militarily anti-pot, would take a much harder line.
People have been predicting this for years, but it ain’t happening. There’s far too much money involved and it solves all kinds of political problems. Colorado is a solid purple state and you never hear the subject come up even from the hard-right social conservatives. They say that to get ahead in Colorado politics. you can’t touch the three G’s - God, guns, and Ganja.
Now with California, the amount of money involved is 15 times bigger. Any politician who tries to take up that cause will get no support from his own party and get crushed by the pot billionaires, of which there will be many.
Thinking of it*** in an isolated vacuum***, all other factors being neutralized, as it were, a stop-n-frisk policy in the scenario of depenalization of personal use amounts of MJ would likely have an effect of reduction in workload for the justice system, in that the people who when stopped-n-frisked were found in possession *but otherwise no other unlawful conduct happening *would be sent on their way. Those carrying hard drugs or suspected unlawful weapons would still be taken to the station and their names run to see if there are any outstandings.
In a more corrupt view of the universe, it would make it a bit harder to frame people since it would take planting harder or riskier types of evidence than mere buds.
To approach the question literally, it’s going to make the jobs of cops in those states were MJ is legal a bit harder. Unless the cop sees a person smoking it in public or has reasonable, articulable suspicion that the person was or was about to smoke it in public, merely smelling an MJ scent on someone is no longer going to be sufficient legal cause to stop and/or search someone.
I think this is a big reason why prosecutors are against legalizing MJ (in addition to any money they get from fees or fines associated with MJ convictions). A cop smelling unburnt or burnt weed emanating from a person, car, etc. traditionally gave them easy legal justification for a stop if not a search. If a search was conducted, then a certain amount of the time other things would be discovered (evidence of other crimes such as possession of other drugs, weapons, etc.) that led to bigger cases.
Republican pollsters can see just as well as Democrats that the strong anit-pot voters are dying off every day of old age, while the new, young voters are strongly pro=legalization. So other Republicans who want to win some of those voters in the future will prevent any Republican AG from doing much to change the current hands-off policy of the Cole memo.
Oh, they might fulminate against pot in public, especially in messages to their older base, but won’t actual;y do much (especially against white, native-born pot smokers).
What about “Stop and search” that’s what states are doing all around Colorado and Washington and Oregon and soon to be three more recreational legal marijuana states?
People that have never even smoked pot with Colorado license plates are being stopped in the surrounding states and searched for pot.
A bindle of heroin is silly tiny. A single dose bag of meth is also silly tiny. Various pills or fentanyl patches are silly tiny. I can reverse pickpocket fairly small and lightweight items moderately easily and I don’t even have a badge. Imagine what I could do while doing a pat down even with a camera watching.
You have to remember that Stop & Frisk was an initiative allegedly designed to get illegal guns off of the streets and it was primarily deployed in areas where Black people lived and consequently the overwhelming number of people stopped and frisked were Black males. Pot (decriminalized in NY since 1977) enters into the picture because police will tell a person they stopped to empty out their pockets and when they comply and have pot they are then charged with having pot in public view a class B misdemeanor.
“In terms of marijuana and legalization, I think that should be a state issue, state-by-state,” Trump said in Nevada in October 2015.
Well, yet another lie from El Trompo.
The idea that there is too much money is the point indeed, Trump and minions do not want to see the states were recreational Marijuana has been legalized to make any money from it, because it is more likely than not for that money to be used to support liberal causes or the governments that are opposed to his majesty.
What Trump said before right now is irrelevant to Trump. This is the Cheeto-in-Chief who stated we need to go into Iraq, and has since stated the exact opposite. He posted a video saying “We need to go into Libya,” and now claims we never should have been there.