US drug control agency will move to reclassify marijuana

Election year and not to mention that the President's numbers are in shambles with younger voters. This move feels extremely transparent to me.

Similar to paying off random citizen's student loans?

Well I mean: doing things that people want them to do to get elected. Not the worst problem?

My favorite was the cancellation of a ban on menthol cigarettes because it would turn away black voters despite the NAACP ardently encouraging the ban[0].

[0]https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/26/health/fda-menthol-cigarettes...

Of course not, that's how democracy works!

My actual issue with this is:

a) it should have been done sooner. Waiting until $election_year to do something popular has severely damaged the growth of cannabis industry

and b) it's another executive branch rule by decree that could be reversed as soon as 6 months from now after election day.

Ah, I agree. It is a good move with a side of bullshit.

> it should have been done sooner.

Not everyone agrees though. I don't want it legalized or normalized more.

What about reclassification?

It’s pandering and on the edge of buying votes. Unlike Student Loan “forgiveness” which was a direct purchase of a vote.

And no I doubt this will rouse the pot smokers to vote, perhaps mail in, as they don’t have to do actually anything.

If everyone buys votes using one issue or another, using cannabis to buy votes should be the least concern of anyone.

While you can make some amount of case that the timing makes it a manipulation, is this really the manipulation that bothers you?

I would rather there be no manipulations. But in a country that divides itself on infantile identity politics, fight fire with fire.

It is not a fair game. You can’t demand perfect intentions around this issue when politics is full of much worse actors.

>as severely damaged the growth of cannabis industry

Do you own weed stocks or something? How is the growth of the cannabis industry supposed to be the mandate of a government?

Honestly the biggest uptick of weed use I've seen in my peer groups is in the >= 50 set for pain management, sleep, and...fun.

Yeah, he's doing something that's reasonably popular among everyone. How dare he?

Regulation shouldn't cause harm for causing harm's sake. We already know prohibition doesn't work, so why did they drag their feet on repealing regulation that is both harmful and ineffective, is my concern.

Also to answer your question about weed stocks: I used to own cannabis stocks but dumped them about a year ago. Big mistake! They've doubled in price over the last week presumably from this news.

Yeah, now that it's "windows open" weather, we are smelling it a lot; source is definitely in the over 50 demographic.

It's wild to me that people think "buying votes" is a bad thing. The whole point of democracy is to align the interests of the state's leaders to its population. If anything, politicians don't buy votes often enough!

A third of the population, 111 million citizens, do not want it legalized. I wouldn't consider that "popular among everyone". https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/04/10/facts-abo...

Your own link says it's 70% in favor of legalization and 29% against. 29% is as close to "a quarter of the population" as it is to "a third of the population" - 400 basis points.

Putting it another way nearly 3 quarters of citizens want it legalized. That's massive. It's as close to unanimous consensus as you can get on a hot-button issue like drugs.

The timing is complete bullshit. Politicians “pocket” issues like this and pull them out during an election year “look how much I care about you!!! Vote for me!!!” They could have and should have done this a very long time ago.

It’s obvious to everyone that the democrats are losing their bread a butter voters, young people and black folks. This gets waved around for the nth time and everyone gets excited.

Politician runs on a platform of 'Hey 51% of the population, if you vote for me I'll take the other 49%'s money and give it to you!', proceeds to win by 2%. Democracy in action!

are you really going on a downvote revenge spree? lol

On HN you can't downvote a direct reply to your own comment, so vuln did not downvote your reply.

I wish it was completely legal and completely non-normalized.

So, just to clarify, you're actually taking issue with me referring to 29% as one third, while you have no issue referring to 70% as 100%? Either way, there's still over a hundred million human beings living in your country that disagree with you. Call it whatever you want but don't dismiss it.

> while you have no issue referring to 70% as 100%?

And you have no issue putting words in my mouth. I said it was close to three-quarters, is "massive" and that you can't get closer to unanimous than that.

> Call it whatever you want but don't dismiss it.

29% want to lock up the other 71% for consuming a plant. And we don't know for sure that all of that 29% are entirely clean themselves.

So why not dismiss it? Why does the 29%'s opinion matter here? If 29% of the population said you should jail people for premarital sex, or smoking, or wearing shorts, or whistling in elevators, would you take them seriously?

A simple majority or supermajority is more than enough to legalize or abolish anything. Pretty much no issue requires 100% of everyone to agree.