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Comment by fein | Hacker News Reader

The people aren't really the ones making the decision.

Here in Ohio, for example, we didn't have a vote on recreational, instead we had a vote on a government sanctioned monopoly possibly leading the way to recreational.

If there was some sort of state issue that could be voted on which was "regulate it like we do garden tomatoes", it would pass.

Leadership has prevented this, not your cartoon idea of the oh so ignorant voter base.

Too often we blame the salt of the earth people for things the media has done. Rule by multi millionaire propagandists.

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According to wikipedia ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Initiatives_and_referendums_in... ) and ballotpedia ( https://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/Indirect_initiative_s... ), Ohio allows indirect initiatives.

Meaning that if you were right about the voting base, it would be easy to legalize recreational marijuana without worrying what the leadership thought.

> In the indirect form, initiative sponsors collect signatures and once the signatures are collected, the measure is taken up by the state legislature in their state. The legislature has these options:

> Enact the measure as written in the petition.

> Refuse to act on the measure, in which case it goes on the ballot.

https://ballotpedia.org/Initiated_state_statute

The leadership is not capable of preventing legalization if the salt of the earth is in favor of it.

The salt of the earth doesn't give a shit about the local government; they just want to be left alone for the most part.

The issue is getting the signatures in the first place, which requires canvassing, which requires paying someone to organize all of that. The last example of a successful canvassing that we had was a grab at a monopoly over growing ops, which was funded partly by a former member of the boy band NSYNC.

The other hurdle is approval by the legislature. In Ohio it's not as simple as "get signatures, get on the ballot".

> The other hurdle is approval by the legislature. In Ohio it's not as simple as "get signatures, get on the ballot".

I'm open to more specialized information, but the description on ballotpedia strongly implies that it is that simple. Specifically, it says that the steps are:

1. Get signatures.

2. The legislature must consider the initiative, either approving or rejecting it.

3a. If the legislature approves the initiative, it becomes law without having to go on the ballot.

3b. If the legislature rejects the initiative, it goes on the ballot.

Thus, once you have signatures, the worst case is that you go straight onto the ballot, and the best case is that you become law without needing to. Theoretically, it could be possible for the legislature to sit on the initiative without ever approving or rejecting it. All I'm working off here is a cursory description of the law of several states including Ohio. Do you have relevant knowledge of Ohio law?

Politicians are more often mirrors of society than agents of change. Demand change from them, they aren't reading Hacker News. If they refuse change, campaign against them.

>campaign against them

And then suddenly when the death threats and FBI audits and etc start showing up in your life, and you lose the campaign anyway, you'll say to yourself, "shit, this isn't a democracy we're living in, this is just a mafia state."

Tinfoil hats are this way.

Go run for office then. Surely it can't be that hard and daunting.

Meh. Faraday mesh hats work much better.

Monopoly, really?

One single corporation was going to control the whole cabal?

You are misrepresenting facts.

Would you prefer cabal? It was a certain group of a limited number of people who could grow, with nothing in the lines of allowing private growers to create startups.

Oligopoloy.

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