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Comment by crazygringo | Hacker News Reader

I think it's pretty simple -- politicians think it's going to happen, but don't want to be personally linked to it because it can hurt their popularity with certain segments of voters they rely on. Nobody wants to claim credit for it.

So they put it up for referendum instead, so it happens but it doesn't harm anyone's careers.

It's not at all any kind of vindication of direct democracy. Rather, because it's broadly popular but also highly unpopular with significant segments of voters on both sides... a referendum works out for everyone.

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I also think it's an older generational mindset, that being pro-pot will sink your career. They don't want to offend too many people so it's easier to stick their head in the sand and then "come around" when it's suddenly popular.

There's also people like my mother who believe marijuana is akin to meth. If you smoke it once you'll end up homeless, under a bridge down by the river

>They don't want to offend too many people so it's easier to stick their head in the sand and then "come around" when it's suddenly popular.

Another example to point to from recent US political history: the federal legalization of same-sex marriage, and subsequent rapid rehabilitation of the public platforms held by its former opponents still regularly running for re-election.

Just to be clear - the “federal legalization” of same-sex marriage came from the Supreme Court, not actual Federal Law, so it is definitely at risk of being overruled with the new court membership. The best our federal government could do was the Defense of Marriage Act, (reluctantly) signed in to law by Clinton in ‘96, which defined marriage as between one man and one woman. Individual states, with significant aid from the Supreme Court, did away with that barbaric nonsense. We are not likely to see such progressive thinking from the current bench regarding drug use.

Rarely does SCOTUS reverse course like that, even when the justices change. The risk, while not zero, seems very slight.

New York has been trying to legalize for a few years now but it gets hung up on how to divide up the revenue.

New York has all the political will needed but the problem is the bureaucracy. This should not be the least bit surprising.

The "bureaucracy" would be the unelected government employees, but the NY issue last I checked what about what regulations and fees to levy, monopolization, and reparations concerns. All of that is rather over-complex, but doesn't deal with the "bureaucracy" per se?

By that definition, meth isn't like meth either :D

Most legislators now are pretty awful at their jobs.

Changes to law are coming from the courts, ballot initiatives, executive orders, and the bureaucracy, not from legislative bodies like they're supposed to. Legislators 'dunk' on Twitter all day and very little legislating actually happens.

It's an easy out for them -- they rarely go on record for supporting or opposing things now -- and can blame presidents, bureaucrats, and the courts for anything that turns out to be unpopular.

That doesn’t seem like a satisfying explanation. Why then do legislators routinely support other legislation that is similarly or even less popular than marijuana legalization?

At least until recently, there was no money backing it. Support for unpopular policies is presumably backed by rich corporations, right? I'm thinking relaxing environmental regulations and war as two examples that come immediately to mind.

I'm (very seriously) trying to understand how backing something with >2/3 open support, that's clearly bipartisan, would hurt one's political career.

I'm guessing maybe it's because although those who oppose some form of marijuana (neither medical nor recreational) are in the minority, they still make up a sizable voting block when an election is won on the marginal vote. But how does that play out when >2/3 of people support it across the board, and that politician is the only one doing something to push it forward? That politician would literally be the only choice if marijuana is meaningful enough to a voter. So while the politician may lose some supporters, would they not gain support from others?

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