{"id":15902,"date":"2015-11-02T13:53:47","date_gmt":"2015-11-02T18:53:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=15902"},"modified":"2015-11-02T13:53:47","modified_gmt":"2015-11-02T18:53:47","slug":"the-ohio-marijuana-initiative-and-the-corruption-of-our-republic","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/?p=15902","title":{"rendered":"the Ohio marijuana initiative and the corruption of our republic"},"content":{"rendered":"

Ohioans vote tomorrow on\u00a0the\u00a0Marijuana Legalization Initiative, Issue 3<\/a>. It is like a stew composed of horrible aspects of our current politics–not legalizing pot, which is fine with me, but allowing rich people to buy\u00a0public policy, governments to enable rent-seeking and oligopolies, political professionals to manipulate voters, and\u00a0special interests to extract private benefits in return for enabling popular reforms to pass.<\/span><\/p>\n

Issue 3 would legalize marijuana but restrict large-scale cultivation to the ten\u00a0individuals who bankrolled the referendum. The outcomes for the people of Ohio may\u00a0be better<\/a>\u00a0if Issue 3 passes than\u00a0under the status quo, because ten\u00a0may be a good number of licensed producers. Zero legal distributors is too few. Prohibiting marijuana creates\u00a0an illegal industry that\u00a0causes huge damage. Also, I am enough of a libertarian to believe that if consenting adults want to do something like smoke pot, the presumption should favor their liberty to do so as long as they follow laws protecting others.\u00a0On the other hand, if anyone<\/em> can grow\u00a0and market marijuana, prices will fall and usage will rise, which will have serious consequences for\u00a0public health. Licensing ten growers\u00a0may inflate\u00a0prices and allow the government to regulate the industry\u00a0effectively–a good balance.<\/p>\n

But the voters are not asked to approve ten\u00a0licenses that go to the highest bidders. They are presented with the opportunity to give state-mandated monopolies to ten\u00a0wealthy rent-seekers. It’s like the days when\u00a0kings gave favored courtiers the royal privilege to manufacture specific items in return for gifts and favors. Only it is worse than that, because it enlists the voters in creating these monopolies. In On Revolution<\/em>, Hannah Arendt noted that corruption was traditionally a sin of rulers, but with democracy, the people can for the first time be corrupted. Issue 3 is blatant yet typical effort to do that.<\/p>\n

To their credit, Ohioans have also proposed Issue 2<\/a>, which specifically prohibits any state amendment that “grants or creates a monopoly, oligopoly, or cartel, specifies or determines a tax rate, or confers a commercial interest, commercial right, or commercial license that is not available to other similarly situated persons.” If both initiatives\u00a0pass, interesting litigation will ensue<\/a>. But even if Issue 2 passes, this\u00a0is really no way to\u00a0govern.<\/p>\n

See also:\u00a0bottom-up struggles against corruption: a frontier of democracy<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0the Supreme Court reflects the \u201cdegeneracy of the times\u201d<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Ohioans vote tomorrow on\u00a0the\u00a0Marijuana Legalization Initiative, Issue 3. It is like a stew composed of horrible aspects of our current politics–not legalizing pot, which is fine with me, but allowing rich people to buy\u00a0public policy, governments to enable rent-seeking and oligopolies, political professionals to manipulate voters, and\u00a0special interests to extract private benefits in return for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15902","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15902","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=15902"}],"version-history":[{"count":20,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15902\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":15947,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/15902\/revisions\/15947"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=15902"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=15902"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/peterlevine.ws\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=15902"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}