The Platform, Week 4: From Marijuana to Marriage Equality, Social Issues Posted by Nathan S. on 10/25/12 | Filed under Opinion, Politics, The Platform

Over the next few weeks, Refined Hype and political-economic analysis blog Nitro Citizen will host The Platform, a series in which contributors from RH, Nitro, and the music industry comment on the structure of politics and how we are affected by what's on the ballot.

Starting with the president, and moving into how we might take the conditions created by federal policy to act at the local level, we will look at all levels of government and social activism from the ground-up. So if you feel nauseous about voting, you might be looking too high up on the ballot or you might find other avenues to help create progress through The Platform.

This week, Dharmic X for RefinedHype, BroadNMarket for Nitro Citizen, and RefinedHype chief Nathan Slavik discuss the social issues on ballots across the country next month.

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BroadNMarket (Nitro Citizen) on Marijuana:

"The Chronic" has been a part of the culture almost from the jump, and the understanding that hip hop heads have had for decades, that prosecution for possession and distribution of a substance that is no more harmful than alcohol serves mostly as yet another employment barrier for many who are already at a disadvantage in our current economy, is creeping into the political discourse. We would need to move to harder drugs to address the padding of globally unmatched US prison populations, but the costs of marijuana prohibition add to the fiscal constraints that we unnecessarily keep on governments at all levels.



As of 2011 low-level marijuana arrests in New York City had increased each year since 2003 despite an NYPD directive intended to decrease entrapment of marijuana users. More than 50,000 people were arrested in that year alone - about 30% having no prior arrest record - and the total surpassed that of the entire 19-year period between 1978 and 1996. This cost the city $75 million in one year and disproportionately targets black and hispanic tokers (the stat is 86%). New York Governor Andrew Cuomo's efforts to ease marijuana restrictions earlier this year drew heavy opposition in the Statehouse and had to be tossed aside.

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The disappointment of President Obama backing away from his promise to leave approved medical marijuana users alone four years ago ignores that the president left a door pretty clearly open in a Rolling Stone interview earlier this year:

The president continued: "I can't nullify congressional law. I can't ask the Justice Department to say, 'Ignore completely a federal law that's on the books.'"

Focusing on the policies of the past four years (or forty, for that matter) distracts from the opportunity for voters to change the policies of the country going forward. Many claim that alcohol companies underwrite the campaign to keep cannabis illegal, and in the meantime we lose a potential area for serious economic activity. Three states - Colorado, Oregon, and Washington - are set to blaze the path to legalization in November. Nineteen states already recognize medical marijuana, and Massachusetts may join the fold in November as well.

Things get a bit more complicated when you move toward the cocaine-laced blunts of Kendrick Lamar's m.A.A.d. city. Libertarian candidate Gary Johnson has repeatedly pointed to Portugal's 11-year-old drug decriminalization scheme - in which they legalized everything including crack - as an example of the positive net effect of treating drug addiction as a public health issues as opposed to an issue for the criminal justice system. Though he is evasive about how he would handle controlled substances, it's clear that he wouldn't label marijuana as Schedule 1. Since his opinions weren't welcome by the CPD at this year's debates, voters in more liberal states have all the power to light up the vote and spark movement toward legalization.

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Nathan Slavik (RefinedHype) on Marriage Equality:

There are no shortage of hotly contested issues in this country that are far too complex to yield simple solutions. Gun rights, healthcare, abortion, all extraordinarily complicated issues where people on both sides (or at least the non-crazy people) have valid and inherently contradictory points.

Marriage equality is not one of them. There is no valid reason it should be illegal for gay people to get married. Period. Really we should be thankful there's finally an issue that has such a simple solution. I won't spend 7,000 words breaking down the arguments against gay marriage here, it's already been done, so I'll just go outline style:

My religion opposes gay marriage: If you're opposed to gay marriage, or more fundamentally the existence of gay people, on religious grounds that's your right. We could debate what the Bible (or Torah, or Koran, or any religious text) actually says about homosexuality, but it's essentially a moot point. We live in a democracy, not a theocracy, so no religious belief is grounds for a legal decision.

Marriage is about having children: I don't think anyone would disagree that children are best served when raised in stable, two-parent households. (Unstable two-parent households aren't exactly so great.) But regardless of gay marriage, children aren't, and shouldn't be, a legal requirement for marriage. If that was true then it should also be illegal for two 80-year-old straight people to get married - should straight people who don't have children within the first ten years that they're married have their marriage licenses revoked? Raising children in a stable environment maybe a positive outcome of marriage, but it's not a requirement.

That hasn't stopped gay marriage bans from becoming the rule, not the exception, in America though (starting with the Defense of Marriage Act). The optimists will say that the tide is starting to turn - the majority of Americans now approve of gay marriage, Obama has repealed Don't Ask Don't Tell, etc. - but the truth is that on a state-by-state level gay marriage is still very much a battle.

In California, thanks to our absurdly complicated proposition system, in just the past three years or so gay marriage has been illegal, legal, illegal and then legal again, and that's likely not the final word. On the other side of the fence, North Carolina recently passed a ban, and a number of additional states this election have marriage equality on the docket:

In Washington a referendum to legalize same-sex marriage is up, in Maine voters will decide whether or not to overturn a gay marriage ban, in Maryland civil marriages are on the table, and Minnesota continues to debate the "one man, one woman" definition of marriage.

I realize that I'm advocating for a specific position than my more informative colleagues in this post, but in many ways I've was given a far simple issue. Ultimately, gay marriage is about human rights, about your family members and neighbors and co-workers. It really shouldn't be a debate. Get informed, and get informed in your state.



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Dharmic X (RefinedHype) on Health Care:

Health Care has been on the forefront of political discourse throughout the Obama administration, for obvious reasons. The war over the Affordable Care Act took an interesting twist this summer, when the United States Supreme Court ruled the landmark piece of legislation as constitutional while claiming that the provision that requires an individual mandate is a tax, not part of the commerce clause as previously argued by Administration officials.

In the day following the Supreme Court ruling, reactions from both sides of the aisle came quickly and forcefully, with Mitt Romney vehemently announcing that he will repeal the bill if he is elected to the White House. But as the campaign has worn along, the Health Care bill has not come up for significant discussion, probably because there have been more pressing issues that Americans have wanted to see addressed.



That said, the movement to undercut the Affordable Care Act is already underway in several states via their ballot initiatives.

Citizens in Alabama, Florida, Montana, and Wyoming will be voting on ballot questions that essentially would eliminate the individual mandate in these respective states. For example, Amendment 6 for Alabama reads as follows: “Proposing an amendment to the Constitution of Alabama of 1901, to prohibit any person, employer, or health care provider from being compelled to participate in any health care system."

Similar language exists in the other three states’ ballots this year. Two states, Arizona and Oklahoma, have already passed this initiative, setting up a showdown over states’ rights should the Affordable Care Act itself survive until 2014, when it becomes time to begin the implementation of the individual mandate. It is this states’ rights stance that Romney has championed for in making his argument against a national health care reform bill that was modeled after the Massachusetts health care reform bill that he served as a driving force behind.

See Also: The Platform, Week 3: Bringing It Home - Local Politics