TexanScot

I did notice that Kamala Harris publicly committed to decriminalization and expungement of convictions during the VP debate this year, so it will definitely be interesting to see what will happen if the Democrats are successful in taking control of the White House and the Senate.

Given the financial cost of the coronavirus pandemic, there's never going to be a better time for some of the more resistant State governments to finally push for legalization too in order to bring in some of that easy tax revenue - there is some good optics there in terms of fiscal prudence.

Pulaski

Maybe, but the tax revenue hasn't been the boon that most states expected - a lot of it is "grow your own" (the legalization laws specify how many plants you can own, and whether they are growing, drying, or cured leafs). The cash buyer market was initially concentrated in Colorado and then Washington - and they did very nicely .... until other states started to legalise recreational marijuana, and so the market has been diluted ever since. I have seen some reports that consumption has actually declined, slightly in states where it has been legalized.

TexanScot

I think what's perhaps different here in Texas is that due to the lack of an income tax, there's actually very few fiscal levers that the State government can pull to actually generate revenue over and above sales and use tax - the horribly broken system of school funding here means that there's not actually much that the State can do to offer property tax relief to that wouldn't screw over rural Republican voters in order to benefit urban Democrats, and that's a political non-starter.

The revenue from marijuana might well be less than people might expect, but I suspect the idea of legalizing it and taxing urban Democrats in order to raise school funding and cut taxes for rural areas might be awfully tempting, especially if it then gives them a fiscal excuse not to do anything about high property taxes in places like Austin.

It's not like urban DAs here have any interest any more in prosecuting simple possession anyway, so the State might as well go for the low hanging fruit here now that there's a good angle to get it past rural voters.

Shark013

Hi all !
can my son travel to Canada with his criminal record ? This may be better option until he hopefully gets a waiver in the future. Thanks in advance

Pulaski

You should ask this question in the Canada forum.

christmasoompa

Afraid it’s still too soon for Canada as well - https://www.canada.ca/en/immigration...-activity.html

HTH.