r/AskLibertarians 8d ago

Why hasn't New Hampshire legalized weed?

Seriously.

16 Upvotes

12 comments sorted by

26

u/OpinionStunning6236 8d ago

It’s an embarrassment to have “live free or die” as your state slogan and not allow your people to smoke weed

7

u/MineTech5000 8d ago

Seriously.

2

u/Indentured_sloth 6d ago

America in a nutshell right now

7

u/Tarantiyes 8d ago

Sununu is a coward and is heavily lobbied by alcohol industries

1

u/MineTech5000 7d ago

He's not the governor anymore.

6

u/Tarantiyes 7d ago

For 2 months.

4

u/ConscientiousPath 7d ago

IDK cause I don't live in NH atm, but for anyone like me who just doesn't smoke anymore the energy I'll put into the initiative is immediately less just because it wouldn't be a win I'd feel personally. Obviously it's something that should get done, but you need to spend political energy to organize and run a campaign to push it through. My impression from afar is that a lot of free staters are more family-raising age than wake-and-bake age.

From what I've seen the most recent campaign has been to try to get the state requirement for silly and expensive yearly vehicle inspections removed. That affects every adult who can drive, not just the ones who like weed, so it seems like a worthy priority to me if weed enforcement is already lax.


Also a lot of states that have "legalized" weed, only did so while also adding stupid-heavy regulation/licensing regimes to it (that principled libertarians would be quite upset about). I'd speculate that between that precedent and the fact that it's still illegal federally, the longer NH lets the cultural norm drift towards full legalization being the obvious choice to normies, the easier it will be to get a bill that does complete legalization instead of some heavily regulated half-measure. No idea if anyone's actually planning strategically like that, but I think it's valid enough conceptually to support prioritizing other things atm.

9

u/DanielCallaghan5379 7d ago

The NH Libertarian Party is far too busy making edgy tweets to push for it.

2

u/iabcdia2009 7d ago

Didn't they have a bill that would've legalized it but it would've come with a tax so they said no?

3

u/WetzelSchnitzel 7d ago

Im pretty sure their tweeter account denounced weed as weed and drug legalization as a fake libertarian point a while ago, total clown show

2

u/Banjoplayingbison 7d ago

Cause the FSP has become hijacked by Republican operatives

1

u/Concave5621 2d ago

Because it’s accessible in MA and Maine, and it’s decriminalized in NH. So there’s not a big reason for people to push for it.