Libertarians always wanted help from the government, they just simply do not understand the myriad ways in which they have/are already benefitted/ing from it. What they are against is "their money" being "given" to "others", or more simply the foundational idea that we pay taxes for services which we all use and are made more affordable by everyone paying in a little. It's a doomed philosophy that has all but been taken over by its more openly hateful proponents and bereft of any new ideas.

I'm not sure why you had to reduce the conversation to name calling and insults. All I am saying is that I see a lot of potential benefits, the majority of NH residents want legalization, and the benefits of waiting until it can be run through the State Liquor stores makes little to no sense. The part where you said: "Should we? Sure. Would it be awesome? Yes. Could we benefit? Hell yes." is the whole argument, why waste time defending NH politicians who are actively blocking popular legislation which would undoubtedly increase tax revenues? My point this whole time has simply been that waiting for it to be Federally Legal so the state can Monopolize the marketplace via the Liquor Store model seems ill-conceived and in my opinion actually less desirable than the alternatives.

Its an entire new industry paying above average wages and happy to be taxed at 20% rate. An industry that is already legally operating on the other aide of all our borders and without any of the benefits coming to NH. I am really unsure any of the types of issues you are describing experiencing in other states can be directly attributed to legalization. I also disagree with your assessment of the NH approach to governance, we have an atypically large legislature which insures more compromise and consequently tends to slow the speed of the process. At a time when NH needs to both retain and recruit young and working age people it seems senseless to sit on the sidelines while our neighboring state’s allow this industry to develop. The longer NH continues to sit out the less potential benefits we will see from this new industry as NH will be further behind in tools and know how. None of this bothers the Governor etc because those that see the issue through the liquor store lens only see that revenue stream and not the dozens of other economic impacts this has. Want to rejuvenate the North country while improving our roads and schools? Want to just lower taxes? Or how about just doing something the majority of residents say they want?

I just do not understand why we should want/allow the NH Government to have total control over an entirely new industry. We've already seen an explosion of nano/micro breweries with the loosening of the restrictions on them, why do we continue to insist that NH Liquor store model is even appealing? Half of the reason it works is that our border states charge sales tax and we're accessible, both are things which would be unlikely to motivate additional marijuana sales. The people of NH have overwhelmingly supported legalization for a long time and yet Governors have been vetoing legalization measures since at least John Lynch's time in office, this is just fundamentally not how things ought to function even if they have supposedly well intentioned plans for the future.

Why wait? So we can keep sending that tax revenue to MA,ME, and VT? NH wants to control it at the state level, that much is clear, but why should we let them do it that way? It would likely create more jobs, entrepreneurship, and innovation if the states only involvement was via taxation. The last thing NH needs is a larger portion of its funding being tied to a single department of the government.

End Citizens United. Unlimited Corporate and Anonymous/Dark Money is ruining this country and the ads on TV are just a small part of it.