A real irony, indeed. Interestingly, a similar irony is seen with the divergence of the political systems of the United States and Canada.
The United States was deliberately designed to be a decentralized federal system. States' rights were given priority over the rights of the federal government. And yet, the United States is pretty centralized. State governors seem accustomed to acting as mandatories of the feds; in conflicts between the two, the states tend to roll over.
Canada was deliberately designed to be a centralized system. In opposition to the U.S. federal system, Canada's was designed to default to the federal level in cases of ambiguities. Unlike the U.S. system, the powers of Canada's provinces are enumerated; undefined powers are explicitly assigned to the federal government. And yet, the provinces are so powerful in the Canadian system that federal-provincial conferences take place regularly and are big news when they do - in part because some provinces' premiers will balk if they don't get what they want.
Why the paradox? Best answer I have is, some folks see a framework of rules as a challenge rather than as the rules of the game. They see the framework and decide to rail against it rather than live within it. I don't know why, but these folks tend to pretty good at getting their way. Thusly, the de facto rules-set becomes something quite different than what's sketched out by the de jure or formal rule-set.
When people start a'plottin' and schemin', ironies abound: that's for sure.
if states bend to the feds in USA, then weed would still be illegal in every state, and that's not the case
Good point, but that's a recent development that's contrary to trend. Looks at all of the federal-state disputes and you'll see the overall pattern.
Interestingly, this compliance is enforced by federal matching grants. In the 1980s, the Reagan Administration got the states to jack up the drinking age to 21 nationwide by threatening to withhold highway-fund matching grants to states who didn't have 21 as the minimum age.
Those states that legalized marijuana did so without the Obama Administration putting up a fight. Question worth pondering: will the Trump Adminstration fight it? From what I read, Trump's DHS pick is a hard-line Drug Warrior.
Trump will not touch weed, since it would cause a Political nightmare for Rep. in 4 years. Over 75% of the country is now for it (at least medical) Republicans are for States rights. If Sessions was President I would be worried however, I high doubt Trump would approve any crack down on Medical Marijuana. I expect them to actually legalize Medical fully in Jan. Trump is on record recently saying Medical is a States rights issue. Its hard to say what happens to Rec. weed. Mostly likely they would want to regulate heavily and tax it!
You could be right - to be quite frank, I hope you're right!