Marijuana

Last week the Washington Supreme Court heard oral arguments in the case of Roe v. TeleTech. Roe was fired from her job as a customer service consultant, solely because of her lawful use of cannabis for medical purposes.

The 2011 Washington state legislative session kicks off today, and budget-sensitive law makers will be presented with two opportunities not only to make our state marijuana laws work better for Washingtonians, but also to generate much-needed revenue that can save vital government services.

The ACLU of Washington has filed a friend-of-the-court brief saying that the firing of an employee for using marijuana at home for medicinal purposes was wrongful. The ACLU brief urges that the rights of individuals under our state’s medical marijuana law be protected. The Washington Supreme Court will hear oral argument in the employee’s case on January 18, 2011.

California’s Proposition 19 - the Regulate, Control, and Tax Cannabis Act – narrowly lost on election day. The final tally, 46.1% voted in favor and 53.9% against (the most successful results ever for a legalization initiative). Washington state’s two liquor privatization initiatives also faltered. Initiative 1100 (largely financed by Costco) lost in a close race, while Initiative 1105 (largely financed by liquor distributors) lost by double digits. Although there is no single answer for why voters didn't pass these measures, one common theme may be that the public wants state-level control when it comes to intoxicating substances. Let’s take a closer look at these races. Read more

Last Monday, just before 9 o'clock at night, a half dozen Seattle police officers in black tactical gear, with guns drawn, broke down the front door of an apartment with a battering ram and put the man they found inside in his bathrobe face down on his kitchen floor at gunpoint. The officers' search revealed two marijuana plants, each roughly 12 inches tall, and a document establishing that the man on the kitchen floor had been authorized by his physician to engage in the medical use of marijuana as provided under Washington state law. Read more

Yesterday, the Tacoma City Council agreed to delay taking action on cease-and-desist letters sent to eight medical marijuana dispensaries until after the upcoming 2011 state legislative session. The incident is only the latest in a string of recent stories from across the state highlighting the need for the legislature to tackle the question of how Washington patients with terminal and debilitating conditions, whose doctors have authorized the medical use of cannabis, are supposed to get it. Currently, the law says a patient or her designated provider may possess a sixty-day supply of cannabis for the patient's medical use, but it's silent on the question of where to acquire that supply. It defines "medical use of marijuana" to include "production" - i.e., growing - but where does the patient or provider obtain seeds, starts, or cuttings? The Washington state legislature will be ready to tackle these questions in 2011. Read more

Fall is upon us, which means harvest season is in full swing. Not only have Washington’s farmers, orchard workers, and wine makers been busy, but so too have outdoor marijuana growers and the law enforcement officers that chase them. The growers are attracted to the northwest’s mild growing climate, large uninhabited tracts of land, and easy access to consumer markets (i.e. they don’t have to cross any borders). In response, law enforcement wages large scale eradication efforts to rid the state of these illicit grow operations, which results in the confiscation of thousands of marijuana plants, but few arrests. So who’s winning this game of cat and mouse in Washington’s most remote locations? The unfortunate answer is, no one. Read more

Last week saw the release of two annual federal government reports which highlight the pervasiveness of Marijuana in the U.S. Unfortunately, only one of these reports received attention from U.S. Drug Czar Gil Kerlikowske. Read more

In considering alternatives to arrest and incarceration for reducing substance abuse, it is useful to note that smoking rates continue to decline in Washington state -- and to understand how that decline came about. In 1997, almost 25% of adults were current smokers. By 2009, this number has decreased to less than 15%. In fact, we now have the third lowest smoking rate in the U.S. Well done Washington! What's even more exciting is that we didn't have to arrest, prosecute, or incarcerate any adults for smoking to achieve this result. Read more

Although the number of people being arrested and imprisoned for drug crimes in Washington is decreasing, we still rely far too heavily on the criminal sanction for dealing with drug abuse. Only 140 people were in Washington prisons for drug crimes in 1980, while in 2008 there were over 2,300. And this doesn’t include people locked up in jails; for example, in 2008, the average daily population (ADP) of drug offenders in the King County jail was 459 – 18% of total ADP. Similarly, less than 6,000 people were arrested for drug crimes in 1981, while the figure was over 20,000 in 2009 (down from an all time high of 27,909 in 2007). Even after adjusting for population changes, these increases are staggering.