Editorial: Weed out lesser ideas in a difficult short session
We’ve been put on notice that the question of legalizing or decriminalizing marijuana in Washington may return to the voters this fall as an initiative.
For now, though, the Legislature chooses not to inhale. The House Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness Committee refused this week to report either of two controversial measures back to the full House with a do-pass recommendation.
One of the two bills called for legalization of the drug, which the state would regulate, sell and tax. The other would have reduced mere possession of marijuana from a crime to a civil infraction, subject to a fine rather than jail.
The questions raised by backers of these ideas merit discussion, but not in a short legislative session when it would be a distraction from grinding economic priorities.
These bills were not about medical marijuana, which has separate challenges. They were about recreational use, the kind that grew openly prevalent in the ’60s, when many of today’s lawmakers came of age. The proposals were about abruptly lifting a ban that had been in place during all of these legislators’ lives.
Admittedly, modest use of pot probably doesn’t pose enough of a threat to warrant the anxiety it still generates, not to mention the enforcement cost accrued by police, the courts and the corrections facilities.
And then, there’s the potential revenue from taxes and sales. The Office of Financial Management estimates that nearly half a million nonmedical marijuana users in Washington will buy more than 134,000 pounds of marijuana a year, yielding some $1.7 billion for the state treasury over the next 10 years.
Still, no matter what the state of Washington does, marijuana remains illegal under federal law, a contradiction the present administration may be willing to overlook with respect to medical marijuana, but probably not with recreational pot.
These and other concerns deserve careful and thorough deliberation before the state of Washington takes such a substantive step. In the remaining seven weeks of the session other priorities have a higher claim on lawmakers’ attention.