Spokane7
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April 30, 2011 in City
Pot bill tamped down
Governor’s partial veto keeps state workers free from federal scrutiny
OLYMPIA – State workers will not be licensing medical marijuana growers or dispensaries, and patients will not be able to sign on to a registry that could save them from arrest.
Gov. Chris Gregoire vetoed most of a bill Friday afternoon that would have established a state structure for the production and sale of medical marijuana, saying she feared state workers involved in the system would face federal prosecution.
“We cannot assure protections to patients in a way that subjects state employees to prosecution,” she said. “That is not acceptable. It is not workable.”
She left intact a few of the bill’s provisions, including a section that says medical marijuana patients don’t lose parental rights and an organ transplant can’t be denied for medicinal use of the plant. But she vetoed most sections dealing with “dispensaries,” which are the subject of a federal crackdown in Spokane.
A spokesman for Washington medical marijuana businesses said Gregoire’s action makes operating a dispensary even more difficult, because she left in a section that requires a provider to wait 15 days between patients. Ezra Eickmeyer, of the Washington Cannabis Association, said dispensaries believe they currently comply with the law by serving only one patient at a time. He acknowledged, however, that defense didn’t work in a recent criminal prosecution in Spokane; that conviction is being appealed.
Gregoire said she was urged by some to assert state’s rights, because Washington voters legalized marijuana for medical uses in 1998. But marijuana remains illegal for all uses under federal law, she said.
“State law does not trump federal law,” she said. “Is it a state right to violate federal law? Is it a state right to put state employees at risk?”
Gregoire based her decision in large part on a letter from U.S. Attorneys Mike Ormsby in Spokane and Jenny Durkan in Seattle, who said state employees could face prosecution under federal statutes for any involvement with marijuana. The bill called for the state Department of Agriculture to license growing and processing operations, and the Department of Health to determine the number of dispensaries in a county and regulate them.
Greg Devereaux, executive director of the Washington State Federation of Employees, sent a letter Friday urging her to veto the bill to protect state workers. Hugh Spitzer, a University of Washington law professor and constitutional scholar, sent a letter Thursday urging her to sign the entire bill to prevent “bullying” by federal officials.
She declined to speculate on whether Thursday’s raids on dispensaries in Spokane were some signal from federal prosecutors. In the absence of state standards, cities would be free to craft local rules on medical marijuana, she said. They could also initiate their own crackdowns.
“I leave that to them. There is not unanimity” among cities on medical marijuana, she said. Currently, there is nothing in state law that says medical marijuana dispensaries are legal.
Medical marijuana patients can grow their own supplies or join in a cooperative growing arrangement under a section that remains after Gregoire’s selective veto.
Although the special session is supposed to focus on budget issues, Gregoire wouldn’t object if the Legislature made another run at a medical marijuana bill and brought her new legislation. The best solution for the clash between the states and federal government over medical marijuana may lie in a change to federal law, she said. States that have medical marijuana laws should work to have the federal government move the drug from Schedule 1, which makes it illegal for all uses, to a Schedule 2 drug, which would allow some legal applications.
Shankar Narayan of the American Civil Liberties Union said he considered some of Gregoire’s arguments about putting state employees at risk “specious.” A change in federal law could take months or years, he added.
Vetoing the bill means marijuana remains legal for some but no laws spell out legal ways to obtain it, he said. Right now, the state has some shady dispensary operations and others that are doing their best to be legitimate businesses.
“Without a law, you can’t tell which is which,” Narayan said.
Supermajority for taxes unconstitutional, judge rules 
DHF on April 30 at 5:15 a.m.
Why are we wasting time on this subject when it should be directed to the economy and jobs. When this change was voted in for medical marijuana in 98 it was like buying a car, but you cant have the wheels. It was ill conceived then and it remains so today. Until the Fed’s change how it is scheduled it remains illegal. The Federal Law trumps State Law. It is no different than the people voting in the Rainy Day Fund and the legislature finding a loophole to get into it and spend every last dime. You may vote this in but it does not make it law and some sleeze ball judge or legislature will change the intent of the voter.
SpokyDaBear on April 30 at 7:09 a.m.
Fedreral law trumps state? Is this a joke? What is she smoking? So if the federal government has an immoral law, according to our wimpy governor, the state has no choice but to go along with it. At one time, the Federal government said people could own other people and women could not vote. Guess our governor would have just towed the Federal line. She also would have made a good Nazi and turned in all the Jews in her state, because not to do so would have put her state employees at risk.
SpokaneLiberal on April 30 at 7:22 a.m.
Spokydabear
The Supremecy of Federal Law is well established. We don’t allow for state nullification in this country, no matter how we feel about any federal law.
We need a national change of Marijuana policy. It is time to move beyond the petty resource hogging stupidity that is our current policy.
detroitdude on April 30 at 7:27 a.m.
It really needs to all start at the Federal level. You want it legalized? Get out there and sign those petitions, let people know what you stand for. Only then will the laws be changed. For as much as I am in favor of legalization, don’t complain if it doesn’t happen because you are too lazy to go out and sign those petitions and write to your representative. It does take some effort, and it’s kind of ironic how sometimes you can meet a person who can give you an hours worth of good reasons why marijuana should be legalized, but then you find out that they have never tried to get involved with changing the law, whether it be due to laziness or paranoia. I just find that part funny, I’ll happily sign your petitions, even though I’m not a smoker.
SpokyDaBear on April 30 at 9:04 a.m.
SpokaneLiberal. Yet Obama said that when state and federal law conflict on MaryJane, the federal government would respect state law. Our governor doesn’t care about the countless cancer patients suffering because they don’t have access to this important drug. Legalize it and tax the crap out if it and finally put this non-issue to bed. She is sounding more like a republican and not a democrat. Did she switch parties?
keithj on April 30 at 9:04 a.m.
At first blush it seems like our governor is being a wimp; but if you think about it, she is just being smart. We cannot have state employees licensing pot farms and then being charged by the feds for aiding and abetting trafficking in narcotics. I think thats obvious. The legislature needs to draw up new legislation regarding dispensaries that does not require participation by state employees.
mrd on April 30 at 9:15 a.m.
Good for the Govenor, she analyzed the situation and made the correct decision.
hamrsrscarry on April 30 at 10:13 a.m.
i think it’s awesome how the state employee unions and feds worked together to give the Governor what she needed to do this.
Wonder what WFSE was promised. Wonder how their members with chronic disabilities gained from being the victims of assaults in state institutions, or exposure to toxic chemicals, etc and are now running out of rx’s to manage pain, nausea, anorexia, feel about their union leadership.
Promises,promises.
cdabornandraised on April 30 at 10:27 a.m.
I really wish that the Spokesman would stop calling Cannabis, “pot” and “marijuana”. The word “pot” associates a negative stigmatism to the medicine and “marijuana” is nothing short of racist. When the “Marijuana Tax Act of 1937” was introduced by the known racist, Drug Czar Harry Anslinger, the word “marijuana” was used in place of “cannabis” in order to associate the plant with Mexicans. While most americans used cannabis in some way or form, the term “marijuana” was equivalent to the word “al Qaeda” prior to 9-11 … largely unknown. Anslinger’s strategy was to associate the plant with the Mexicans, therefore, polarizing massive amounts of unemployed whites against the plant, due to their hatred of Mexicans, as the Mexicans were flooding into the country looking for work … post Great Depression. Anslinger then warned congress that, “coloreds with big lips” are “luring white women with jazz and marijuana.” He calls pot “the most violence-causing drug in the history of mankind.” This is why we are here folks.
Dazzeetrader11 on April 30 at 10:33 a.m.
CDA…please try not to be an idiot. Racism = mj? You’re using it right?
bez233 on April 30 at 10:39 a.m.
The question here needs to be why are the feds so paranoid and fearful of cannabis?
Cannabis isn’t hazardous to ones health as is booze for instance. Booze kills thousands in Washington State every year, including some 500 kids that the state proudly informed us of during the last election. Some even go as far as to use booze medicinally, but one doesn’t need a card to purchase it. The “law” states that booze shouldn’t be served with kids in the area, yet there are abusive drunks at the fair and hockey games. RCW 66.44.316 states that the legislature actually encourages drinking at universities. Alcohol is a poison (alcohol poisoning) and in RCW69.40.030 states it is a FELONY to place poison in food or drink but I don’t see any feds closing down any booze dens. It is also illegal for extortion, embezzlement, fraud, misappropriation of funds, but I do not see the feds running into Olympia or D.C. closing them down. This entire subject has been blown out of proportion and there are those sheeple who believe “them”, just too much hypocrisy.
Interestingly enough cannabis helped make this country great; read the constitution – it is written on hemp, cannabis is also considered a miracle crop, and was illegal not to grow it, until the prohibition was placed on it in the late1930’s when oil companies DEMANDED the Feds to take cannabis out of their competition.
empyrius on April 30 at 11:04 a.m.
Marijuana as a schedule I drug is alleged, by the United States government, to be as “dangerous” as Ecstasy, LSD, mushrooms, and an assortment of laboratory-manufactured substances.
Marijuana is in the same category as acid for God’s sake!
Schedule II drugs have some familiar names; cocaine, opium, methamphetamine, assorted barbiturates, amongst many other largely laboratory manufactured drugs. We all know how great of drugs speed, crack, and brown are, but apparently even cocaine has some “medicinal” qualities . . .
At least for the giant pharmo-chemical company that owns that patent!
So the marijuana plant is one of the deadliest plants God created, according to the United States government! Schedule I of course being:
(A) The drug or other substance has a high potential for abuse.
(B) The drug or other substance has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.
(C) There is a lack of accepted safety for use of the drug or other substance under medical supervision.
Myself having read all of the pertinent court rulings regarding marijuana the government’s assertion that marijuana has a “high potential for abuse” does not even pass the laugh test. Basically the courts have ruled that b/c some psychotic, or latently psychotic, teenagers may abuse marijuana, then marijuana must be illegal for all normal people. Luckily for you alcohol drinkers you have some sort of “noble” exception . . .
I kid you not! B/c an extreme minority of our population, an underage population who could not consume marijuana legally even if marijuana were legal, b/c this minority may potentially abuse marijuana, marijuana then possesses a “high potential for abuse” and must be illegal for all citizens. Har har har har
The feds have used inductive logic of the faultiest kind, picking one orange from a barrel of fruit and saying, “hey this whole barrel must be full of oranges”. And apparently there is not an American lawyer capable of refuting this nonsense, which, surveying the landscape of American lawyers that rule over us, does not surprise me in the least! The “high potential for abuse” does not pass the laugh test, while the medicinal qualities of cannabis seem to be quite real, and of course, I do not need a doctor to show me how to consume a marijuana plant!
Also, I find it very hard to believe the Lord created the marijuana plant just so the United States government can persecute everybody who likes to grow and/or consume the plant: throw George Washington and Thomas Jefferson in prison; Bubba will take care of them! Har har har har . . .
The scheduling of marijuana is misguided ignorance at best, but in truth it is simply evil, and against our Lord and Creator! When organizations, groups of people, governments, outlaw the very fruit of the earth from other people then they stand against the will of our Creator as revealed to humanity in the Torah: then God said, “I give you every seed-bearing plant on the face of the whole earth and every tree that has fruit with seed in it. They will be yours for food”.
Amen
cdabornandraised on April 30 at 11:15 a.m.
Marijuana “can arouse in blacks and Hispanics a state of menacing fury or homicidal attack. During this period, addicts have perpetrated some of the most bizarre and fantastic offenses and sex crimes known to police annals.” … “Coloreds with big lips lure white women with jazz and marijuana.” (Two statements from Harry Anslinger, first head of the new (1930) US Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs.)
cdabornandraised on April 30 at 11:21 a.m.
Dazzeetrader … which of my words did you find ignorant? What is your grounds for calling me an idiot? The first step in learning is realizing that you don’t know everything, furthermore, to be called an idiot from someone who obviously has an IQ which is a couple standards below that of average is a compliment. You my friend, have fingers that outpace your brain.
cdabornandraised on April 30 at 12:46 p.m.
Furthermore Dazzeetrader your Argumentum ad hominem is pathetically weak … you are but a troll who attempts to distract from actual evidence. Where are all of the prohibitionists now? Who dares to have your back? Is there not one formidable opponent of cannabis decriminalization who dares to hold a debate on the matter? I think not. To a liar, the truth is a terrorist, and I hope you are afraid as you should be.
Ed Byrnes on April 30 at 2:13 p.m.
cdabornandraised:
Don’t waste your energy trying to apply reason with the dazed and confused, you can see how the very simple, linear statistical principle I applied was ignored, which is what this individual typically does when confronted with actual evidence, so again do not waste your energy.
Thank you for surfacing the racist roots of cannabis policy as it stands now. In Washington in 2007 blacks were three times more likely than whites to be arrested for cannabis.
A good read on racism and mass incarceration, which is driven in a major way by drug policy is “The New Jim Crow” by Michelle Alexander.
As I have written before the social trend is already underway, what we are witnessing is the death throes of prohibition, and former DEA agents will soon be scrubbing the toilets of people who are enjoying legal cannabis.
empyrius on April 30 at 2:20 p.m.
O btw.
Certain Native tribes use the “religious argument” to legally consume psychedelic mushrooms; but b/c marijuana is just so popular, and shrooms are not that prevalent of a religious/recreational/medicinal drug, marijuana then is subject to interstate commerce laws, unlike psychedelic shrooms:
so trade trumps God.
No religious exception for marijuana like psychedelic shrooms b/c marijuana, because a plant created by God, is just so popular, the trading of it will ramify throughout our nation!
So instead of “freely” trading the marijuana plant the government puts badges and guns on dudes so they can pull the plant out of the ground and arrest and imprison us!
I’m missing the punch-line here. O wait, the government has actually patented certain properties of the marijuana plant itself! The government owns the pot plant and I cannot have any?????? This is not nuclear waste created by giant nuclear facilities in the hands of private citizens here people; we are talking about a plant that grows out of the earth . . .
What next?!? Is the U.S. government going to patent the marijuana-like chemicals our own bodies produce and then declare that we have not natural rights over our own bodies? But having no natural rights to the dirt of the earth and the plants that grow from it, is outlawing us from our very selves!
On an even funnier note, the U.S. government asserts that b/c marijuana is so popular this proves just how dangerous it is! Yessirree! That people will break the law to consume marijuana proves that marijuana is “bad”. The feds actually use this argument! Apparently nobody thought of this argument during alcohol prohibition! It is popular but apparently not popular enough eh?!? Har har har har . . .
The government’s argumentation actually devolves to the point of asserting that some people may drive or go to work after smoking some herb! Apparently this argument does not also apply to alcohol; yet last I heard it is in fact illegal to drink and drive and I seek no “noble” exception for marijuana in this regard. I seek no, but suffer under, such double standard!
The only ramifications I see now are abundant materials and manpower devoted to fighting a war on a plant and against it’s consumers, I see countless lives ruined and divested of personal possessions by legal persecution, I see Mexican children being gunned down by dudes that want to make a lot of money smuggling plant material into this country, I see the prison-industrial complex booming and heavily armed squads of badges garrisoning every city to fight a war against a plant and it’s consumers: I see that all the wrong people have a vested interest in keeping the pot plant outlawed!
As previously noted, trade, i.e., money, trumps God!
Is this truly the will of we the people?
Peace
eagleproducer on April 30 at 6:12 p.m.
And The Daisy award for complete lack of understanding on any given subject goes to: (Drum roll please)
Daisy!
At least in this instance when her unbounded ignorance was revealed she didn’t return to reinforce it.
Gregoire comes from the law enforcement community. She was the chief law enforcer for eight years prior to becoming governor. Why would anyone think she’d approve legislation that would take a HUGE bite out of the law enforcement/prison/industrial complex?
I just wish she would be honest and admit the truth rather than masking her actions behind a thin gauze of concern for state workers. Please notice her concern doesn’t actually extend to keeping state workers in their jobs, just safe from something THAT HAS NEVER HAPPENED IN THE HISTORY OF OUR COUNTRY!
eagleproducer on April 30 at 6:27 p.m.
BTW: The anti-freedom/anti-canabis crowd probably doesn’t realize this, but every dispensary “shut down” during the raids on Thursday is open and it’s business as usual.
The government is in bed with Mexican Drug Cartels. Everything in my experience and logic makes me arrive at that conclusion. Dozens of Border Patrol agents have been arrested aiding Cartels moving drugs into the U.S. The ATF is giving them guns. They want Cartels to supply marijuana, wreak havoc on your neighborhoods and import that great feel of living on the border of Mexico. The Feds aren’t investing or closing down all of the obvious fronts for laundering money for Mexican Cartels that now dot the landscape of Spokane, but they are closing down Medical Canabis shops. Do the math. How many Mexican restaurants can a town like Cheney support. I grew up near Cheney and there was always a lone Mexican restaurant that had a revolving door of owners. Now they can suddenly support six Mexican restaurants in locations that are historic food service graveyards?
Please. When are we going to get fed up with nonsensical policies like this? What will it take for mass action?
hamrsrscarry on April 30 at 8:50 p.m.
Dude when I’m really baked like I think what if
where’s the remote again?
greenlibertarian on April 30 at 9:11 p.m.
You’re wrong about them ALL reopening, ep. The one on S. Perry did not as the owner has a previous drug conviction and was therefore threatened with a 20 years to life sentence.
This is all about the benjamins.
http://www.justice.gov/dea/pubs/states/newsrel/sanfran103107.html
Hundreds of millions of dollars, if not billions, are at stake. The government can seize all sorts of assets without ever getting a conviction.
The gendarmes know very well, follow the money, then they seize it. It’s Grand Larceny on a gigantic scale organized as a protection racket. The failed war on drugs regarding the innocent people affected is an outstanding success for law enforcement and the big drug cartels.
The sailors and pilots, the soldiers and the law
The pay-offs and the rip-offs, and the things nobody saw
No matter if it’s heroin, cocaine, or hash
You’ve got to carry weapons ‘cause you always carry cash
There’s lots of shady characters, lots of dirty deals
Every name’s an alias in case somebody squeals
It’s the lure of easy money; it’s got a very strong appeal
Perhaps you’d understand it better
Standin’ in my shoes
It’s the ultimate enticement
It’s the smuggler’s blues
Smuggler’s blues
You see it in the headlines, you hear it every day
They say they’re gonna stop it but it doesn’t go away
They move it through Miami and sell it in L.A.
They hide it up in Telluride, I mean it’s here to stay
It’s propping up the governments in Colombia and Peru
You ask any DEA man, he’ll say, “There’s nothin’ we can do”
From the office of the President, right down to me and you
Me and you
eagleproducer on May 01 at 9:29 a.m.
Green: That one on S. Perry is now a “rolling dispensary” and if you were one of their patients you can still get your green. The remainder are still in operation at their present locations.
LLLou on May 02 at 10:37 a.m.
Empyrius, Most excellent Comment,thank You.