Improving Our Marijuana Laws Would Help Lawmakers Save Vital Public Services

posted by Alison Holcomb on Monday, January 10th, 2011 at 11:54 am

As the 2011 state legislative session kicks off today, budget-sensitive lawmakers will be presented with two opportunities to make our state marijuana laws work better for Washingtonians and to generate much-needed revenue that can save vital government services.

Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles will introduce a bill to bring clarity to the gray areas of the Washington State Medical Use of Marijuana Act and make the law work better for patients, their families, and the communities in which they live. It would create a system for providing patients well-regulated access to an adequate, safe, and secure source of medical marijuana, an issue that has been studied in depth by the state Department of Health. Creating such a system -- with licensed entities regulated by the state -- also would generate significant business taxes. Currently, patients are forced to try to grow their own medical marijuana or send friends and family members to the black market to buy unregulated, untaxed marijuana.

In the area of non-medical use of marijuana, Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson will introduce a bill to make marijuana available to adults 21 and over through state liquor stores. According to numbers in the state Office of Financial Management's fiscal note for the 2010 version of the bill, the state would have received roughly $300 million in new revenue per biennium had the measure passed. Moreover, cities, counties, and the state would have realized $25 million in criminal justice savings each year - resources that could have been redirected to more serious priorities like preventing, investigating, and prosecuting violent crime.

Legislators face the challenge of crafting a budget that reflects a clear vision of how to deploy public resources most effectively. Passing marijuana laws that make better use of those limited resources is the right call to make.

Topics:

There needs to be some type

Submitted by

Dan

on January 10, 2011 - 7:47pm.

There needs to be some type of clarification on our State medical marijuana laws without a doubt. Too many grey areas where people are still being harrassed by law enforcement and denied by the legal system.

It seems as if the judicial/legal system is NOT even trying to interpret the law the same way the law makers intended it to be. Sadly, it has resulted in far too many inoccent people being charged illegaly for crimes that should have had affirmative defenses.

It's sad that old time thinkers can't pull their heads out...

common sense seems hard to

Submitted by

Anonymous

on January 11, 2011 - 3:00pm.

common sense seems hard to come by in the political realm during these times but this is a very welcomed sign that sanity does indeed still exist.

They also need to include

Submitted by

Anonymous

on January 11, 2011 - 3:06pm.

some type of job protection for people with valid medical marijuana licenses. I personally know of at least two people who could get valid licenses (and need it) but don't, and take other RX drugs with harmful side effects because they could lose their jobs simply for taking their own prescription.

Legal for everyone would be b est...

Submitted by

Anonymous

on January 11, 2011 - 3:13pm.

If I have a hang nail, and it helps the pain of that hang nail, it should be my freedom to ingest marijuana..

If I am bored, and marijuana cures me of that boredome, it should be my freedom to ingest marijuana..

In a allegeld free country, it is sad that this is even being debated!

just don't...

Submitted by

CynthiaLee

on January 11, 2011 - 5:22pm.

Just don't make it so I can't grow it myself. I can grow alot better stuff than the government will be willing to sell.

pointless jobs would be lost witch is good if we legallized it

Submitted by

Anonymous

on January 11, 2011 - 8:55pm.

cops and everyone working hire up then them in same county would be afraid they would lose more jobs due to less crime i bet and if you think about it that would save us tax payers alot more money and get alot more trigger happy cops off the streets to, but we do need good cops in good places still and if we need back up of more we need to have that on hand to. so its defently not only a money thing but a real life matter to everyone not just none users.

loss of major retirement benefits due to medical thc

Submitted by

Dawn

on January 12, 2011 - 12:26am.

As a nurse who has worked in the
same hospital system since 1985- I fear that I will loss future retirement benefits over medical thc use.

We must end this "drug war"- our very future depends on it!!

cethiea lee you,d be amazed

Submitted by

Anonymous

on January 12, 2011 - 5:21pm.

cethiea lee you,d be amazed at the government,s herb thay have a lab here in oxford mississippi and that,s all they do is exsperament on a higher "thc" level..the gov has endliss money ...

It should be pretty obvious...

Submitted by

David

on January 26, 2011 - 6:51pm.

The legalization of Marijuana as a whole, not solely medical and not state regulated, is what we truly need if we are to ever fully abolish prohibition. As long as the state has it's greedy mitts in the crock pot of "green" so to speak, it will never be a fully free to do thing. Now that's not to say there shouldn't be laws ordaining the use and sale of it, it just shouldn't be the government's sole responsibility to sell it.

The liquor stores selling it? Seriously? There would be SOME cash revenue increase, but the $300 million mark will only be hit if private entrepreneurial business' can prosper from a bill like this passing, so that they can hire like minded citizen's to help cultivate the plant and provide more and more jobs for the economy, hence more tax dollars being taken out of each paycheck and thus a rise in our overall well being as a community.

I can understand laws maintaining balance such as not being allowed to drive while under the influence of marijuana (Which would be a hard thing to prove anyways, due to no real way of testing for intoxication on the spot. Pee tests? Hah that only tests to see if you've used it in the past 30 days, that would have no indication of current use. In fact if we did legalize marijuana the drug testing companies would have to stop selling their ridiculous testing methods and start coming up with more innovative ways of testing for current intoxication like they have for alcohol.

And I do agree with a comment made previously here, we DO need a law passed that protects workers' rights for the use of illegal, medically legal, or fully legal marijuana. It should NOT be the workplaces' right to deny employment due to something as frivolous as the use of cannabis anymore than it should be their right to deny employment due to use of alcohol (Which is a far worse "drug" than cannabis shall ever be). Coming to work intoxicated and coming to work sober but yet having a personal lifestyle is much much different and no work place should be able to tell you how to live your life.

Mmj ppl

Submitted by

Kyle

on February 3, 2011 - 12:23am.

My dream is to grow grate strains. How fast could you get the growing ability for the gov. And i also think that medical mj people like me should automaticly be able to grow and sell into the system.