Washington is going to be voting on an issue of great importance this November. No, the issue at hand isn’t about fixing infrastructure or changing the tax structure. It’s about pot.
Yes, the state is deciding whether or not it wants to go to pot. While it could be successfully argued it went to pot in the 1960s and continues to do so to this day, voters get to decide to legalize it.
To all those potheads out there, we’re talking about weed, ganja. Medical marijuana is already legal here, and it’s quite easy to get. Just tell your doctor that you have a nagging cough and he’ll write you up a prescription for a couple splifs.
If you’re healthy, the road to a grassy high is a bit more difficult. It’s not exactly hard to find grass in Seattle. In fact, I was walking down Fourth Avenue downtown and this thoughtful young man had a whole canning jar filled to the brim with it, sharing it with every person who had the dough.
What a nice guy. Unfortunately for him right now, if he gets caught, he will go to jail.
The passage of Initiative 502 won’t stop that either. He will still go to jail, because he will try to take business away from the state.
If you live in a state like Florida, you don’t get to have initiatives. So let me explain them first. If the people in Washington want a law that the legislature doesn’t want or doesn’t take up, we can write it ourselves. Once it’s written, you still have to get a couple hundred thousand signatures of registered voters before it goes on the ballot. If it passes, it becomes a law.
Now there’s democracy in action. In the case of Initiative 502 (poetically, it should have been 420), voters want to have a say on marijuana.
This will be an absolute boon to the state coffers. The financial folks at the state released their analysis last Friday. It’s estimated that the state will take in about $3.1 billion in revenue by legalizing pot. That’s money the state desperately needs, largely to fund education.
Here’s how the whole thing works. Initiative 502 will enact a three-tiered taxation system which would tax the pot at the production and distribution levels as well as the point of sale. The actual price of pot would drop by as much as 50%, largely because it would be legal to grow it, much like the state grows apples and potatoes.
Economists say that outside of the additional revenue, legalizing marijuana won’t add jobs or otherwise boost the economy. Potheads will still be able to remain unemployed as long as they want because marijuana production isn’t exactly rocket science – it’s just a crop, like the barley and hops that make beer.
Marijuana growers, once on the lam from the law, would now be legal growers, so the agricultural impact would be that there were be a net gain in “farmers.”
The real bonanza is in the taxes. People would have to purchase their marijuana from state owned pot stores, much as they had to do with liquor. Sorry folks, but you won’t be able to pick up a 10-pound bag of premium weed at Costco. You have to go to state owned stores.
I’m sure some of you are already thinking, “Hey, isn’t marijuana still illegal at the national level?”
Yes, there is the Controlled Substances Act. It was passed in 1970 after all the high-fiving white guys figured out that hippies were having way too much fun with all those drugs and almost caused a revolution.
Wishing to prevent future uprisings, they came up with all sorts of jail time and fines for using, possessing and selling things like herion, cocaine, PCP, LSD, meth and cannabis. Before then, it wasn’t really illegal to pollute your body with these drugs and tune in, turn on and drop out as a result.
Few would argue that heroin and cocaine are pretty hefty drug experiences. But the favorite of hippies everywhere, and it seem Washingtonians, got thrown into the pile, too.
There is some concern that the feds aren’t going to take too kindly to any state going rogue, passing laws that fly in the face of their desire to prevent another revolution.
Scholars have said that it is possible that the federal government could do any number of things, from simply ignoring it to clamping down on rogue states like Washington by withholding federal funding on things like highways. No one is quite sure what will happen, really.
The problem is that the floodgates were cracked open when they didn’t come down hard on people using medically prescribed marijuana. They didn’t rain down their federale woe down on anyone who tried to make their condition more bearable by taking a toke or two.
As such, no one is sure what will happen.
I know one thing for sure. The tourism industry will boom here. In case you didn’t know, the state closed the tourism office as it sought to even out its budget. We don’t advertise Washington State as a place to visit and vacation anymore.
We really won’t have to either. Once Initiative 502 passes, potheads will come to visit Washington state in droves. There won’t be enough room at the inns to hold them all, as they eagerly pass a $20 across the counter to get legal weed.
No more hunting down a dealer, no more looking over your shoulder, no more having to wonder if you’re involved in a sting operation, and most important, no more crappy weed. The state isn’t going to sell you pot cut with dried parsley. This will be primo stuff, inspected and approved by the state.
I do feel sorry for the creators of Hempfest, which which was last week. Committed to spreading the gospel on the benefits of cannabis, I see the festival attendance dwindling after this initiative passes. Every day will be hemp day in Washington and quite frankly, who wants to have a little smoke and listen to boring speakers like Dr. David Bearman or attorney Leland R. Berger when you can sit at home, light up and groove to your favorite Grateful Dead album in the privacy of your own home.
In the Emerald City, thinking they should rename the Interstate 420 instead of 405,
– Robb