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Law & Politics
August 22, 2012

Will I-502 Become a Pyrrhic Victory?

T-Hug 

Will I-502 Become a Pyrrhic Victory; Source: http://blogs.sos.wa.gov/FromOurCorner/index.php/2012/01/marijuana-initiative-502-certified-to-legislatureballot/

 

I-502 is hardly perfect. The DUID clause (as recommended by federal drug czar Gil Kerlikowske) reeks of probable prejudice, there’s no protection from federal preemption and 25 percent excise tax for retail and wholesale may redirect significant commerce back into a black market where lower prices, better product and tax evasion beckon.

Locally, Seattle’s MMJ marketplace operates more or less harmoniously, with cannabis prosecution a low priority for city attorneys. Come I-502, will the black market fall subject to municipal raids in order to combat its economical allure? It appears likely, so either cannabis enthusiasts will have to shape to I-502′s mold or suffer the consequences.

I empathize with I-502 dissenters. The initiative has direct effects on medicinal access and usage; MMJ businesses and livelihood. But idealism is not the means to legalization. Small victories, such as legalization in Washington, Oregon and Colorado, are the stepping stones to national normalization.

Will I-502 Become a Pyrrhic Victory; Source: http://www.hipforums.com/newforums/showthread.php?t=75774

The initiative is contentious, yet represents progress toward cannabis normalization. Voting for the initiative means that cannabis users possess the gall to stand up against a large consortium of special interest groups and Federales. That we placed the DEA in check and while the rest of the nation holds their breath, we state brazenly: “Your move.”

Decide for yourself. I, however, will vote yes on I-502.

Yes | No | I-502

Categories: Law & Politics, Marijuana News, Weed Lifestyle
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  By: T-Hug. Permalink: permalink.
  • SteveSarich

    This is just a slightly new twist on the same old ploy that proponents for I-502 have been using for months. They know that the that the bill stinks to high heaven and that the public is now starting to pay attention….and they don’t like what they see. When you can’t win “hearts and minds” for a “legalization” bill at Hempfest, the largest gathering of cannabis users in the world, you know your bill stinks like dead fish.

    When you’re getting booed and heckled at Hempfest you just have to give up on the argument that DUID’s aren’t bad and that if you don’t drive stoned you won’t have any reason to get pulled over.

    This is a slightly new tactic that reeks of desperation. This argument points out some of the glaring faults of the initiative and points to the “large consortium of special interest groups and Federales” who are behind it. Key sponsor John McKay, the former Federal prosecutor and now prime sponsor of I-502, has made his feelings about marijuana, and those who use, it pretty clear:

    John McKay on KUOW radio:

    “To focus on the DUI is a big mistake. It’s not the DUIs that’s killing people and filling pits in Mexico with headless bodies. It the recreational consumer of cannabis”.

    John McKay in an editorial he wrote for the Seattle Times:

    “I DON’T smoke pot. And I pretty much think people who do are idiots.”

    “we should give serious consideration to heavy regulation and taxation of the marijuana industry (an industry that is very real and dangerously underground). We should limit pot’s content of the active ingredient THC (tetrahydrocannabinol), regulate its sale to adults who are dumb enough to want it and maintain criminal penalties for sales, possession or use by minors, drivers and boaters.”

    “As my law-enforcement colleagues know well from chasing bootleggers and mobster, this new regulatory and criminal approach with still require many years of intensive investigation and enforcement before organized criminal elements are driven from the vast marijuana market”.

    From his statements, it doesn’t appear that Mr. McKay believes that I-502 will “end the war on drugs”.

    It should be very clear by now that the supporters and sponsors of I-502 are not the righteous marijuana legalizers they profess to be. They are old school prohibitionists with a new trojan horse that they’re trying to pass off as “legalization” because they believe that there are plenty of “adults who are dumb enough to want…” marijuana and who won’t bother to look at the 64 pages of “fine print” in the bill.

    I hate to break this to you, but you won’t be getting your legal pot stores. They never planned to give you legal pot stores. They put a “poison pill” in Section 10 of the initiative that will assure that no regulations or licensing will ever be put into effect. In Section 10 they require the Liquor Control Board to take a number of things into consideration before writing the rules and regulations for growing, processing, sales, advertising, etc. In writing these regulations they must write rules:

    “that are not inconsistent with the provisions of this act, taking into consideration:
    A) Federal laws relating to marijuana that are applicable within Washington state;”

    Game over. The Liquor Control Board can now adjourn and go home. Since marijuana is not legal in Washington under Federal law, they cannot write rules and regulations that comply with the federal law. If they can’t get passed this first consideration, they can’t move on to the next. Game, set, match…..the Trojan Horse wins.

    THEY wrote this into their OWN initiative! They made it impossible to implement! I know that many are “reading challenged”, or would prefer ignorance to reality, but this IS the reality of I-502. You are never getting your state controlled marijuana stores. And since the initiative states that you can possess one ounce of marijuana ONLY if it’s purchased from a state store….no one will have “legal” marijuana….there’ll be no place to get it!

    Even if you’re a patient, you’re screwed. According to Alison Holcolm, the current access points will not be able to stay open unless they register under the rules of the Liquor Control Board.

    Holcolm writes:

    “In other words, anyone who is growing and/or selling marijuana in Washington right now – as, say, one of our gray-market dispensaries – can continue to operate after I-502 passes as long as he or she is willing to get a license and comply with the regulations.”

    Since the LQB will not be writing regulations, they won’t be able to comply and won’t be able to stay open. Since she also states that anyone “growing” marijuana will have to comply with these regulations, and since there are no dispensaries, does this mean she believes that the current collective gardens will also be illegal? It would appear so.

    If there are no regulations written, no one can comply and, thus, no one is “legal”. Could this be any more clear?

    So that leaves the one section that will still be in place on December 6, 2012….. the new per se DUID law.

    According to Holcolm and I-502 supporters, it really won’t be “THAT” bad. They’ve argued that law enforcement will not vigorously enforce this statute….for some unexplainable reason. That, however, is not what the Office of Financial Management said in their report to the voters. The Department of Licensing predicts an additional $4,000,000 in fines based on these DUID’s. The Washington State Patrol predicts that it will need another $2,000,000 in training money to handle the massive increase in DUID’s as a result of I-502. That doesn’t sound like the people who will be enforcing this new DUID law have any intention of not enforcing this law very vigorously.

    Warning!

    If I-502 passes, and you use cannabis, you should NEVER drive. You have no possible way of knowing how much active THC is in your system. Not driving is the only way you can be certain that you won’t be jailed for DUID. If you DO drive, never, ever, ever, have your kids in the car with you. Under current state law, if the police officer takes you in for a blood test based on suspicion of DUID, they are obligated to impound your car. If you have your kids with you, they’ll be calling CPS to pick up your kids.

    If you’re found to have had 5ng/ml or more in your blood, you will also be charged with “reckless endangerment” for having been driving under the influence of drugs with you kids in the car. Once you have been charged with reckless endangerment, CPS will be taking away your children and putting them in foster homes. We don’t even need to get into the tens of thousands in legal fees for the criminal DUID and “reckless endangerment” charges, or the other thousands you’ll spend trying to get your children back. You’re not likely to prevail in any of these legal battles.

    But the DUID’s won’t be all THAT bad, right? Are you REALLY going keep making that ridiculous argument? Maybe people WILL be as stupid as Mr. McKay believes. That’s the ONLY way I-502 has got a chance of passing in November.

    So Huck….if all we end up with is the DUID component, which other states will then use as a model for their “legalization” initiatives, would you still support it?

    I’m just trying to gauge whether there are really that many stupid cannabis users in Washington state. If it passes, I think we really will send a message to the Feds. Unfortunately, the message we’re sending them is that people who smoke marijuana really aren’t that bright and will vote for ANYTHING that carries the title “legalization”, no matter how negatively it effects their lives.

    Steve Sarich
    Spokeman
    NO ON I-502 Campaign
    votenoonI502.org

    • http://www.facebook.com/denvergreenbeaker.weedist Denver Green Beaker Weedist

      I mean no disrespect, Steve, but I think you’re wrong about a lot of this. Even if there is a cop-out that will currently prevent retail stores from popping up, which wouldn’t surprise me, it doesn’t mean that we ‘won’t be getting your legal pot stores’. Here in Colorado, medical marijuana was legal for a full decade before you could find a doctor that wouldn’t call you names for asking about it, and just as long before any dispensaries opened up. Progress takes a lot of time, and it takes even longer with people like you, that hinder our progress despite being ‘pro-legalization’.
      It sucks that many people will be wrongly persecuted for driving, the same thing is written into amendment 64 out here, but there is a reason this is included in marijuana legalization efforts right now. The reason is that normal, non-pot-smokers really believe that A- Stoned drivers are dangerous and B- that the rules written into these laws accurately detect impairment. These are both incorrect, except in the case of stoned teenage drivers, most of whom suck at driving sober anyway.
      I ask you to please stop fighting progress just because it still has problems. Two years from now, at the latest, there will be plenty of available scientific evidence to correct the impairment limits imposed by I-502 (or amendment 64). Getting back to the ‘we won’t be getting legal pot stores’ issue, I agree that I-502 probably will not usher in any new marijuana businesses, at least for a few years, if at all. What it will do is start a list of states that have voted legalization into their legislature, which will force the feds to acknowledge that people, regular people as well as potheads, want to change national marijuana policy.
      In Colorado, we may see things taken further than in Washington. I believe Colorado will be the battleground state, where state-legal marijuana businesses open and operate under the fear that the DEA may come arrest them at any moment. Just like dispensary raids, every DEA attack will cause more people to wake up to the fact that the DEA is simply clinging to its status quo, with no reason and no consideration for the will of the people. The continued oppression of regular people will demonstrate that marijuana should not be illegal to begin with, because the only damage marijuana can be held accountable for is the damage done by our own government.
      So, Steve, I invite you to please change your mind, and work toward legalization. Just because I-502 is not the measure you would have written doesn’t mean that it isn’t moving things in the right direction. If we hold out for a measure that is better for us, guess what, ordinary people will like it less, and it will have a much lower chance of success. Your stance of opposition is certainly understandable, even correct in an ideal world. However, we do not live in an ideal world, we live in the real world, and there are still just enough people out there believing their ‘Reefer Madness’ brainwashing that we cannot be too picky about our progress.
      Thanks for listening,
      -DGB, denvergreenbeaker@weedist.com

    • Skeptic

      Bwahaha. Sarich continues to bluster. Keep it up!
      “When you’re getting booed and heckled at Hempfest you just have to give up on the argument that DUID’s aren’t bad and that if you don’t drive stoned you won’t have any reason to get pulled over”
      I volunteered at hempfest. Every single person who came by the I-502 booth who actually listened and engaged in a discussion or debate walked away with their opposition shaken, or completely converted. It doesn’t take much to undermine the authority of your fatuous campaign when nearly everything that comes out of your mouth is a lie. So please. Keep them coming. They are exceedingly easy to refute. The tide is turning and people are beginning to see you for what you are.

  • SteveSarich

    I will not drink the Kool-Aid and support a measure that further criminalizes innocent cannabis users and be goaded into believing that convincting innocent medical cannabis patient and regular cannabis consumers is “God’s plan” for eventually toppling tyranny….so we should just accept it.

    The fact that it’s the Drug Czar pushing this per se limit to lock up more innocent people by finding them automatically guilty of “impairment” when they are not impaired in any way, should have been the first tip-off that this initiative was a trojan horse.

    Would you also argue that locking up more teenagers and ruining their futures giving them DUID’s for a crime they truly weren’t guilty of?

    What next? Should we make it possible to the cops to arrest people for marijuana possession too, because they are actually in possession of it in their blood. Sound silly? The whole frigging idea of adding more criminal penalties to something billed as “legalization” law is bad enough. Trying to convince us that giving up more of our civil rights because it may provide us a promise of some kind of safety some years down the road, is just not going to fly.

    Alison Holcolm has been pushing this “baby steps” idea for years here in Washington by writing continually more prohibitive legislation on medical cannabis, while at the same time telling patients that it would eventually provide them with protection. She’s used it to successfully whittle away at the civil rights of patients here in Washington for several years now. More than once we’ve had to defeat legislation that would have registered us like sex offenders and make our confidential medical information available to the state and law enforcement…..for our own safety….so the cops didn’t “accidentally” raid us. So you see, we’ve heard Holcolms bullshit for a very long time now, and we’ve learned to “just say no” to bullshit.

    Now she’s trying out the “baby steps” theory on the national stage. This time it won’t work. Patients here in Washington have already learned everything they need to know about Ms. Holcolm and her “bait and switch” tactics and they won’t be fooled when they’re told that accepting per se DUID’s are the way to “eventual” victory. Sorry….but that is simply horseshit and we’re not buying it.

    Steve Sarich
    NO ON I-502 Committee

    “Those willing to give up liberty in order to gain security deserve neither and will lose both.”
    -Benjamin Franklin

  • Skeptic

    In response to the perceived imperfections mentioned in your first paragraph…
    1. Gil Kerlikowski supports zero tolerance DUI provisions and he opposes legalization. Of the 14 states who have per se marijuana laws, Washington’s will be tied for the most permissive. Other states have zero tolerance even for carboxy THC. I-502 distinguishes carboxy THC, which stays in your blood for weeks, from active THC, which is out of your system quickly and is what actually makes you high. The other states that have instituted per se limits have not seen spikes in marijuana DUI arrests. I-502 changes nothing about the way the police interact with the public. People are arrested ad prosecuted for marijuana DUI right now with less than 5ng of THC in their blood.
    2. I-502 is specifically designed to avoid federal pre-emption because there is no “positive conflict” with federal law. I refer you to the faq page on the New Approach website which explains it better than I can: http://www.newapproachwa.org/sites/newapproachwa.org/files/I-502%20Backgrounder%20-%20Federal%20Law%20-%20073012.pdf.
    Fear of the federal government is no reason to oppose marijuana legalization, or gay marriage, or any other state attempt to remedy an unjust law. I would also add that the medical marijuana laws are also inconsistent with federal law. Do you oppose state medical marijuana laws?
    3. Section 27 (5) of Initiative 502 reads: “The state liquor control board shall regularly review the tax levels established under this section and make recommendations to the legislature as appropriate regarding adjustments that would further the goal of discouraging use while undercutting illegal market prices”.
    I’m glad you’re voting yes, but I don’t think it’s a “hold your nose” situation. I would never call anything “perfect”, but I for one am excited about the prospect of voting yes.

    • Skeptic

      I realize I included lines in my comment I should have cut out… like the “Do you oppose state medical marijuana laws?”. Obviously, if you’re voting yes, I have no reason to ask such a question. I mainly hear these arguments from opponents so I briefly forgot who I was talking to, and perhaps had in mind other readers as I typed. My apologies.

  • Tobi

    My previous question stands, Sarich. If I-502 fails and cannabis remains illegal for everyone, what will you honestly do for the cause of legalization? Decriminalize it and be perfectly content with people getting $500 tickets for being caught smoking?

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