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As planned, the New Approach Washington campaign yesterday turned in over 340,000 signatures for Initiative 502 which will legalize and regulate marijuana. The initiative would allow people over 21 to buy and use small amounts of marijuana for personal use. It would also created a system of state-licensed stores and growers.
The number of signatures turned in is well in excess of the 241,153 required by law. These means the initiative is almost assured to be certified even after some duplicated and invalid signatures are thrown out.
Since New Approach Washington decided to go with the “Initiative to the Legislature” route, once the signatures have been verified the initiative will go before the state legislature. The legislature will than have three options:
- The legislature can simply pass the initiative making it law.
- They can reject or fail to act on the initiative within the set time frame, in which case the initiative will go on the ballot for the voters to directly decide on in the next election.
- Finally the legislature can propose an alternative which would also appear on the ballot along with the original initiative.
The most likely outcome will probably be that the legislature will choose not to act on the initiative so it will go before the voters in November. Recent polling indicates that if marijuana legalization goes on the ballot in Washington state, the voters will approve it.
[photo: pashabo/Shutterstock.com]
15 Comments
Well sence the law on pot it self is ILLEGAL from the start based only on lies and big MONEY shit if people would VOTEthe a holes out we could have a some what good GOVERENENT WAKE UP PEOPLE
One down, forty-nine to go…
“It would also created a system of state-licensed stores and growers.”
Why?
I would vote against anything that keeps the government in the pot business. Including and especially medical marijuana.
Marijuana is a naturally occurring herb that has been used by humans for millenia. The government doesn’t need to regulate it or get rich from it.
Just decriminalize it and go away and mind your own business.
Good luck with that one.
I like that ‘lazy legislature’ default position, too. We need that for Congress — if you continue to do nothing, the American people get a chance to vote on shit. Also: stuff.
This is good news and as a citizen of Washington I’ll vote for it. But it won’t change the Federal Law on this that Obama keeps enforcing.
Amazingly, I can grow foxglove (digitalis), capable of causing heart attacks. I can grow castor bean (risin source), a known bioweapon. No government inspector is gonna check out my woodlands for amanita (mushrooms)anytime soon. But should a shoot of marijuana jump out of the ground (whether I planted it, or it was wind- or bird-dispersed)–I’M A POT PRODUCER AND A CRIMINAL! And of course, BigAg can offer us GMO produce–some containing “internal” pesticides over which we have NO control, and that’s just “good business.” What a FUBAR mess our legislators and big business have created.
What needs to be pounded home is that Obama is enforcing the Schedule 1 classfication of cannabis implemented by the infamous Richard Nixon.
Obama will order predator drone strikes on Washington’s licensed pot stores.
That is not inconceivable.
Link.
I am proud of my thin skinned juicy tomatoes and I like to share them. I would be the same way with my marijuana. It’s like the marriage equality thing. Ain’t nobody’s business if I do.
0bama makes more money with weed being illegal. So forget about your “rights”, all that matters is 0bama making money.
Plus DC. . . now wouldn’t that one be a hoot!
If WA wants to do anything, why not simply decriminalize at the state level? Isn’t that about all that can be done? It would be paired with the state’s simple non-participation in Fed enforcement efforts.
Anything more will invite complications from the Feds, e.g., state stores, licensing, etc. My hunch is that there better be a severability clause in there, so that when a Fed court orders the state to shut down its MJ stores that doesn’t tank the whole initiative.
Just to send a message, OK, vote “yes.” I’d bet there’ll have to be a re-do down the road, though.
Right. Obama could let science control things any time he wishes and move Marijuana off Schedule 1. I’d prefer it be legal entirely. But he could at least have it moved to Schedule 2 so Medical Marijuana would be legal.