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I-502 logo in Washington
Initiative 502, which would legalize marijuana in Washington State, has recently been endorsed by the Sheriff of King Country. From the Seattle Times:
[King County Sheriff Steve] Strachan, who is running for election, said Monday he would vote for I-502, which would “bring clarity” to the conflicting state and federal laws regarding marijuana. “I think the current situation is bad for the rule of law, bad for the criminal justice system and and it sends a bad message to our kids.”
Strachan said he used to be a school resource officer, and knows that marijuana is easier for kids to get than alcohol. [...]
Strachan’s opponent, longtime Sheriff’s spokesman John Urquhart, previously endorsed I-502.
Steve Strachan is one of the most important law enforcement officials in the entire state. King County is Washington’s most populous county and is home to roughly 30 percent of the state’s residents.
The initiative currently holds a decent lead in the polling. The campaign doesn’t really need to expand support, it simply needs to make sure those currently leaning towards supporting the I-502 feel comfortable about actually casting a yes vote for it. Endorsements like this should help do that.
It reinforces the message that marijuana legalization isn’t just about personal freedom, it is about not wasting limited criminal justice resources on a failed policy. Having a prominent law enforcement official say that marijuana legalization is the right policy and that it shouldn’t be a real problem for law enforcement to deal with could be reassuring to some voters.
5 Comments
As a private citizen, living next to The Evergreen State, I’m happy to see that even law enforcement, ” knows when to hold ‘em and knows when to roll’ em ” in regards to the cost of the PIC. Again, and again, the police state brings their tin cups to the party and to the citizens’ purse demanding more money to feed their addictions, not ours. The PIC has run its’ course and white politicians, having run out of minorities to abuse of their legal rights, have turned on their neighbors’ children. Well, more’s the pity on them, and tightening the purse strings is more the better to the taxpayers of this fascinating and beautiful state. The Sagebrush Rebellion is multi-faceted but one thing unites all Westerners. Don’t bring your Corrupt Statism to the last, best places in the Northern Hemisphere. We’ve got much better things to spend our limited resources on.
Since the surgeon generals report on smoking in the 1960s we have spent billions of dollars trying to get people to stop smoking because we know it causes cancer. Some of the most liberal state attorney generals sued the cigertte companies to recover the money the states medicade funds spent on treating dieases from smoking. Cigerette companies lied and covered up the nasty properties of their product almost since the first tabacco plantations were settled. These companies are reviled for their practices.
While I don’t think that D9THC is as addicting as nicotine is, I do believe that the tars and unburned by products and burned by products from the act of smoking marijunna is just as carcenogenic as smoking cigerettes. I think it is just as physically damanging to the lungs as cigerettes. I think if you legalize marijunna, you will generate an entire new industry that will eventually devolve into the same tatics and practices that the current cigerette companies are hated for today. Are you giving the people of the 22nd century their health problems by legalizing marijunna?
The Sheriff’s endorsement should be very welcome as coming from his capacity as a private citizen.
So why don’t we just solve health problems for lots of people going forward by criminalizing consumption of alcohol, saturated fat, salt, corn syrup and processed corn products, potato chips, bacon, cars that will go over 35 mph, motorcycles, skateboards, contact sports and television?
Do you see the problem here? The idea that restriction of liberty is the solution to problems of consumption is medieval and patronizing.
You are right it is medieval and patronizing. What I also see is the hipocrasy of the many groups that pillary the cigerette companies clamoring for allowing the legal purchase of marijaunna. I don’t want to see 50 year olds with lung cancer suing marijaunna companies in 40 years for their cancer. If we allow for the sale of marijaunna, I want companies who produce it exempt from lawsuits in the future becase of the cancer and heart disease they cause.