Pubdate: Wed, 15 May 2013
Source: Stranger, The (Seattle, WA)
Copyright: 2013 The Stranger
Contact:  http://www.thestranger.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/2241
Author: Ben Livingston

CANNABIS CRISIS

Medical Pot Purveyors Protest Amendment They Claim Could Put Them Out 
of Business

The state legislature enters a special session this week to finish 
the work of passing a budget bill. But this year, the nuts-and-bolts 
legislation has become a flash point for medical marijuana activists, 
some of whom oppose a budget rider that would regulate medical 
cannabis through the state liquor board-the same agency already 
tasked with overseeing the legal recreational pot market created by I-502.

On both sides of the argument are advocates concerned that the newly 
legal pot industry will spell doom for the currently tolerated, 
mostly unregulated gray-market medical pot shops, which have 
flourished in Washington over the past three years.

"It is our belief that medical cannabis needs regulation in order to 
survive," says dispensary operator John Davis, who heads the 
Coalition for Cannabis Standards & Ethics. The group argues that, 
absent some form of official recognition in law, tolerance for 
medical cannabis sales will fade when the industry is viewed in 
comparison to state-licensed shops, and that could lead to stepped-up 
enforcement against dispensaries.

But dispensary owners on the other side of the argument fear that the 
medical marijuana amendment is a ploy to ban unlicensed medical 
cannabis production and drive them out of business. "They plan on 
making us conform to the I-502 model," says dispensary operator Steve 
Sarich. "The liquor control board already made it clear that we are 
competition. What better way to get rid of the competition?"

The budget amendment is modeled on the recently rejected SB 5887, a 
bill that elicited significant opposition, including the Washington 
Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs and the ACLU of Washington, 
both of which suggested the legislature wait for the I-502 rules 
process to play out. The ACLU opposes the budget rider as well, says 
drug policy director Alison Holcomb.

The current legislation will have no public hearing. Sarich, who is 
part of a group organizing a protest next Tuesday at the state 
capitol, calls that intentional. "They knew they couldn't pass SB 
5887, so they put it into a budget amendment that the legislature is 
likely to pass."

Davis dismisses Sarich's rhetoric: "If you think you'll be able to 
sell medicine without any regulation, without any consumer 
protection, you're just deluding yourself."

The medical cannabis budget rider protest is scheduled for Tuesday, 
May 21, at noon at the sundial on the state capitol
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom