Pubdate: Sun, 27 Oct 2013
Source: Seattle Times (WA)
Copyright: 2013 The Seattle Times Company
Contact:  http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/409

REFORM MEDICAL MARIJUANA MARKETS

For Most of the Past 15 Years, the State Legislature Has Had a 
Marijuana Problem.

In 1998, Washington voters leapt way out ahead of lawmakers in 
legalizing medical marijuana. The Legislature seemed as comfortable 
with the idea as if it was being forced to wear a hair shirt, chafing 
at making necessary tweaks to the law.

Lawmakers' boldest act - a 2011 bill written by Sen. Jeanne 
Kohl-Welles, D-Seattle, to regulate medical-marijuana businesses - 
was gutted in an irrational veto by former Gov. Chris Gregoire. Since 
then, the Legislature has mostly sat on its hands, even as voters, 
once again, leapt past Olympia to embrace full legalization with 
Initiative 502.

This time, the Legislature can't futz.

Retail marijuana stores created by Initiative 502 are set to open in 
early 2014 under rigorous rules, oversight and heavy sin taxes. 
Meanwhile, hundreds of medical-marijuana dispensaries statewide will 
operate without any such regulation, tax collection or meaningful 
barrier to entry.

That is an untenable legal and commercial conflict. The logical 
response is to fold the medical-marijuana storefronts into the I-502 
recreational market.

Creating a single, tightly regulated system is critical if Washington 
is to avoid federal intervention with Initiative 502. In an Aug. 29 
memo, U.S. Department of Justice said it would stand aside, for now, 
as Washington experimented with legal marijuana, so long as access 
was tightly controlled.

That same memo explicitly puts a bull's-eye on Washington's Wild West 
dispensary scene. The threat is real. A federal crackdown on 
dispensaries would be bad for patients, and set up Washington's grand 
experiment for an embarrassing failure as the world watches.

At the Legislature's request, three state agencies released draft 
rules this week for merging the two markets and effectively closing 
dispensaries by 2015. These are a good starting point.

Lawmakers must protect access for legitimate, suffering 
medical-marijuana patients, allowing them or their providers to grow 
at home, or giving them a break from the steep marijuana sin taxes if 
they opt for recreational stores. To differentiate between patients 
and recreational users, the Legislature finally set up a patient 
registry. Washington is the only medical-marijuana state without one.

The most critical work will be to squeeze down the definition of a 
legitimate medical-marijuana patient so that it no longer is a 
wink-and-a-nod joke. A vague definition of pain has been exploited by 
rubberstamp patient authorization clinics. Just four medical 
professionals, all naturopaths, have been disciplined for abusing the 
law, three of the cases stemming from a Seattle Times reporter's 
dubious medical marijuana authorization at Hempfest in 2011.

It's going to be messy political work, because noisy corners of the 
medical-marijuana industry will fight tooth and nail to preserve its 
regulation-free status. Ironically, its success at fighting even 
basic rules now mandates the industry give way to a truly regulated 
recreational market.

It must be done, or the Legislature risks clipping off, midjump, the 
voters' great leap forward last fall.
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom