Pubdate: Fri, 11 Jul 2014
Source: Seattle Times (WA)
Copyright: 2014 The Seattle Times Company
Contact:  http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/409
Author: Jonathan Martin
Page: A11

REMEMBER THE REASON FOR LEGAL POT

At the opening of Seattle's first legal marijuana store, Alison 
Holcomb, the architect of Initiative 502, hoisted a few grams of 
marijuana encased in a thick wood-and-glass frame, as a memento for her work.

That bud's for her. Apparently we're so awash in marijuana that now 
we can afford to preserve some for posterity.

The better memento would've been less dramatic. The frame should've 
held the tens of thousands of criminal possession charges that have 
not been filed - and won't be - thanks to I-502.

Lost in the marijuana party hoopla this week is the reason voters 
allowed the stores to open at all.

Between 2000 and 2010 alone, more than 129,000 Washingtonians were 
arrested for simple possession of the stuff we now stash in an award 
frame. That enforcement cost an estimated $211 million, and its 
targets were disproportionately of darker skin.

Remember that history, even amid the hubbub of store openings. The 
era of legal marijuana is going to bring a backlash, and real anxiety 
about this experiment's ripple effects on teens. As the parent of a 
12-year-old boy, I share it.

But the country is at a fork in the road over marijuana: keep 
prohibition and its corrosive consequences, or legalize pot and 
regulate the heck out of it.

There is no return to prohibition. Politically, the die is cast for 
incremental, state-by-state legalization nationwide.

And for good reason. As recently as 2009, the Seattle City Attorney's 
Office routinely prosecuted marijuana possession as a stand-alone 
offense. In one six-month period, 44 percent of the defendants were 
black - mostly men, mostly young - in a city with a black population 
of 8 percent, according to city records.

The picture gets worse the farther out you zoom. Harvard economist 
Jeffrey Miron estimates that up to $14 billion a year could be saved 
nationwide by swapping prohibition for regulation. Half of the 
inmates in federal prisons - more than 100,000 - are there for drug 
offenses. The per-capita rate of incarceration for young black men 
exceeds that of Apartheid-era South Africa.

Marijuana legalization, here or nationwide, won't entirely reverse 
those corrosive facts. But it's a start. And Washington has the data 
to prove it.

After Initiative 502 passed, the number of cases involving simple 
drug possession, almost all of which is marijuana, fell off a cliff - 
from 5,531 in 2012 to just 120 in 2013, according to an analysis of 
state court data by the ACLU of Washington. (Those 120 cases likely 
involve defendants under 21; possession remains illegal for them.)

The good news, thus far, is that safety hasn't been jeopardized, as 
opponents of Initiative 502 suggested. According to the Washington 
State Patrol, the number of marijuana drugged-driving cases rose from 
988 before Initiative 502 to 1,362 last year, even as troopers are 
increasingly attuned to look for signs of stoned drivers.

"Yes it's a slight uptick. But the sky is not falling," said 
Washington State Patrol Chief John Batiste.

Instead, Initiative 502 appears to have done what it said it would, 
in the most important way: The state is no longer wasting law 
enforcement time on marijuana use.

The other goals - starving a black market that preys on teens and 
churning out mounds of green cash to fund state health care - are a 
work in progress, because of a sputtering launch of the state-licensed stores.

But on a micro scale, there are encouraging signs. First-day sales at 
just three stores generated an estimated $62,000 in state tax 
revenue. A customer at Seattle's first marijuana store joked Tuesday 
that her "dealer" texted after seeing her on TV. "Now I know why 
you're not calling me," the dealer wrote.

The opening of the stores - and the glitchy launch - is getting the 
headlines now. Liquor Control Board member Chris Marr is rightly 
focused on working out the kinks, but when I asked him about the 
history, he recalled the peaceful scene at the opening of a marijuana 
store in Spokane.

"You contrast it with the injustices of the past, it's hard to 
reconcile,"said Marr. "What was that fight for?"
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom