Washington State Allows a 60-Day Supply of Medical Marijuana. Now the Legislature Wants to Know How Much That Is. Any Ideas?

SEATTLE -- Patients using marijuana for ailments ranging from chronic back pain to cancer are allowed by Washington state law to possess a two-month supply of the drug. But medical marijuana doesn't come with a standard dose or even a standard method of taking the drug.

The 1998 law has never spelled out how much usable pot nor how many plants make up a 60-day supply.

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SELAH -- Medical marijuana advocates are charging that Yakima County has disregarded the state's law regarding limited use of the drug by approved patients.

But Sheriff Ken Irwin and chief prosecutor Ron Zirkle disagreed, saying that they have tried to appropriately handle the few cases that have come up since voters approved the related initiative in 1998.

CannaCare, a medical marijuana advocacy group active in Washington and Nevada, issued a news release Wednesday stating the group's concerns about the county's approach. The news release also stated that CannaCare would ask the state attorney general's office to investigate.

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When the meth epidemic hit Western states in the 1990s, there was a lot of confusion, ignorance and even misinformation. One of the biggest, most discouraging myths was that meth addicts were untreatable.

National drug czar John Walters brought an important, more hopeful message to Seattle last week. He said that while many people continue to believe meth addiction is untreatable, research has shown otherwise.

We can't help but like the congressionally funded "life after meth" program that Walters was touting here, one of eight states targeted because of high rates of abuse of the drug. The photos of real people who have fought and overcome meth addiction are both an inspiration and a reminder of the dangers the drug can pose to anyone.

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State Is Among 8 Targeted In Program

After years of trying to fight methamphetamine addiction through fear - -- ad campaigns that focused on scaring potential users away from ever trying the illegal drug -- national drug czar John Walters came to Seattle on Thursday to announce a new tactic: hope for treatment.

Congress has put $10 million toward a slick public education program touting "life after meth" that will air here and in seven other states with high meth-abuse rates.

Walters acknowledged that the funding, less than $1 million of which will go to Washington state, was "not a lot of money," and he added that the new approach -- encouraging treatment -- is somewhat experimental.

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"Travel as a Political Act" may sound about as bourgeois as Yachting for Peace.

But Rick Steves says that after Sept. 11 he wanted to talk about more as a travel teacher than just finding bargains. Hence his above-titled speech Thursday at Town Hall. Drawing upon his three decades of experience abroad, the travel-guide guru and left-leaning host of "Rick Steves' Europe" on PBS will talk about how we understand our own country better by leaving it.

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Neal Peirce hit the bull's-eye. [ "Drug war's latest achievement: Boosting global terrorism" syndicated column, Sept. 4]. The war on drugs is an obvious failure and one way to recognize it is because President Bush supports it so much. Impeach Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney and, while we're at it, impeach the war on drugs.

Stan White, Dillon, Colo

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Neal Peirce is absolutely correct that the best way to deal with opiate production is to buy all the Taliban can grow at or above market prices and divert it to the legal market.

Peirce did miss a great opportunity, though. If Afghanistan was allowed to legally grow cannabis and produce hashish, it would greatly reduce their farmers need to grow poppies. They once produced some of the finest hash on the planet, but because of the economic distortions of prohibition, growing more addictive and dangerous drugs is more profitable.

David Lane, Santa Cruz, Calif.

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Mary Zuanich loves downtown Everett, especially Colby Avenue with its block of chic stores.

She not only shops on Colby, Zuanich enjoys cooking classes at J. Matheson Kitchen & Gourmet.

"And I like her," said Zuanich, 68, who lives with her husband, Andy, in Everett's Lowell neighborhood.

Her? I didn't need to ask. Zuanich meant Judy Matheson, who opened her original shop, J. Matheson Gifts, at 2615 Colby Ave., in 1991. Her kitchen store, a couple doors to the north, is a newer addition to the block that includes Pave Specialty Bakery, Burkett's women's clothing store and Erickson's Jewelers.

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To the Editor:

I'm writing about: "Pot bust biggest in county history" (Aug. 31-07).

I'm sure many marijuana growers and sellers are thankful to the Interagency Narcotics Enforcement Team and the Kittitas County Special Response Team for this latest marijuana bust and others like it.

Without operations like this, marijuana would be worth what other easy-to-grow weeds are worth - very little.

Thanks to the Drug Enforcement Administration and other so-called "drug warriors," the easy-to-grow weed is worth more than pure gold - and completely tax free.

Any marijuana growers, sellers or traffickers arrested will soon be replaced. They always are.

Kirk Muse

Mesa, Ariz.

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Thanks for publishing Neal Peirce's "Drug war's latest achievement: Boosting global terrorism" [syndicated column, Sept. 4].

Will the next terrorist attack against the United States involve nuclear weapons bought and paid for by our drug prohibition policies?

Alcohol prohibition was not terminated because it was decided that alcohol was not so bad after all, but rather because of the crime and corruption that its prohibition caused.

Now is the time to terminate our counter-productive so-called war on drugs. Not because some of the drugs are not dangerous -- many drugs are very dangerous. But because of the crime and corruption drug prohibition is causing and because our drug prohibition policies are financing international terrorists.

Will it take a nuclear attack on American cities for the American people and politicians to finally conclude that our drug prohibition policies are counter-productive?

Mesa, Ariz.

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Thirty-eight million arrests, most for simple possession. Lives ruined, families disrupted. America turned into the most prison-happy nation on the face of the earth. Illegal rewards incentivizing shooting fields in inner-city neighborhoods -- enough bloodshed to appall even an Al Capone. More than $1 trillion in taxpayer outlays.

Thirty-six years after President Richard Nixon inaugurated this country's misbegotten "war on drugs," worldwide narcotics markets are booming, drug-ring profits are higher than ever, and drugs cost less than ever on the street.

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Plants Valued At About $6 Million Found In Hills NE Of Kittitas

Local law enforcement agencies combined efforts Wednesday morning to conduct the biggest marijuana bust in Kittitas County history.

About 20 officers raided five known marijuana grows within several hundred feet of each other outside of Kittitas, north of Vantage Highway six miles past a paved roadway in the Coleman Canyon area.

The grow operation was tied to a larger-scale investigation with Grant County and the Interagency Narcotics Enforcement Team.

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MICHAEL ROSS, CIVIL-RIGHTS LEADER NEVER AFRAID TO BUCK THE TIDE, DIES AT 66

Michael K. Ross was not afraid to challenge the conventional wisdom. That's how he landed in Seattle in the first place.

After serving a two-year stint in the Air Force and leaving a Kansas college to become a civil-rights field worker in the Deep South, he fell in love with another young volunteer. But Virginia miscegenation laws kept them from marrying. He was black; she was white.

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King County, Citing Paperwork Problems, Pulls Funding From A Program That Cleans Up Addicts And Gets People Off The Streets

A nonprofit that passes out clean needles to heroin users and helps tough cases turn their lives around has learned that being streetwise can't save you from bureaucracy. On July 31, after missing some paperwork deadlines with its county funding agency, Seattle's 16-year-old Street Outreach Services had its funding pulled and ceased operations, laying off about 10 workers.

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Benton County Sheriff's detectives seized more than $5 million worth of marijuana plants earlier this week and will begin burning them today.

In an "eradication blitz" Monday and Tuesday, deputies collected more than 5,000 plants, all more than 3 feet tall and ready to harvest, said Deputy Joe Lusignan.

Had they been processed, they could have fetched from $5 million to $7.5 million on the street, Lusignan said.

Most of the marijuana came from the western end of the county, in the unincorporated areas around Benton City and Prosser. Lusignan said the seizure occurred at six outdoor locations, all in agricultural areas, where they spotted by air.

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It Is Legal for Him to Have Pot, but a Police Sergeant Says It Was Illegal for the Pot to Be in View of the Officer.

Mark Gilliland wants his marijuana back.

The 32-year-old Walla Walla resident had about 24 grams of marijuana taken by police officers Friday night after he was pulled over for having expired tabs on his vehicle.

He was also driving with a suspended license and without insurance.

And although officers found the marijuana in a bag sitting on the passenger seat beside Gilliland, he had a legal reason for having it in his possession.

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Hempfest celebrates all things cannabis, but that didn't stop strollers and toddlers Saturday from outnumbering aging hippies.

In fact, the marijuana "protestival" that began 16 years ago in Seattle has acquired a patina of convention, with vendors peddling organic doughnuts and fretting about an influx of cheaper water pipes ("Don't call it a bong") from China and India.

That's not to equate Hempfest with, say, Bumbershoot.

Probably nowhere else in Seattle could festivalgoers festoon themselves with $3 fake marijuana leis or inhale the aroma of chicken gyro mingled with pot smoke. And reporters likely won't find anywhere else so many outspoken people who decline to give their names ("You never know what kind of list you might end up on").

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Organizers bill the event as a human rights movement -- and thousands of people showed up along the Seattle waterfront Saturday to support it.

Wearing T-shirts with images of marijuana leaves, an array of advocates -- including teens, young adults, mothers and the middle-aged -- descended on Myrtle Edwards Park for the annual Hempfest.

About 150,000 people were expected at the two-day event, which calls for greater tolerance of marijuana and hemp use. Organizers say the gathering, which costs about $200,000 to produce, is the largest legal reform rally of its kind in the country.

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The festival Vivian McPeak and Gary Cooke visualized from day one was something like Woodstock, but their event had hundreds of thousands of people packed in a Seattle park celebrating a green leafy substance.

Even some of their friends thought the idea of a big party pushing for reform of anti-marijuana laws was half-baked.

"When we told people 15 years ago there would be 150,000 people coming to a protest festival with 60 bands from around the country all playing for free and the cops would smile, they didn't think it could happen," McPeak said. "It defied conventional wisdom."

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There's No Spicoli for Women, but There Is Fiona, a 30-Something Suburban Schoolteacher.

I'm sitting in a coffee shop, sipping apple juice with a suburban schoolteacher who's wearing running shorts and polar fleece on a chilly summer day.

This teacher's students and the students' parents might be startled by today's agenda: Teach is headed to a guy's house to do bong hits. And not just any bong hits. This teacher's dealer has a gravity bong--an often-homemade jug bong that delivers a more intense hit; gravity bongs can be taller than some people. Teach is also going to buy some weed.

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