State tax revenues from legal marijuana sales, which began last summer, hit $33 million by the end of March. The total has risen steadily each month for the last nine months, as the recreational pot market authorized by Initiative 502 lurches to its feet.

That revenue is estimated to skyrocket up, potentially to $900 million over the next four years, if the Legislature finally gets a handle on the unregulated medical marijuana market.

Rising revenue is proving to be like a candy dish for lawmakers now trying to balance the state budget. It is very tempting, but raiding marijuana tax revenues to pay for services not intended by the ballot measure ultimately is bad for the state's collective health.

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These days, you can't talk about the pro-marijuana movement without one dispensary owner or weed lover citing the failure of Prohibition as a lesson - as in, the legalization of pot can't be stopped just like booze couldn't a century ago.

So when the Museum of History & Industry (MOHAI) announced that the new traveling exhibit, "American Spirits: The Rise and Fall of Prohibition" would be coming here, you knew an allegory would be served up one way or another.

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A growing gap exists between how the early marijuana-legalization laws are rolling out in Washington state and what ought to be concurrent education campaigns to give marijuana consumers science-based information to make wise choices.

Initiative 502 earmarked new excise-tax revenues to the state Department of Health to pay for "medically and scientifically accurate information about the health and safety risks posed by marijuana use."

The initiative also called for a marijuana public-health hotline. To be available statewide, the hotline is intended to provide treatment referrals, brief counseling and educational information about marijuana.

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Can weed give our furry companions happier lives and more peaceful deaths?

Remember the right-wing homophobes who claimed that if we allowed gays to get married, pretty soon people would begin marrying their pets? Well, now, the damn hippies who voted to legalize the wacky weed are indeed trying to get their dogs and cats stoned! Hooked on the hound hemp! The kitty chronic!?

Companies like Seattle-based Canna-Pet and Canna Companion sell cannabinoid treats for dogs and cats-not to get them high (the hemp biscuits and capsules have very low levels of THC), but to help with joint discomfort and inflammation, and hopefully to make that yappy poodle across the street calm the fuck down.

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WASHINGTON'S experiment with legal recreational marijuana is "teetering on the brink" of a market failure. That is the candid assessment of Hayden Woodard, a state-licensed grower in Dallesport who hasn't given himself a paycheck in a year.

It's not just him. A stream of state-licensed marijuana operators recently testified in Olympia about how overregulation and unequal competition from unregulated medical-marijuana dispensaries are jeopardizing Initiative 502, the landmark legalization measure passed in 2012.

The Washington CannaBusiness Association says I-502's unwieldy structure is forcing applicants to give up on licenses, or even close shop.

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Passing the Dutchie to the Right This Time.

The idea of Higher Ground is to "elevate the dialogue," and thus it's important to remain open-minded to individuals and organizations on all sides of the marijuana-legalization conversation. With that in mind, let's light the peace pipe and reach the roach across the aisle.

WHAT WOULD JESUS DOO-BIE? Strongly opposing marijuana legislation are activists Alan Gordon and Anne Armstrong, who made headlines by bum-rushing a press conference supporting a new state legalization bill in Rhode Island. The duo aren't against the notion of legal weed, but instead believe that taxing the plant is against the teachings of the Bible, and Satanic. They take issue with the language of the law, claiming medical use of cannabis (which they believe is the Biblical plant called "kaneh-bos") outweighs any laws, restrictions, or taxes.

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Give thanks for the little things, they say. A bill that would stop the feds from going after medical marijuana users in states that permit such activity is something for which we should give thanks. But it is little.

Let's not criticize the sponsoring senators - Rand Paul, R-Ky., Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., and Cory Booker, D-N.J. - for such a small reprieve from the war on drugs. They've probably gone about as far as they could within the two-faced confines of our national politics.

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Two Washington lawmakers announced a bill Thursday that would allow anyone 21 years old or older to grow as many as six marijuana plants and share their pot.

Anyone growing their own marijuana, for recreational or medical purposes, would be allowed to possess eight ounces - seven more than the current recreational limit.

Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles, D-Seattle, sponsored the bill in the Senate; Rep. Brian Blake, D-Aberdeen, introduced the bill in the house.

The home-grow provision was part of Senator Kohl-Welles' vision for overhauling the marijuana market earlier this year, but lawmakers turned their focus earlier this session to a competing bill championed by Ann Rivers, R-La Center.

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A modest proposal to head off the awful Senate Bill 5052.

Last week, three U.S. senators introduced a bill that attempts to amend many of the outdated medical-marijuana conundrums at the federal level. The bill would end the prohibition of medical marijuana, reclassify the plant from its current designation as a Schedule 1 narcotic (a status that suggests no medical value and high potential for abuse), and allow for more cannabis study and research. While the bipartisan bill doesn't have a snowball's chance in hell of passing, it's a great conversation starter.

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The People's Harm Reduction Alliance is one of the most daring and innovative needle exchanges in the country.

And it's run by users. Five years ago, they started giving out crack stems.

Now they're expanding services for methamphetamine users.

On a sunny afternoon the first week of March, in an alley behind the University District post office, volunteers for the People's Harm Reduction Alliance needle exchange open the doors, set up their outreach table, and begin another afternoon's work.

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After Washington State Made It Legal, a Struggling Small Town Went into Business

North Bonneville, Wash. - Deep in the Columbia River Gorge, a short drive from the Bridge of the Gods, the nation's only government-run marijuana shop was running low on weed.

The store had been open for just a few days. Inside, manager Robyn Legun was frantically trying to restock. Outside, five customers stood waiting for the doors to open. Someone cracked a joke about this being a typical government operation, always running late.

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The views of many pot prohibitionists haven't advanced past "Dragnet," an ancient TV melodrama in which Sgt. Joe Friday lectured caricatures of hippies over the use of drugs. Here's an excerpt from a 1968 episode:

"Marijuana is the fuse, heroin the flame and LSD the bomb. So don't you try to equate liquor with marijuana with me, mister. You may sell that jazz to another pothead, but not to somebody who spends most of their time holding some sick kid's head while he vomits and retches sitting on a curbstone at four o'clock in the morning." He finishes with, "I'm the expert here!"

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SEATTLE (AP) - Washington high school students who participated in a statewide survey say marijuana is easy to get and they do not perceive any risk from smoking pot once or twice.

While high school smoking of tobacco continues to go down, marijuana use has remained stable since the last healthy youth survey was conducted two years ago, state health officials said Thursday.

More than 200,000 students in grades 6, 8, 10 and 12 in Washington public schools took the voluntary and anonymous survey in October. They answered questions about their health and behaviors.

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Therapeutic Claims Made in Marketing Challenged

Agency Says Little If Any Cbd Found in Products

Let's say your dog has seizures or chronic pain from arthritis. Living in pot-friendly Western Washington, you figure he might benefit from medical cannabis.

You look around and find a handful of new companies offering cannabis-infused biscuits and capsules made for pets. That's quite a lucky find for Fido, right?

Not so fast, says the Food and Drug Administration (FDA). The agency recently sent warning letters to such companies based in Seattle and Sultan.

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A Family of Medical Marijuana Growers, Facing 10 Years in Prison, Was Recently Acquitted on Almost All Charges Against Them

"You're not a cog in the machine of the federal government," attorney Phil Telfeyan told a jury drawn from self-reliant Eastern Washington on March 2. "You can stand up and say, 'No. The evidence isn't there.'" And that's exactly what they did.

The 12 jurors had been charged with weighing the case of the "Kettle Falls Five," a family of Eastern Washington medical marijuana growers we wrote about in last week's paper.

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Every single day there's breaking news in the marijuana movement. Alaska officially legalized weed on February 24, making it the fourth state in the Union to toss aside the chains of prohibition, and the next day, at the stroke of midnight, our nation's capital, Washington, D.C., followed suit. #CommanderInSpleef!

But if ya think the "Just Say No" Nancy Reagan types are gently stepping aside, and the taxation and regulation of cannabis are going along swimmingly, you've been smoking too much of the recently legalized chronic.

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It is with "awwwww" that I read The Columbian newspaper. Pot stores have a strong impact on our news reporting. In the March 5 issue: a huge picture and story, "Gorge town gets into pot business," about a new city-owned pot store opening in North Bonneville; it's not only on most of the front page but continues on about two-thirds of the following page. Also, there's a March 4 story, "Main Street's 'marijuana traffic' packs the parking," about how parking in downtown Vancouver is causing problems because of the pot stores.

I realize I am old and boring and these are different times than when I grew up ... but, really? I just do not understand the concept of "front page news."

Dot Naten

La Center

[end]

SEATTLE - A small town in southern Washington on Saturday opened the state's first recreational marijuana store that is both owned and operated by the local government, officials said.

Cannabis Corner in North Bonneville, home to about 1,000 people on the Columbia River Gorge, will sell a range of marijuana products with all profits going back to the local community, city leaders said.

"It's a really great solution for these small, rural communities that need to raise a little bit of revenue," said Robyn Legun, general manager of Cannabis Corner.

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North Bonneville, Wash.

Entrepreneurial Endeavor Could Be Lucrative for Town of 1,000

Of all the steps taken since Washington legalized marijuana, North Bonneville's might be boldest.

The town of about 1,000 in Skamania County, which sits on the Columbia River about 40 miles northeast of Portland, is becoming the first government in the nation, and perhaps the world, to own a recreational marijuana store.

The Cannabis Corner, a renovated pole barn off Highway 14, opens Saturday. It will be the first marijuana store in the county.

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Legislature 2015

Not All Wrinkles Worked Out As Lawmakers Try to to Combine Medical, Recreational Systems

OLYMPIA - Just outside the room with jars full of cannabis, Rainier Xpress owner Patrick Seifert points out the photos of veterans on the walls of the medical-marijuana dispensary's waiting area.

They're all customers, says Seifert, who added that he gives every veteran customer a joint a day to cope with PTSD, traumatic brain injury or other medical problems.

But Rainier Xpress, which Siefert says serves up to 120 patients daily, may not be long for this world. Preoccupied with a thriving black market and medical products that aren't subject to state-mandated testing, lawmakers want to fold the state's medical-marijuana patients into the highly regulated recreational system.

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