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The Capitol Record: "OK, We've Had It. We Don't Believe There Should Be Prohibition."
TVW's Capitol Record blog has a lot of the quotable quotables from this week's hearing on a bill
that would legalize and tax marijuana where pro-pot legislators including the bill's sponsor, Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson (D-36, Ballard) and Rep. Roger Goodman (D-45, Kirkland) were candid about getting over the taboos of marijuana.
The bill has 14 sponsors, including Seattle Reps. Dickerson, Eileen Cody, Joe Fitzgibbon, Phyliss Kenney, and Jamie Pedersen. Seattle suburban Rep. Deb Eddy is also on baord. But it's not likely to pass.
Pot advocates have more hope in the medical marijuana bill which would create a system of licensed dispensaries and explicitly protect medical users from arrest. The bill has bipartisan support—including Republican cosponsors Sens. Cheryl Pflug (R-5, Maple Valley) and Jerome Delvin (R-8, Richland).
The senate health care committee passed the bill 7-2 yesterday (the two votes simply being abstentions rather than bona fide no votes.)
"The significance of this is that no one stood up and said no to this bill," the ACLU's Shankar Narayan said. The bill is now in ways & means.
The seven yay votes include Sens. Mike Carrell (R-28, Lakewood) and Pflug.
Dickerson said the federal government has not always been opposed to marijuana. “What I can say is that we look to history and we look to prohibition of alcohol in the ’20s. And how did that prohibition actually end? It ended — it started to end when Montana … took the initiative and said, OK, we’ve had it, we don’t believe there should be prohibition of alcohol,” she said. A few years later, other states followed, then the Constitution was amended. “Some states have to take the lead. Yes, this will go to court … but I say to you that Washington state can take the lead, and because we take the lead we will reap the benefits.”
Goodman said if the state lost a Supreme Court case, the people of the state and country would rise up and do something about it.
Goodman says the goal is to make marijuana more boring. He said if a teen’s grandma is using marijuana for cancer and you can buy it legally, it’s not as “cool.”
The bill has 14 sponsors, including Seattle Reps. Dickerson, Eileen Cody, Joe Fitzgibbon, Phyliss Kenney, and Jamie Pedersen. Seattle suburban Rep. Deb Eddy is also on baord. But it's not likely to pass.
Pot advocates have more hope in the medical marijuana bill which would create a system of licensed dispensaries and explicitly protect medical users from arrest. The bill has bipartisan support—including Republican cosponsors Sens. Cheryl Pflug (R-5, Maple Valley) and Jerome Delvin (R-8, Richland).
The senate health care committee passed the bill 7-2 yesterday (the two votes simply being abstentions rather than bona fide no votes.)
"The significance of this is that no one stood up and said no to this bill," the ACLU's Shankar Narayan said. The bill is now in ways & means.
The seven yay votes include Sens. Mike Carrell (R-28, Lakewood) and Pflug.
