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News & ArtsFriday, December 3, 2010
Olympia Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson Is “Dead Serious” About Legalizing Pot Next Year
Posted by Dominic Holden on Fri, Dec 3, 2010 at 3:32 PM
I want to legalize marijuana as much as the next guy so much more than the next guy that I’m willing to hollow out his head to make a skull bong.
But I’m a skeptic about the timeline to legalize pot—from illegal to totally legal, in our legislature, which is afraid of its own shadow?—anytime soon. Small steps, baby steps... stoned steps to legalization.
But State Representative Mary Lou Dickerson (D-36, Queen Anne and Ballard) wants to go all the way—RIGHT NOW.
According to a bill she intends to pre-file this month for the 2011 legislative session, “We would legalize it, regulate it, and tax it,” she says. “I am serious. We have been wasting scores of millions of dollars on arresting and jailing people who have done nothing more than smoke marijuana recreationally. That has ended up harming people and costing taxpayers tremendously. So it’s a very high cost to individuals and to taxpayers—it’s a wrongheaded policy that simply needs to be changed. People need to stick their neck out and say enough already and people are starting to do that. You will see that we will have a very good sponsor [for a companion bill to legalize marijuana] in the senate, someone who is very well respected. I am dead serious about this."
Dickerson expects the bill will pass—she was unflinching when faced with my skepticism based on the failure of less aggressive pot bills—because polling this year showed 54 percent support to legalize marijuana in Washington, she says. She’s working with the ACLU and she plans another round of polling before the session begins in January. “If we don’t pass it this year, there’s a possibility we will take our case to the people in the initiative process in 2012,” she says.
God, I love me some Mary Lou Dickerson.
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Dickerson expects the bill will passRiiiiiiight. Yea, so, as unpopular this Legislature is going to be after this budget, they're going to pass this?
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Our conservatives have more libertarian in their DNA than the ones down in California, and we're generally pretty eccentric up here in our little corner of the country.
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Even if 60 percent or more of Washingtonians supported legalization, it doesn't mean the legislature is going to agree with them and pass Dickerson's bill. Still, I suppose it could happen and better to see support over 50 percent than under.
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If I can grow 4 decent sized plants in that kind of space, why would 25 to 30 of my closest friends ever go to the liquor store, when they could get their supply from me cheaper than what the state will charge?
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People can get tap water for free and with no effort yet they spend money to buy water in bottles.
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If you're up for it, more power to you, but it's not as simple as keeping a ficus alive.
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Simply put: the higher the turnout (pardon the pun) the better the initiatives fare and vice versa. If prop 19 had been on the 2008 ballot it probably would've won. Running in total off-year election is the worst possible scenario...you lose pretty much an automatic 5% of your votes. If the Washington folks are even half strategic, they'll wait to see what happens in the leg and then shoot for 2012. If they go for 2011, they really are clueless.
I was arguing that under prohibition it is actually more expensive and risky to purchase your product than to have a small grow. And yet, the overwhelming majority (I'll bet over 99%) of folks still buy their product. After prohibition ends the product price will fall enough that growing your own will probably become more expensive than buying and there will be no risk in buying.
The idea that after prohibition even 10% of stoners are going to grow their own is simply laughable.
Go to the Netherlands or Portugal. The only people that are growing are those that are in it for business. Nobody grows their own. They fucking buy it because it's easier all the way around.
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