Today a strange thing happened. It was the Cannabis Freedom March, billed as an effort to "legalize not penalize." But the thrust of the event was, instead, toward defeating Initiative 502, the only marijuana-legalization initiative to ever qualify for the Washington State ballot. Before about 100 supporters marched out of Volunteer Park, activists delivered speeches from the stage, distributed signs across the field, affixed pins to clothing, and sold t-shirts all with the message of "No on I-502," which—if passed this fall—would legalize marijuana for adults, tax it, and allow it to be sold in licensed stores.

Here's a speaker pontificating on how awful I-502 would be:

Don Skakie of the group Sensible Washington opposes the legalization initiative on the ballot and wants people to help his initiative make the ballot instead. He requires over 200,000 signatures, but the group has not yet registered a campaign or reported any fundraising with the state.
  • DH
  • Don Skakie of the group Sensible Washington opposes the legalization initiative on the ballot and wants people to help his initiative make the ballot instead. He requires over 200,000 signatures, but the group has not yet registered a campaign or reported any fundraising with the state.

Like others on stage, activist Don Skakie took umbrage with the measure's proposed excise tax on marijuana, its ban on driving with a moderate quantity of active THC in the bloodstream, and its provision to ban home cultivation. "I-502 is a prohibitive tax that exchanges criminal prohibition for economic prohibition," Skakie told the crowd. (The measure has no impact on the medical marijuana law, patients growing at home, or medical pot dispensaries, but many insisted it was bad for patients.) Skakie insisted that I-502—which simply replicates the state's regulatory model for hard liquor—"is not legalization."

Skakie then stumped for his own legalization initiative, I-514, which features zero taxes and allows people to maintain home grows of up to 400 square feet. However, his group hasn't yet reported any contributions with the state. He calls the I-502 campaign run by New Approach Washington, which has raised $1.3 million, a "power grab, a money grab."

Of course, as new Approach Washington points out, the reason I-502 contains these controversial provisions is because, as I've reported in the past, extensive polling shows they are required to win. All but one recent poll shows I-502 passing. And a representative of I-502 were reportedly invited to speak, but declined.

In their absence, Jared Allaway, another activist, said, "New Approach Washington is a piece of crap." He added that the measure was simply "trying to give everyone a cannabis DUI even though they are not stoned." (Extensive research, however, contradicts Allaway's claim.) Then the marchers left to march down the street.

No On I-502 paraphernalia was everywhere.
  • DH
  • No On I-502 paraphernalia was everywhere.

In essence, the loudest activist there today wanted the perfect initiative. The perfect law. That's an impossibility, as anyone with an ounce of political sense knows, but the blissfully stoned marchers may not be savvy enough to know. Compromise is the staple of winning at the polls. That's even more true when it comes to drug regulation. Pot, just like alcohol, will likely undergo decades of regulatory contortions coming out of prohibition. Lacking that basic understanding, these activists are attempting to defeat the only realistic shot at pot legalization in state history and thereby condemning nearly 10,000 more people each year in Washington to suffer senseless pot arrests. All because they wanted tax-free, homegrown pot and a license to drive high. They can't get their pony, basically, and now they're throwing a Christmas Morning tantrum.