Marty's Travels

My house has wheels

Pot: Seattle does a “Never Mind” on medical marijuana

The Seattle officials proposed “doing something” about the over 300 completely uncontrolled and untaxed medical marijuana operations in the city. [I maintain that these places are the primary source for the black market]. No doubt their proposal was a gambit to force the state into passing laws to deal with this problem but they ran the risk of actually implementing something if the state didn’t cooperate.

As is completely normal in Seattle, a group of stakeholders were assembled to represent differing viewpoints while drawing up policy guidelines. And, as normal, these stakeholders were campaign donors, noisy single-issue gadflies, published op-ed contributors, and a couple of MMJ operators willing to stick their neck out. No one from the legal recreational side with intimate knowledge of the state’s rules.

One proposal was a 500-foot rule for siting these operations. (Must be 500 feet from places where children gather). Federal guidelines specify 1000 feet, which is a huge obstacle to overcome when siting regulated recreational facilities, especially in the dense and hilly west coast cities. Licensed recreational operators immediately called foul.

Then the state pointed out that it was not legal for the city to license and regulate MMJ operations. That right is reserved to the state, which does nothing.

I understand the theatrics by Seattle here, but if they had put a tad more effort into this it might have worked as a threat to the state better. And if they did find themselves actually having to implement something, there was a chance it might’ve worked.

I like the approach Tacoma and Spokane are taking with their version of the threat: Close them all down right now and deal with legal fallout later.