PLANK NOVEMBER 7, 2012
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Seattle, WA—Some 6.8 million Americans awoke today confident that their state is not only the most progressive in the nation, but even more so than Canada and Amsterdam. That’s because, while Colorado voters legalized pot and Maine and Maryland voters approved gay marriage yesterday, Washingtonians accomplished both feats with two historic ballot measures that cemented the liberal-utopian reputation of this upper-left corner of the continental United States.
The laws won’t take effect until early December, at which point same-sex couples can marry and people may possess up to an ounce of usable marijuana buds (or 16 ounces of marijuana-infused “edibles,” or 72 ounces of marijuana-infused sodas, teas, or juices). The difference between this law and marijuana-decriminalization laws already on the books in 14 other states? A person can still suffer civil penalties for possession in certain circumstances in those states, but in Washington “there will be no penalty whatsoever,” says Alison Holcomb, the author and campaign director for Initiative 502. “It will no longer be a crime to possess marijuana on Washington soil as long as you’re 21 years old.”
The federal government has been remarkably quiet on the subject, even though polls showed pot legalization here to be only a matter of time. President Obama’s drug czar didn't visit to warn Washingtonians—who have enjoyed lawful medical marijuana for years—against fully legalizing a substance that the federal government still considers as dangerous as heroin. And Obama himself, although he was paying close enough attention to this state’s ballot to endorse the marriage equality measure, remained silent on the pot vote. Nanda Chitre, a spokesperson for the Justice Department, said Wednesday of the Washington and Colorado legalization measures: “We are reviewing the ballot initiatives and have no additional comment at this time.” Such no-comments give pot activists like Holcomb hope that the president is willing to move pot forward nationally in his second term—or, at the very least, that he’s willing to adopt a states’-rights approach. “What we want to show the rest of the nation,” Holcomb said, “is that marijuana reform is not an all or nothing proposition. That you can take measured steps, and make adjustments, and watch closely what happens.”
This measured approach is part of what brought both of these ballot initiatives to the political tipping point in Washington this year. Marriage activism here dates back more than 40 years, to one of the first lawsuits ever filed in America on behalf of a same-sex couple’s desire to marry, Singer v. Hara. It started when a New York–born gay Jewish radical named John Singer (who later changed his name to Faygele ben Miriam) walked into a Seattle marriage license office in 1971 and demanded to marry a man named Paul Barwick. The case was dismissed by the state court of appeals in 1974, but a conversation had begun.
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In 1987, the state’s first openly gay legislator, Cal Anderson, was appointed to the House from Seattle, and in 1993 (two years before he died of AIDS), he saw one chamber of the legislature pass a gay civil rights bill for the first time. It would take the state’s second openly gay legislator, Ed Murray, a representative from Seattle, until 2006 to get both chambers to finally pass the measure, which simply provided gays and lesbians with basic protections against discrimination in housing and employment. But they had crushing setbacks in between: Advocates had tried to put the civil rights bill up for a popular vote in 1997, only to see it go down in 38 of the state’s 39 counties, and the next year, on Valentines Day, the state legislature passed a Defense of Marriage Act, limiting marriage to one man and one woman.
It was that law that 52 percent of voters overturned on Tuesday, concluding an incremental strategy in the works here for the last decade—from passage of the gay civil rights bill in 2006 to passage of basic domestic partnership rights in 2007, and then passage of “everything but marriage” domestic partnerships in Washington in 2009. “Once we finally started winning,” said Jamie Pedersen, the newest gay state legislator from Seattle, “then we sort of took a baby step forward and retrenched and defended, and then took another baby step forward.” (He cheered the marriage equality victory at a downtown Seattle party on Tuesday night, and hopes to legally marry his partner of eleven years on their July 3 anniversary. Murray, now a state senator, hopes to do the same with his partner of 21 years.)
The story is similar with pot. Reform advocates lost a 1997 bid to legalize medical marijuana by popular referendum, but came back the next year and won. Then, in 2003, Seattle voters passed a measure making marijuana arrests officially the lowest priority for police officers. Along the way, “Hempfest,” a huge annual pot legalization rally and celebration in downtown Seattle that started in 1991, kept on showing that, as Holcomb put it, “Hey, you can have a big party in the middle of the city and focus on marijuana and the sky doesn’t fall.”
By this year, public acceptance of both efforts had become so mainstream that few could claim to be surprised by ads promoting marriage equality and marijuana legalization. (The pot ad also noted the revenue marijuana legalization would generate. Estimates say that Washington, which is facing a huge budget shortfall, could generate as much as $1.9 billion in five years by taxing and regulating legalized marijuana.) “It’s a huge, dramatic milestone,” said Pedersen, speaking of the gay marriage vote. “It has the potential to really snowball in terms of momentum.” Holcomb was feeling the same way about her measure’s success. “The notion that this might be the hammer that strikes the blow that cracks the wall, and finally starts to take U.S. marijuana law apart—it’s a pretty good feeling,” she said.
At the respective election-night victory parties, where celebrants smoked joints openly and gays and lesbians talked of marrying their partners, some marveled at the state’s new reality by pointing out that in Washington—and only in Washington—do people have the right to marry the same sex while getting high.
Eli Sanders is an associate editor at The Stranger.
Correction: An earlier version of this post misstated the how Cal Anderson came to hold office, and mischaracterized the contents of a marijuana-legalization ad.
7 comments
As a member of that rare breed of heterosexual, ticket-splitting, drug-free (not even aspirin) human, I've been hoping for a long time for such a peaceful blow for freedom. Hooray for my beloved home state! SeattleEng, are we agreed?
- Yossarian
November 7, 2012 at 6:05pm
having enjoyed my time...in the upper left corner of the contiguous states of America, i guess i should return, but for federal law. i hope journalists will stay on top of the confusion.
- cdmcl3
November 7, 2012 at 6:25pm
"i guess i should return, but for federal law." Federal law shouldn't be a concern, cd, unless you intend to distribute or manufacture (i.e. grow) marijuana. Simple possession of weed--or really any Schedule I narcotic--just isn't a federal concern. And while if it could be proven that you were distributing marijuana, especially for profit, the fact that you were caught holding less than one ounce wouldn't be enough to get you off, you can rest assured that individual possession of small quantities wouldn't get a second or even a first look from the feds. Growing pot is probably a different story. Back in the 70s and early 80s when pot was decriminalized in Washington and Alaska, a person was allowed to grow for personal use. I think you were allowed something like two plants. The trouble with the new law for growers is that even if after you process and dry the buds, discarding leaves, stems and roots, the usable product from a plant comes in at under an ounce, until you do so, the plant weighs much more than one ounce, and so it is likely that any authority, whether federal, state or local who wanted to bust you, could do so and make it stick claiming 1) that you were manufacturing and 2) that you were in possession of a traffickable quantity, even if what they were measuring was the wet weight of a whole plant.
- AaronW
November 8, 2012 at 8:32am
And by the way, I, like the federal government, also think that with certain caveats marijuana is as dangerous as heroin. As a matter of fact, I think its long-term habitual use is more damaging than heroin. This doesn't mean that I don't think we should legalize cannabis; I just think we should legalize other drugs as well. Besides addiction--which is a hazard with all psychoactive substances--the biggest risks associated with heroin come from the act of injection and from overdose. Hazards from injection could easily be minimized with legalized heroin through the provision of sterile injecting equipment, antiseptic swabs for skin prep and some basic instruction in proper injecting technique as well as through the provision of high-purity dope that allowed users to get high without shooting up, primarily through insufflation (i.e. snorting). Overdose hazards could be limited, though not eliminated, through the provision of standardized, dose-regulated drug of defined potency. Some might point out that OxyContin and other prescription opiates are dose-regulated and yet that hasn't stopped accidental overdose from such drugs overtaking motor vehicle accident as the most common cause of accidental death in America, but it is worth noting that because all such drugs have a delayed onset of activity as compared with heroin, they are actually pose a greater OD risk than smack. The trouble with oxycodone (the drug in OxyContin) and methadone is that the onset is so slow that users don't get the desired kick, so before the first hit has had a chance to take effect, they bump another line and then another, and before they're even feeling the first hit, they've taken a lethal quantity. With heroin, the effect is almost immediate, so that there's less incentive to stack doses one on top of the other.
- AaronW
November 8, 2012 at 8:52am
yeah, aaron, i agree on the "lifestyle" issues involved apart from the "transaction" bothers; and also about the arbitrary "weight confusion" you mention. i understand from some friends that Justice is going to try to outline new and better, more forthright guidelines soon, but i will "wait and see." meanwhile, i should say that i already qualify for medical weed because of my glaucoma--as if that would stop any goon on any government payroll from casuing grief!
- cdmcl3
November 8, 2012 at 11:01am
Yossarian writes: "As a member of that rare breed of heterosexual, ticket-splitting, drug-free (not even aspirin) human, I've been hoping for a long time for such a peaceful blow for freedom. Hooray for my beloved home state! SeattleEng, are we agreed?" If someone wants to come home from work, smoke a joint in their house, watch a little TV and unwind, I don't have a problem with that. My worry, however, is that easier access will mean more smokers. And I'd informally estimate based on friends in college that 5-10% of those that start smoking pot recreationally tend to go overboard and end smoking so much pot that they become useless. Useless to themselves and to society. Nothing is sadder than seeing a 19 year old young man stop moving his life forward because of a ill-placed priority on video games and pot. Entire days lost. Gone forever. I know that makes me sound like an old guy to say that. But man males not on drugs will play xbox from 10 AM to 3 AM if someone doesn't tell him to stop. Add pot into the mix, remove a parent, and suddenly you have a non-trivial group of young men that have stopped moving forward. Does a society that legalizes drugs have a responsibility to take of those that have become addicted and non-functional? And if chronic pot use is responsible for a drop in IQ (around 8 points, by a recent study) I'm not sure how many understand how severely they are hurting themselves slugging through life with a 102 IQ instead of 110. Seems like a small drop, but the distribution is guassian and you are seriously compromising yourself in terms of performance relative to peers with even just that small shift. PS. Pot dispensaries have really made a joke of the medical establishment. Pot for medicinal use is not checked for purity, not checked for dosage. It's a farce. And now that we've shown that oversight can be completely sidestepped for one drug, what is next? Can I make my own simvistatin and sell it if I can anecdotally show my homemade stuff has a benefit that the prescription stuff can't offer? The government won't even let people sell cow milk from their own farm, and yet we're letting people make their own drugs and self treat? Drugs that can have a big impact on your performance in life?
- seattleeng
November 8, 2012 at 12:48pm
Those are legitimate concerns Seattle. A small but consistent minority (generally pegged at about 1%) are going to screw up their lives with drugs pretty much no matter what. I say, let them. The idea that we have to damage our national interests in an effort to save people from themselves is arrogance on stilts. The vast majority of people are perfectly capable of managing their own affairs in this regard. Alcohol, not only due to direct health concerns but also because it seems to encourage aggression in the home, behind the wheel, at the bar, etc, is by far the most problematic drug out there, and I think it's clear that being legal and widely available probably raises the number of abusers somewhat. But as in the case of other drugs this represents a public health rather than a legal justice problem. Any reduction in abuse by prohibition (and there's precious little evidence that much exists) has to be balanced against the literally trillion dollar price tag for keeping the level of drug abuse more-or-less steady over the last forty years while wrecking whole communities with mass incarceration of young men, creating a foreign policy debacle that helps our worst enemies while hurting our best friends abroad, and feeds into what is by far the most intrusive, destructive, and fastest growing part of our over-sized Federal government: the Security/Intelligence-Industrial Complex.
- Robert Powell
November 10, 2012 at 7:04am