Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
In this scene under the Washington Capitol dome (from Evergreen: The Road to Legaliz-
ation, a documentary about the effort to pass I-502;
www.evergreendocumentary.com
)
,
my attempt to explain the wisdom of legalizing marijuana meets with vocal resistance not
from the anti-pot lobby… but from the pro-pot crowd.
Legislating legal marijuana in the United States is a prickly proposition. The framers
of I-502 learned from mistakes made by previous failed attempts at legalization (such as
California's Prop 19 in 2010). To be passed by Washington voters, the initiative had to
thread the needle: legalizing marijuana, but with regulations rigid enough to allay the fears
of more conservative voters. Key safeguards of I-502 included ensuring that marijuana
remained illegal for those under 21; enforcing strict DUI provisions; assuring employers
they could maintain any standards they wanted in their workplace; and levying taxes on
the legal sale of marijuana.
In our state, before I-502, marijuana was the second biggest cash crop—rivaling
apples. And it was all a black market, empowering organized crime. We wanted to redirect
those proceeds to legitimate business…with a cut for the state. Of the $500 million in an-
nual revenue we estimated would flow into our state's coffers, a certain percentage was
earmarked for health care and drug abuse prevention work, including public education,
counseling for marijuana abusers, and an ongoing evaluation of the new law.
Surprisingly, I-502 seemed to rankle some marijuana advocates more than it did con-
servatives. The pro-pot crowd bristled about its DUI provisions (fearing that enforcement
