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against “driving while stoned” would increase). They fretted that the law did not include
a home-grow provision; marijuana could be cultivated legally only by licensed producers.
And because consumption in public would remain illegal, it would kill the chance of con-
vivial, Amsterdam coffeehouse-type hangouts.
This opposition didn't surprise us. Rather than “pro-pot,” my partners and I were anti-
prohibition. We knew that over time, the legislature can easily fine-tune parts of the law
that were either too strict or too loose. For us, the big goal was simply to be the first polit-
ical entity to actually legalize marijuana, recognizing its adult recreational use as a civil
liberty. In other words, we wanted to solve the puzzle of how to break the black market
and regulate the production and wholesale of marijuana.
In October of 2012, I went on a fascinating road trip through Washington
State—speaking at 10 stops in 7 days in support of I-502. I shared an inspirational mes-
sage at a Unitarian church in Spokane, hiked across a field with a farmer to see his huge
“Hemp for Washington” sign overlooking the freeway outside of Yakima, sipped wine in
a trendy Walla Walla winery with a pragmatic Republican legislator open to finding an
alternative to our country's tired war on pot, and shared the stage with a Baptist minister
whose African American community was taking the brunt of a war on drugs he considered
racist.
