"Gov. Gregoire meeting with feds over marijuana law."

OLYMPIA, Wash. 

Washington state Gov. Chris Gregoire will meet with Deputy Attorney General James Cole on Tuesday to discuss the state's recent passage of a measure to legalize and tax the sale of marijuana for recreational use.
Gregoire spokesman Cory Curtis said Monday that the meeting was added to a slate the governor had already scheduled in Washington, D.C., on other state matters. But on the issue of marijuana, Curtis said Gregoire wanted to meet with federal officials because "we want direction from them."
"Our goal is to respect the will of the voters, but give us some clarity," he said.
Initiative 502 passed with 55 percent of the vote last week. The measure decriminalizes the possession of up to an ounce of marijuana beginning Dec. 6, but the state has a year to come up with rules governing the state-licensed growing, processing and labeling of pot before sales to adults over 21 can begin. It also establishes a standard blood test limit for driving under the influence.
Home-growing marijuana for recreational reasons remains barred, as does the public display or use of pot.
Colorado also passed a measure legalizing the drug. Colorado's governor and attorney general spoke by phone Friday with U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, with no signal whether the U.S. Justice Department would sue to block the marijuana measure.
If Colorado's marijuana ballot measure is not blocked, it would take effect by Jan. 5, the deadline for the governor to add the amendment to the state constitution. The measure allows adults to possess up to an ounce of marijuana, and six marijuana plants, though public use of the drug and driving while intoxicated are prohibited.
Colorado's measure also directs lawmakers to write regulations on how pot can be sold, with commercial sales possible by 2014.
Gregoire went to D.C. on Monday for a meeting with the Council of Governors and Army Lt. Gen. Frank Grass at the Pentagon to discuss National Guard issues, and for another meeting with Energy Secretary Steven Chu to discuss plans to deal with a leak at a large, double-walled tank of waste at Hanford, the nation's most contaminated nuclear site.
Curtis said that the meeting with Cole was added to her schedule on Monday.
"Our biggest concern is that the state has a fairly big startup cost in creating the whole licensing and regulating scheme around this," he said. "We want some sort of clarity on this before we get a year down the road on the process."
Gregoire will return to Washington state on Tuesday night.

Seattle Times -Rachel La Corte

"220 marijuana cases dismissed in Washington State."

UPDATE 3:03 p.m. King and Pierce County prosecutors are dismissing more than 220 misdemeanor marijuana cases in response to Tuesday’s vote to decriminalize small amounts of pot.
In King County, 175 cases are being dismissed involving people 21 and older and possession of one ounce or less. I-502 makes one ounce of marijuana legal on Dec. 6, but King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg decided to apply I-502 retroactively.
“Although the effective date of I-502 is not until December 6, there is no point in continuing to seek criminal penalties for conduct that will be legal next month,” Satterberg said in a statement.
The dismissed cases involved arrests in unincorporated King County, as well as the state highways and the University of Washington. About 40 of the cases had already been filed in court as criminal charges; those charges will be dismissed. Another 135 cases were pending charging decisions and will simply be returned to the arresting police agency.
Pierce County Prosecutor Mark Lindquist said he was dismissing “about four dozen” pending cases where misdemeanor marijuana was the only offense. He said his staff was continuing to prosecute other cases where possession was secondary to a more serious charge, such as drunken driving.
“The people have spoken through this initiative,” said Lindquist. “And as a practical matter, I don’t think you could sell a simple marijuana case to a jury after this initiative passed.”
In an interview, Satterberg said his office would continue to prosecute marijuana possession above one ounce, allowing for “a buffer for those whose scales are less than accurate.” His office also charges felony possession — for people with more than 40 grams — although he said his staff routinely allows those defendants to plead down to a misdemeanor.
“I think when the people voted to change the policy, they weren’t focused on when the effective date of the new policy would be. They spoke loudly and clearly that we should not treat small amounts of marijuana as an offense,” he said.
I-502 campaign manager Alison Holcomb said she was “incredibly moved” by Satterberg’s announcement, which she said showed “incredible courage.”
The decision supports a prime argument I-502 made during the campaign. A study by a group of academics found there had been 241,000 misdemeanor marijuana possession cases in Washington over the past 25 years, 67,000 of them in the past five years. “If 502 hadn’t passed, we’d see the same amount of marijuana possession cases every year,” she said. “What makes a difference is changing the law.”
Satterberg is the first prosecutor to change charging policy after I-502, but other prosecutors are also considering these cases. Tom McBride of the Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys said his office “just starting to work through those issues.”
Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes has refused to prosecute misdemeanor possession cases since he took office.
Earlier this week, the chief criminal deputy prosecutor in Spokane County, Jack Driscoll, appeared to take a more conservative position. He told the Spokesman-Review that, even after Dec. 6, the only marijuana which was legal to possess was pot sold in the state-licensed stores called for in I-502. Those stores won’t be created for at least a year.
“The only thing that is legal is selling marijuana through those stores,” Driscoll said. “That will be regulated by the state. You can’t under this initiative have an ounce of marijuana that doesn’t come from a state-issued provider. You still can’t have black-market marijuana.”
Holcomb disputed that interpretation. So did Satterberg, who called it a “very narrow reading” of the initiative. “I don’t know how you trace where (the marijuana) comes from,” he said.
Satterberg said he expected federal authorities to seek an injunction to block implementation of I-502′s state licensing scheme for marijuana retailers and growers. “I think it’s the kind of issue the U.S. Supreme Court will have a final word on,” said Satterberg, calling it an “an important state’s rights issue.”
But he does not expect a federal lawsuit to target the types of cases he is dismissing, noting that states already have widely divergent penalties for marijuana possession.


Source 11/9/12 "The Seattle Times"

Voters in Washington and Colorado legalize recreational marijuana

It's been quite the night for marijuana in several ballot measures across the country.

Voters in Washington state and Colorado appear to have voted "yes" on measures that would legalize the sale of pot to adults, without the need for a doctor's prescription. (the final votes are still being counted.) And earlier Tuesday evening, voters in Massachusetts overwhelmingly approved the measure to allow the use of medical marijuana. Oregon voters have to decide on a similar measure to those passed in Washington and Colorado, which would allow marijuana use for any individual over the age of 21, but it appears to have been defeated.

Arkansas's medical marijuana initiative also appears to have been defeated. Montana, which already has a medical marijuana law, is voting on whether or not to restrict patient access in the state.

So far, states that have approved medical marijuana have walked a fine line with federal laws that still prohibit the sale of marijuana under any circumstances. The full legalization of marijuana in these two states is expected to increase that tension between local and federal laws. In total, six states are considering marijuana initiatives.

"Now that this law has been passed [in Massachusetts], it will finally be legal and safe for myself and many others in the state to procure the medicine," Eric McCoy, 59, told the Boston Globe.

NBC News reports that 17 states and the District of Columbia already have laws allowing for the medical use of marijuana, according to the National Council of Legislatures.

Source