BREAKING NEWS–Seattle Will No Longer Prosecute Marijuana Possession Offenses

The City Of Seattle will no longer prosecute marijuana possession offenses. The newly elected city attorney, Peter Homes—who defeated the incumbent Tom Carr in the November 2009 election, says “[The city of Seattle] is no longer going to prosecute marijuana possession cases anymore.” And, on top of that Holmes has already started dismissing cases that were filed by Carr!

Seattle’s been pretty weed-friendly since 2003 when voters approved Initiative 75 that required the Seattle Police and the City’s Attorney’s Office to make the “investigation, arrest and prosecution of marijuana offenses, when the marijuana was intended for adult personal use, the city’s lowest law enforcement priority.” And, it’s only taken seven years or so for the Initiative to be taken seriously, despite a recent (2008) review of the Initiative reported “no evidence of any adverse effects of the implementation of I-75, including specifically: 1. No evident increase in marijuana use among youth and young adults; 2. No evident increase in crime; and 3. No adverse impact on public health.”

Seattle’s new mayor, Mike McGinn, took office on the 5th, but went public in December with his notion that weed should not only be legal, but taxed. “We recognize that, like alcohol, it’s something that should be regulated, not treated as a criminal activity. And I think that’s where the citizens of Seattle want us to go,” McGinn said. What’s cool about this guy is that he actually asked the people of Seattle to help him identify what issues he should address. Legalizing weed made it to the second slot on the list! Apparently he’s cool with that and said weed should be legalized and taxed to offset some of the city’s financial problems. “I think if every elected official who ever smoked marijuana voted to legalize it, it’d probably be legalized in an instant,” he said.

Well, it might not be instantly, but it’s very possible that the state of Washington could soon just legalize weed completely. And, State Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson, D-Seattle, is sponsoring a bill that would do just that. “Prohibition didn’t work for alcohol, and it’s not working for marijuana,” she said. She thinks the state’s current bullshit weed policies are already costing taxpayers a ton of money…and she’s right! “We were spending a fortune in investigating and incarcerating people for using marijuana. We can’t afford, because of our fiscal crisis, to spend those huge sums in this failed effort,” she said.

The bill is similar to the The Tax & Regulate Cannabis 2010 bill here in California. Under the measure, marijuana would be sold in Washington State’s 160 state-run liquor stores. Customers 21 and older would pay a tax of 15 percent per gram. Legislation started on the 11th and we’ll be continuing to follow the story.

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MarijuanaLobby.org says:

January 21, 2010 at 1:02 pm

What about the growers and suppliers, this is good news!?!?! but we have a long way to go.

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