Marijuana should be legal (not for the taxes) but the lesson should still be: don't blow off a fucking court date.

I think splitting hairs over the imperfections at the local level pale in comparison to the fact that we need to tell the federal government the situation with pot is changing. Now.

The marijuana charge is still technically a coincidence. Isn't the food allergy death the real issue here?

It's like saying a hooker got into a guy's car and the car crashed and killed the hooker, so we should make prostitution legal?

If anything they need to address the issue of how he specifically died. Maybe he shouldn't have been in jail in the first place, but the kid didn't deserve to die no matter WHAT he was in there for. Even if he had committed a felony, he shouldn't have died. To politicize this, it should be about taking food allergies seriously or having proper treatments for when something does happen.

Though, personally, I'm never a fan of politicizing a death (I remember just recently we gave Romney shit for doing something similar) especially with such a loose connection.

@ 3, I think Goldy's point is that this stupid law put a presumably non-violent offender in the position to die of his food allergy. If you want to compare it to anything else that's illegal, you have to stick with the idea that the person died in police custody, not outside of it as in your comparison. (And yeah, prostitution ought to be legal too, now that you mention it.)

The key point is that we shouldn't be putting human beings in cages without a damn good reason.

@5,
Ok, change my analogy to "cop busts a streetwalker and while he's driving her to jail the car crashes and she's killed."

I also think prostitution should be legal. And I think drugs should be legal too (and not ONLY marijuana).

But Goldy's post is attempting to shoehorn pot legalization in as the point of an article about negligent criminal justice actions. It's disingenuous

Hey Goldy, read this.

@ 9, I disagree. For one, we don't know all the facts of the circumstances surrounding this man's death. The article doesn't say definitively what caused his death. Asthma is a very serious disease, and I can recall that a temp in my office died of an attack, while she was presumably in full control of her diet. So it may not be a case of negligence at all.

But let's assume that that's exactly what happened, and follow the logic. Man dies in jail after jailers ignore man's well documented milk allergy. Man was in jail after he turned himself in for a misdemeanor pot offense. Man wouldn't have been in jail if it weren't for the legal classification of pot and the charges they brought against the man. Therefore, man wouldn't have died if pot were legal.

As I said, I see your point - this could have happened to a bank robber, and no one would then say that robbery should be legalized. But that's because we're speaking of the difference between a just law and an unjust one. And it's fair to say that this man died because of an unjust law.

If you want disingenuous arguments, check out Mehlman @ 6/7.

@10: I wrote:

Yet even if the impact of passing it ends up being more symbolic than practical...

I didn't say the impact was only symbolic, just that even if it mostly was, that would be enough to get my yes vote. I don't discount the practical impacts.

Since there will obviously continue to be cannabis related arrests under I 502, this argument over saving lives is naive to say the least. Will young people continue to be jailed if I 502 passes? YES!!... Will some of those people have medical problems which could prove fatal while in custody? YES!!.. So how does passage of I 502 STOP this? It doesn't. This is a propaganda opportunity par excellence.

"The fight to end the "War on Drugs" has to start somewhere. And it might as well start at the ballot box here in Washington State."

Just for the record, the fight to "end the war on drugs" has been going on for quite some time. It is purely your egotistical hype to suggest that I 502 is anywhere close to the "start" of this process.

In making this statement, you discredit and disrespect hundreds of activists who have made this political climate possible with tireless work over the last three decades,. Shame on you for trying to hog the credit for Washington.

@14 Blah, blah, blah. Personally, I care more about changing policy than who gets credit. And a state voting to nullify federal drug law would be huge step toward changing the conversation.

Yeah that sort of thinking worked so well with states trying to pass integration laws....please explain an example of how states have voted to nullify federal law that has worked.... and ending alcohol prohibition is not one of them....

I like how BC ignores the feds on MJ too, and so does CA and nobody can stop us.

Nobody.

@16

Why doesn't alcohol prohibition count?

Repeal of alcohol prohibition was not driven by states passing laws to defy the federal government. It was driven by nationally organized lobbying groups mostly... It was done with a US constitutional amendment, so I guess when the US congress decides to draft and pass a constitutional amendment concerning repeal of cannabis prohibition we will be on similar footing...