A huge selling point of the 502 campaign was earmarking a big chunk of the revenue for the purposes stated in the article. We were also assured that 502 would not result in more children smoking pot (because pot wouldn't be 'exciting and illicit' anymore). To see this sales pitch in full effect, please watch the I-502 Debate I organized and TVW broadcast. So the money is going to be moved (if not this session, then certainly next session) and the upward trend in youth marijuana use is accelerating (per just released 2014 HYS data)...and we still have dealers and all the other things that were going to go away.
http://www.tvw.org/index.php?option=com_…

Funny how the Stranger is upset about the lack of funding for all the illegal earmarks in I-502, but they aren't one bit upset that New Approach Washington lied to the medical cannabis patients and the voters. They aren't upset that cannabis will be the only doctor recommended medicine in Washington that's taxed....and at 37% for patients that are willing to give up their 2nd, 4th, 5th and 6th Amendment Rights to save the extra 10% sales tax.

The fact that safe and affordable access for sick and dying patients will be shut down if this legislation goes into effect, that doesn't bother the Stranger one little bit. Why not use the recreational tax money to provide free medication to poor patients who will not longer be able to afford it under this bill?

This whole thing stinks like rotten fish....and it's coming from the direction of Alison Holcomb.

Steve Sarich
Cannabis Action Coalition

A cut off the top is shared between the Washington State Liquor Control Board, the University of Washington (for an educational website), the state Institute for Public Policy (for a cost-benefit study), and the state Department of Social and Health Services (for a survey asking middle- and high-school students about their drug and alcohol use).

So the legislature is proposing redirecting money from the WSLCB and a fistful of random earmarks to the school system. Yeah, really not seeing the problem here.

You're suggesting that the state should dedicate all those hundreds of millions to marijuana education? Like posters on buses and brochures and whatnot?

The reason to legalize pot was never that its harmless or whatever. Its that enforcement of the laws caused more harm than the weed itself. Everything else is just politicians responding to the will of voters.

Just in case anyone is concerned, none of what @3 says is true.

ah, so this is what those bullshit GOP ads on 97.3 are trying to mask.

Well..they could be raiding the money to pay for road construction...of course, money is fungible so it really doesn't matter where they redirect it: the redirection frees up revenues to be used elsewhere. In any case, it does seem like at least the part about a regulated and taxed legal market contributing to state coffers is still valid.

On the research part: I think the line in legal circles goes something like "don't ask questions you don't know and like the answer to," because it would suck for a lot of GOP constituencies to find out that a public health approach to drug policy is a hell of a lot more effective than a law enforcement approach. Public health seems to lack the private for-profit opportunities.

They want to spend more money teaching out kids that marijuana is as dangerous as heroin.....great idea! Let's keep Reefer Madness alive for generations to come...and squander the tax money from marijuana to do it! Over the last 40 years we have spent hundreds of millions on studies that have proven that you cannot determine impairment by measuring THC in a drivers' blood, but the UW thinks that maybe we need just one more study that will come up with a different conclusion?

Heroin is now the biggest drug problem we face in the schools. Where's all the concern about that? That problem was brought to us by our friendly pharmaceutical companies that filled our streets with prescription opioids to get the kid addicted in the first place. Why aren't we taxing the pharmaceutical companies to make them pay for the opioid addiction plague they've visited upon our kids?

Heidi Groover and the Stranger have some strange priorities.

Honestly, diverting pot money to fund schools. Hmm, I really don't see a problem with this. If our kids are better educated and have more after school activities, they will do less nasty drugs. Plus, slip in some proper pot education, proper sex ed, good arts programs. The will of the voters was to do good with this money, and that is what the government, in this case, is trying to do.