- Left: Senator Ann Rivers (R-La Center). Right: Senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles (D-Seattle). They’ve authored deuling pot plans.
It’s progress that Washington State’s most high-profile drug war is presently being fought with bills and proposed amendments in the hushed chambers of the Capitol building in Olympia. But it’s still a goddamn mess.
This year, lawmakers are under pressure to reconcile our largely unregulated medical marijuana market with the highly regulated recreational market. But in meetings, they’ve vacillated between Reefer Madness–style hysteria and acting just too tired to deal with complicated policy questions. To make things even more challenging, pot activists are split, arguing for opposite approaches to the markets and accusing each other of being driven by greed.
Meanwhile, new bills are being introduced all the time and things are getting downright strange. “If you’re not there,” says Kari Boiter, a medical cannabis patient and activist, “you’re getting run over.”
In the state senate, two major plans emerged at the start of the session.
