It was right there in the name: New Approach Washington.
That was the banner under which lawyers, criminal-justice officials, and soccer-mom types urged voters to approve legalizing marijuana in Washington State through a statewide initiative in 2012. Instead of just wiping all the anti-pot laws off the books, we would replace them with a highly regulated, public-health-focused system in which an infusion of new taxes from all that legal weed would fund drug treatment, prevention, education, and research. We would take a new approach.
Now, just a couple years after 56 percent of Washington State voters approved this legalization plan, state Republican leaders are hoping you won’t mind if they go ahead and abandon the new-approach promise completely.
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