[vta]

Source: Spokesman-Review (Spokane, WA)
Author: Kim Marie
Note: Kim Marie Thorburn, M.D., served as Spokane County health
officer and director of the Spokane Regional Health District from
1997 to 2006. Robert W. Wood, M.D., served as director of the
HIV/AIDS Program of Public Health-Seattle & King County from 1986 to
2010 and is a clinical professor of medicine at the University of Washington.


I-502 OFFERS BETTER APPROACH TO MARIJUANA

A ground-breaking marijuana law reform proposal recently began gathering signatures to be placed before the state Legislature in January. Initiative 502, supported by New Approach Washington, replaces marijuana prohibition with a public health approach that allows adults 21 and over to purchase limited quantities of marijuana from state-licensed and -regulated stores.

The initiative taxes marijuana and directs new revenue estimated in the hundreds of millions of dollars annually to drug abuse prevention, research and education, as well as the state general fund and local budgets. If the Legislature does not pass it, I-502 will go onto the November 2012 ballot.

We are two of I-502's sponsors. The others include a former U.S. attorney, the current Seattle city attorney, the two most recent presidents of the Washington State Bar Association, a state legislator, a prominent businessperson, and a University of Washington professor who is also a marijuana dependency treatment professional. Some of us are parents and some of us are churchgoers. We come from different walks of life and all of us care deeply about our communities.

As public health physicians, the two of us view I-502 through a medical and public health lens. Our goal is to improve the health of our patients and communities. And from our perspective, marijuana prohibition does more harm than good.

The United States now incarcerates more of its population than any other country in the world. We put one in every 100 adults behind bars. We represent just 5 percent of the world's population, yet we house 25 percent of the world's inmates.

As recently noted by Josiah Rich, M.D., and colleagues in the New England Journal of Medicine, the "war on drugs" has transformed the land of the free and brave into the world's No. 1 jailer. Twenty percent of the people in state prisons and local jails, and more than half of federal inmates, are incarcerated for nonviolent drug offenses.

In the last two decades, the war on drugs has become a war on marijuana. In 1991, 29 percent of drug arrests nationwide were for marijuana; by 2009, that number had increased to 52 percent. And of those marijuana arrests, 90 percent were for simple possession.

What has the huge cost of incarceration bought us? Broken families, reduced earning capacity and homelessness but not a reduction in marijuana use. More than 40 percent of all Americans have used marijuana at some point in their lives. Few of us believe all users will be caught or that they deserve to go to jail, have a criminal record, or lose their rights to a scholarship or an organ transplant. The 760,000 arrests made nationwide for marijuana possession in 2009 represented less than 5 percent of the 16.7 million Americans who were current ( i.e., past-month ) marijuana users. Prohibition isn't working.

But marijuana prohibition isn't simply failing; it's actively hurting us. Government budgets are a zero-sum game. Every dollar spent arresting, prosecuting and jailing a person for marijuana use is a dollar that could have been better spent on schools, family support services, community development or health care. I-502 recognizes that investment upstream in preventive services that build healthy families and communities pays much greater public health and safety dividends than handcuffs and jail beds.

Moreover, time behind bars compromises the physical and mental health of inmates. As Rich and his colleagues point out, "Locking up millions of people for drug-related crimes has failed as a public-safety strategy and has harmed public health in the communities to which these men and women return. A new evidence-based approach is desperately needed."

New Approach Washington's Initiative 502 is such an approach. We encourage you to sign the petitions to put I-502 before the Legislature and to support its passage.

[Hash Zeppelin]

Go Washington! great post as always VTA, thanks for sharing the news

[crazybear]

Hopefully it passes, we need more logical thinking! Thanks for posting VTA!!!!

great post vta but i hate the fact that they only want to spoonfeed the people of WA. why can they grow and sell but the people can't grow their own? atleast if it passes it's gonna cause quite the shit storm with the feds!

[vta]

Baby steps schwagg. And just like a baby...once they get going there is no stopping them

[Maj.PotHead]

Originally Posted by vta

Baby steps schwagg. And just like a baby...once they get going there is no stopping them

hell yea Go Washington

[OjoRojo420]

Go Wash go !

Lets see what the Feds do.

Ojo

[SunshineDreams]

I hope the feds cry. I was recently on a dea website and they're STILL TRYING TO CLAIM MARIJUANA IS DANGEROUS. I really don't understand it. I mean, 1 in 3 states has a medical program of some sort and they're still trying to say that marijuana has no medical value. They're some of the most emptyheaded fucks I can think of.

[Hash Zeppelin]

^their job depends on it. As soon as pot is legalized in one state, there will be a semi domino effect like with mmj. Several million more people will see the drug war is a scam and in a time of needing to cut government spending the DEA will be drastically shrank or completely ended. They are scared. We have the DEA shaking in their boots.

KEEP OVER GROWING. SIGN PETITIONS. VOTE YES ON LEGALIZATION BILLS.

There's a bit I don't like about this bill, but it's got a better chance of passing than many more "idealized" bills I've seen. It's a step forward, and I will support it.