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Guest Commentary | Washington State should legalize or decriminalize possession of marijuana

By on January 18, 2010 in Archived, Headlines, Opinion
By Toby Nixon

Last Wednesday in Olympia, the state House Committee on Public Safety and Emergency Preparedness held hearings on two bills regarding marijuana policy reform. These bills, HB 1177 (decriminalization of possession of small amounts of marijuana) and HB 2401 (legalization of marijuana and sale in state liquor stores) will be voted on in the committee this Wednesday, January 20.

Article 1 Section 32 of our state constitution says “A frequent recurrence to fundamental principles is essential to the security of individual right and the perpetuity of free government.” It’s time we went back to fundamental principles and considered whether our government is focusing on the right things.

Both the Declaration of Independence and Article 1 Section 1 of our state constitution say that the purpose of government is to protect and maintain individual rights. The government should only interfere in individual choices and make something a crime if, in fact, somebody else’s life, liberty, or property is being infringed upon.

Possessing marijuana does not infringe upon or endanger anyone’s life, liberty, or property. Possession by adults should not be a crime. And yet, in 2007 alone, the estimated total cost of arresting over 11,000 people for marijuana possession, convicting over 3,600 of them, and paying for over 16,000 days in jail, was over seven and a half million dollars. But that alone does not explain the whole cost.

You must also consider the opportunity cost. Whenever a police officer is taking time to arrest, transport, and do the hours of paperwork on someone for marijuana possession, they are not available to be apprehending real criminals or preventing real crimes. Our police officers should be focusing on domestic violence, on pedophiles, car thieves, burglars, robbers, and all the other criminals whose acts truly are crimes against other persons, who are truly infringing the rights of others.

Think also of the costs to those who are arrested and convicted. They haven’t infringed anyone else’s rights, but for the rest of their lives they will have trouble getting jobs, trouble getting housing, trouble getting financial aid for college. They are unlikely to reach their full potential, and much more likely to be a burden on society in the long run.

Reclassifying marijuana possession as a civil infraction, or legalizing it altogether, would mean greatly reduced costs and safer communities. Supporting HB 1177 or HB 2401 would not make one “soft on crime”, because it would make more resources available to deal with real criminals.

None of us wants to encourage drug abuse. But there are more efficient, fair, and proportionate ways to discourage marijuana use than continuing to have it be a crime. Our experience with tobacco makes that clear.

The legislature should legalize or decriminalize possession of marijuana for adults. My preference would be to treat marijuana as we do beer and wine – to go beyond what is proposed in HB 2401 and permit private sales by licensed retailers rather than restricting sales to state-run stores – and to treat driving under the influence very harshly. But either HB 2401 or HB 1177 would be an improvement on our current regulatory regime which perpetuates a deadly black market.

Toby Nixon served as state representative for the 45th District from 2002-2007, representing parts of Kirkland, Redmond, Woodinville, Duvall, Carnation, and Sammamish.

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  • LLLou

    HB 2401 ,as written will remove the legal protection for Medical Marijuana people to grow their own.

  • LLLou

    HB 2401 ,as written will remove the legal protection for Medical Marijuana people to grow their own.

  • Scott Brady

    How will enforcement work? There is no proven accurate method for instant THC test for use in DUI style enforcement.

    What impact will this have on employers who want to have a drug-free workplace? Or those employers who have to have a drug free workplace for safety reasons? Is there anything in HB 2401 about this? Will employers have protections under the law to be able to dismiss employees who break a drug-free workplace agreement?

    What about marijuana usage in public places? People who have no tolerance for marijuana could get a contact high and not even realize what is happening unless something goes wrong (like a DUI stop). Seems like using a regular smoking area wouldn’t cut it. That’ll be a can of worms for the state if it isn’t addressed in legislation.

    • LLLou

      As they say, the devil is in the details…
      As you state , if they make Cannabis legal(for the state to sell to adults),how will drug testing be done?I think the various compounds in Cannabis can stay in your system for days, if not weeks.Totally unworkable. There is something in the bill about it not being legal to openly smoke/consume Cannabis in public.
      I suppose that a person could get a little buzzed if in a room full of cannabis smokers, most work places do not have smoking rooms ,do they ?, most people have to go outside 25′ beyond doorways or some such. So how is that going to work ? Tobacco smokers can go out for a smoke break, but Cannabis smokers can’t ???What if they are Medical Marijuana people?
      I can think of plenty of arguments that will shoot down this legislation.
      I think the only way to go is to completely legalize Cannabis growing , for personal use ,in the privacy of a home. Get the state totally out of it, if someone breaks a law, or injures someone else then worry about it.

  • Scott Brady

    How will enforcement work? There is no proven accurate method for instant THC test for use in DUI style enforcement.

    What impact will this have on employers who want to have a drug-free workplace? Or those employers who have to have a drug free workplace for safety reasons? Is there anything in HB 2401 about this? Will employers have protections under the law to be able to dismiss employees who break a drug-free workplace agreement?

    What about marijuana usage in public places? People who have no tolerance for marijuana could get a contact high and not even realize what is happening unless something goes wrong (like a DUI stop). Seems like using a regular smoking area wouldn’t cut it. That’ll be a can of worms for the state if it isn’t addressed in legislation.

    • LLLou

      As they say, the devil is in the details…
      As you state , if they make Cannabis legal(for the state to sell to adults),how will drug testing be done?I think the various compounds in Cannabis can stay in your system for days, if not weeks.Totally unworkable. There is something in the bill about it not being legal to openly smoke/consume Cannabis in public.
      I suppose that a person could get a little buzzed if in a room full of cannabis smokers, most work places do not have smoking rooms ,do they ?, most people have to go outside 25′ beyond doorways or some such. So how is that going to work ? Tobacco smokers can go out for a smoke break, but Cannabis smokers can’t ???What if they are Medical Marijuana people?
      I can think of plenty of arguments that will shoot down this legislation.
      I think the only way to go is to completely legalize Cannabis growing , for personal use ,in the privacy of a home. Get the state totally out of it, if someone breaks a law, or injures someone else then worry about it.

  • Bill Henkens

    The new Seattle city attorney got it right. Kirkland should follow suit and stop arresting people for simple possession.

    Pete Holmes, the newly elected Seattle city attorney, is already making good on his campaign promise to dismiss any marijuana possession charges that come through his office, the Seattle Times reported last week. Holmes dismissed two marijuana-related cases on his first day on the job, and several others are about to be dismissed, including cases taken up by the previous city attorney.

    http://www.opposingviews.com/i/new-seattle-city-attorney-to-dismiss-pot-possession-cases

    It will save money and will stop ruining young peoples lives.

    • PJ

      Excuse me, stop ruining young people’s lives? And we’ll do that by what? … not pestering them?
      MADD speaks to kids about driving while under the influence of not just alcohol. One of the most gripping stories was of a woman whose husband was hit by a 17 year old under the influence. Her husband didn’t die, but his brain was injured so badly he can’t hold a job down, he has extreme mood changes that result in extreme anger, his 3 girls cry every night and tell their mom, they want their, “old Daddy back”, the woman cannot maintain a job and take care of him, so they were having to move in with her parents.
      Opps, I guess we just forget to tell this kid to do in “in the privacy of their own home.”
      Recently the bowling alley at Bridle Trails caught an older kid selling pot to a minor there. Now these kids are going to smoke up and drive … but we don’t want to bother them, right?

      • Duncan20903

        Did you notice that the things you claim happened did so while we’re still in the failed era of prohibition? 40 years and $2.5 trillion later drugs are widely available, cheaper, and more potent that before this failed policy was started. You prohibitionists are doing a heckuva job.

        Tell you what…let’s try something different. If it’s actually worse than the boondoggle of prohibition, we can go back to the current insanity, and continue to borrow money that we don’t have, to spend trying to achieve an end which is not possible., at least not without turning the US into a totally authoritarian country with no respect for or right to individual freedom.

      • Bill Henkens

        It’s a simple matter of luck. Some kids get caught and others don’t. Imagine if the President had not been “lucky” and got caught with his pot he would not be President. Putting young kids in the system for first time busts is IMO “the wrong thing to do.”

  • Bill Henkens

    The new Seattle city attorney got it right. Kirkland should follow suit and stop arresting people for simple possession.

    Pete Holmes, the newly elected Seattle city attorney, is already making good on his campaign promise to dismiss any marijuana possession charges that come through his office, the Seattle Times reported last week. Holmes dismissed two marijuana-related cases on his first day on the job, and several others are about to be dismissed, including cases taken up by the previous city attorney.

    http://www.opposingviews.com/i/new-seattle-city-attorney-to-dismiss-pot-possession-cases

    It will save money and will stop ruining young peoples lives.

    • http://pjnadalin@prodigy.net PJ

      Excuse me, stop ruining young people’s lives? And we’ll do that by what? … not pestering them?
      MADD speaks to kids about driving while under the influence of not just alcohol. One of the most gripping stories was of a woman whose husband was hit by a 17 year old under the influence. Her husband didn’t die, but his brain was injured so badly he can’t hold a job down, he has extreme mood changes that result in extreme anger, his 3 girls cry every night and tell their mom, they want their, “old Daddy back”, the woman cannot maintain a job and take care of him, so they were having to move in with her parents.
      Opps, I guess we just forget to tell this kid to do in “in the privacy of their own home.”
      Recently the bowling alley at Bridle Trails caught an older kid selling pot to a minor there. Now these kids are going to smoke up and drive … but we don’t want to bother them, right?

      • Duncan20903

        Did you notice that the things you claim happened did so while we’re still in the failed era of prohibition? 40 years and $2.5 trillion later drugs are widely available, cheaper, and more potent that before this failed policy was started. You prohibitionists are doing a heckuva job.

        Tell you what…let’s try something different. If it’s actually worse than the boondoggle of prohibition, we can go back to the current insanity, and continue to borrow money that we don’t have, to spend trying to achieve an end which is not possible., at least not without turning the US into a totally authoritarian country with no respect for or right to individual freedom.

      • Bill Henkens

        It’s a simple matter of luck. Some kids get caught and others don’t. Imagine if the President had not been “lucky” and got caught with his pot he would not be President. Putting young kids in the system for first time busts is IMO “the wrong thing to do.”