The group behind the effort to legalize marijuana use in Washington state submitted 341000 signatures to get their initiative on the ballot on Thursday. Out of those, they will need at least 241,153 valid signatures to qualify.
New Approach Washington are the backers who raised over a million dollars, with $250,000 of that coming from Peter Lewis, the Ex-CEO of progressive insurance who has become a cannabis philanthropist. Initiative 502 would create a regulated system of state-licensed growers, processors and outlets and at each stage, the state will collect a 25 percent excise tax. Those licensees, at each stage will cost $250, with a renewal fee of $1000.
I 502 also lays out rules that prohibit producers and processors from having any financial interest in retailers, similar to the rules for alcohol. Conveniently, the State Liquor Control Board will administer the program if the initiative passes. Anyone in the state over 21 years old would be able to buy up to an once of marijuana at a time, or a pound of cannabis products, such as brownies. The initiative also deals with marijuana-infused liquids, you can buy or possess up to 72 ounces of marijuana-infused liquids.
I 502 has some heavy supporters. Outside of the money donors, it is also backed by two former US Attorneys for Western Washington and Seattle City Attorney, and ex-head of the Seattle FBI office, Pete Holmes, the Washington state Democrats, an impressive array of heavy-hitting FORMER judges in both superior and municipal courts, and the King County Bar Association.
But on Thursday, as the signatures were being turned in, there was already a group of pro-marijuana activists protesting what they think is huge flaw in the initiatives. Opponents of the initiative, but NOT opponents of legalization of marijuana, take issue with the part of the initiative that would make it illegal for a motorist to have more than 5 nanograms of THC per milliliter of blood in their system. Medical marijuana activists say that that puts an unfair burden on patients who may have a high tolerance since they are using marijuana to control pain, and put them at a higher risk of a DUI arrests. Patients have expressed their fears that their driving privileges would be taken away, and some are planning their own initiative to counter I-502.
External Links:
http://www.seattlepi.com/news/article/WA-pot-legalization-signatures-submitted-to-state-2431453.php
http://www.newapproachwa.org/content/initiative
Contact your elected representatives and urge them to 'Stop Arresting Marijuana Smokers'. 
Wrong. For most weed smokers – i.e., people who don’t smoke weed every day but rather once a month or less – 5ng/mL is indicative of motor skills impairment and recent marijuana use. If you’re over 5ng/mL as a casual pot smoker, you probably shouldn’t be driving 1-4 hours after toking.
Now, for the minority of weed smokers – i.e., patients and chronic tokers – 5ng/mL could be lower than your everyday level. You could be perfectly sober at 5ng/mL. But you can already get a DUI for any amount of cannabis in your system. However, your blood can only be tested for DUI with reasonable suspicion that you were driving erratically in the first place. I hate the 5ng/mL provision, too, but it is not so onerous as to accept the status quo for another how many years? Let’s get it legal and if you’re worried about a DUI, take a bus or get a ride.
Non-patients have been suffering arrests, forfeitures, harassment, job loss, family separation, school expulsion, and more for thirteen years now in Washington State. Can you really turn to 90% of Washington State’s tokers and tell them they need to be criminals for another how many years because it might inconvenience the driving situation for 10% of the tokers? Can you really turn to the public and say, “Hey, people who smoke pot all day every day aren’t really impaired while driving?” and expect that to win an election?
Look, the situation I-502 has put a lot of us in really sucks. You and I both know that tokers can build up a tolerance and drive just fine at 5ng/mL. But now that it is on the ballot, you have to ask yourself whether you can live with voting the way the DEA, the cops, the drug czar, and the murderous Mexican cartels want you to vote, or will you vote to pump the first bullet into this zombie corpse of prohibition? The first state to legalize will not usher us into Jack Herer utopia – if it wasn’t 5ng/mL, it would be too low a plant limit, too low a possession limit, too high a tax, too many remaining pot prisoners, or something else that idealists would scoff at and call “not true legalization”.
Get it legal. That changes the whole game on a state, national, and international level. Washingtonians fighting for a change in that DUI standard and to add home grow provisions will be doing so not as criminals looking to get high but as legal cannabis consumers looking to change the law. The feds will be forced to fight not a guy in ponytails wanting to sell weed but an entire state defended by an attorney general and backed up by taxpayers. The final battle will have begun.
I-502 is a scam…DUI blood will give all weed smokers dui’s I’m going to court in cali and had no weed on me..Bar ASSC. tricked the weed smokers.played read it.I a original member from the first hemfest in seattle and I work with Jack Herer in Seattle 7 yrs till stroke.