BELLINGHAM ? The sweet smell of marijuana has been in the air here, from Teddy Bear Cove to the top of Sehome Hill, since college and high school students and counterculture types took to smoking cannabis in the late 1960s.
A very different crowd gathered Friday night at a home in the affluent Edgemoor neighborhood.? Civic leaders, political types and lawyers were raising money for Initiative 502, which would legalize and regulate the growing and sale of marijuana to adults.
?Anyone who has ever written a criminal justice budget can see that marijuana laws are ineffective and costly, and haven?t solved the problem:? We are arresting and imprisoning the wrong people,? said Bellingham Mayor Kelli Linville.
Mike Estes, chairman of the Whatcom County Democratic Party, added:? ?We?re a border county.? That makes us aware of the underlying criminal element that has moved in.? It is a higher priority for people in Whatcom County than other entities.?
The party underscored a claim that marijuana is a ?gateway? drug ? in this case a gateway to a taste for good wine.? Such vintages as a fine Covey Run syrah were being poured.? The 1930s movie ?Reefer Madness,? a warning against cannabis that was untrue and is today seen as comical, played silently on a screen.
There were also brownies ? without.
The good cheer belied a serious purpose.? The drive to legalize and regulate pot is being driven, in part, by evidence of heightened gang activity on both sides of the 49th parallel.
Asian and biker gangs, along with free-lance gangsters, have robbed and strong-armed their way into control of ?B.C. Bud? grow operations up north.? The province that calls itself ?Beautiful British Columbia? has been the scene of gangland rub-outs.
A bevy of former Vancouver mayors, and current incumbent Gregor Robertson, plus former British Columbia attorneys general from all ends of the political spectrum have called on Canada?s federal government to overhaul marijuana possession laws.
Cartel activity is in evidence south of the border, such as the extensive irrigated grow operation uncovered on a remote slope in the Ross Lake National Recreation Area.
?We need to end what?s ineffective and ridiculous:? I am a geologist and I have been shot at by grow operations,? said Dan McShane, a host at the party.
Alison Holcomb, coordinator of the I-502 campaign, told the gathering that ?the (British Columbia) gangs are now sending their members into the states to grow it here.?
She argued that I-502, in its requirements,? would put a crimp in the import-export market for marijuana.? ?All of licensed businesses would be Washington-based: What is sold in a Washington store has to be a Washington-grown, Washington-licensed product.?
The latest SurveyUSA poll for KING/5 News showed I-502 with a 57-34 percent lead.? A similar legalization measure in Colorado is ahead 51-40 percent, according to a poll released Saturday by SurveyUSA.
The change in opinion is head-turning.? Seattle City Councilwoman Jean Godden did a cameo appearance at the Bellingham fundraiser.
Relaxing with a glass of white wine, Godden recalled when she first ran for the council in 2003.? Seattle voters were also deciding on city Initiative 75, which directed that simple possession of marijuana be put lowest on the city?s list of law enforcement priorities.
At a forum in Plymouth Congregation Church, Godden was the only council candidate to hold up a card signifying support for the initiative.? ?That?s only in 2003, and things have changed quite a bit since then,? she said.
Source: http://blog.seattlepi.com/seattlepolitics/2012/09/15/backing-for-legal-pot-from-gown-to-town/
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