UPDATE: WA one step closer to pot legalization

March 21st, 2011

As reported by the Seattle Times, “The marijuana legalization bill, House Bill 1550, may be stopped for this session of the Legislature. But this issue has been moving as never before, and it needs to keep moving.”

The Seattle Times has weighed in favor of the anti prohibition bill since its inception, and their support for it has not wained as the bill took some decisive steps forward.

Even more of a surprise is the serious tone struck in the latest hearing held by the House Ways and Means Committee, led by Rep. Ross Hunter, where they treated pot legalization as more than a joke, a refreshing step for politicians to take, if a little past its due.

If passed, the bill would legalize recreational marijuana use for adults, the sale of which would be regulated, taxed and sold through liquor stores.

“The bill’s sponsor, Rep. Mary Lou Dickerson, D-Seattle, presented Hunter’s  committee with an estimate that in the next biennium her bill could raise $441 million for the state. That would be welcome, just as the liquor revenue was welcome when Prohibition was ended during the Depression. But no estimate is reliable, and revenue, in any case, is not the main reason for doing this.”

This step marks the furthest marijuana has ever come to being legalized, and we will keep you up to date with more details on this process as they happen.

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S. Cody Barrus, Managing Editor