Washington state's greens and the gov: a partnership going up in smoke?
Gov. Chris Gregoire vetoed a medical-marijuana bill, just the latest in a series of moves that distance her from progressives. What's the value of having a Democratic governor who acts like a Republican?
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Gov. Chris Gregoire is striking out with local green progressives lately, at least in Seattle. First, she seemingly characterized her own mandate for reducing vehicle miles traveled as "social engineering" in The New York Times. Then she managed to lose what should have been a slam-dunk court case to keep the tunnel project she supports off the ballot, setting up a campaign that will underline her split on the issue with much of the Democratic base.
And now efforts to clean up the mess created by her veto of another kind of green legislation, medical marijuana, have collapsed in the winding down of the legislature's special session.
Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles pulled her legislation to solve problems created by Gov. Gregoire’s recent veto of legislation intended to make accessing medical marijuana easier. According to Kohl-Welles' statement quoted on Publicola:
Governor Gregoire vetoed the most substantive parts of SB 5073 out of concern that state employees involved in regulating medical marijuana would be at risk of federal arrest and prosecution. Unfortunately, in my opinion, the situation for patients and their designated providers was exacerbated as a result.
What's ironic is that the question of whether or not marijuana should be legalized, or at least decriminalized, especially for people who benefit from it medically, has been answered by voters in Seattle and Washington more than once. But even though voters have deprioritized enforcement (Referendum 75 in Seattle) and supported access for patients who need medical marijuana (statewide Initiative 692)m the state and federal governments are enforcing their restrictive policies as if those things never happened.
There is still a stigma attached to marijuana. And it’s not hard to understand why. The Stranger's Dominic Holden, who often writes about the issue of marijuana, pointed out last fall, "If you thought pot legalization in Seattle had already arrived — think again. Despite voters making pot possession the lowest law-enforcement priority in 2003, Seattle police are arresting more people on low-level marijuana charges this year than any year in the last decade."
Nevertheless, some businesses are braving the uncertain environment, working on how to meet the need both from the clinic and dispensary side. I talked to a couple of them for a story I wrote in partnership with the International Examiner last week about the impact of the governor's veto on the Asian community. A manager from the Northwest Green Medical Group told me that they see themselves as "pioneers" of a new health business. He says that businesses like his are trying to meet patient needs.
The manager, who requested to remain unnamed, pointed out that many patients hover in the gray area of legality. "We have professionals who worry they might lose their licensure if they get caught with marijuana," he says. His clinic is trying to destigmatize getting medical marijuana, making it more like a regular trip to the doctor's office.
Another advocate thinks that marijuana should be legalized, regulated, and taxed just like alcohol. David Tran says his dispensary, Conscious Care Cooperative, is not about recreational use but providing "qualified patients with high quality medicine in a safe environment." The co-operative is organized as a non-profit organization but Tran still looks at it like a business, needing more regulatory certainty to be successful.
People who need medical marijuana in Seattle and Washington state will have to weigh the hassle and humiliation of arrest against the pain they might be experiencing from the symptoms of their disease. Add that to challenges people already faces accessing affordable health care.
If, as Holden suggests, "marijuana will probably be decriminalized in Washington state within the next decade," who is going to meet the demand for medical marijuana? That will be up to people like David Tran.
"There are always risks involved in any business," says Tran, and "this is no different."
What makes the venture risky is "obscure legislation that leaves room for [differing] interpretation and leave it open to prosecution."
Business owners, providers, and users of medical marijuana share uncertainty about the law. Gregoire's veto took the issue a step backward at a time when government, business, law enforcement, and sick people are beginning to shift the social norms around marijuana.
Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn's statement on the governor's veto perhaps says it best. The governor's actions, he said, "leave us with the same problems that we currently face: too many patients have to take unnecessary risks to obtain their medicine, confusion for law enforcement, a proliferation of dispensaries across Seattle, and an inability to regulate dispensaries properly."
It's probably too late for green progressives of any variety to salvage the Gregoire administration. But many issues, including medical marijuana, ought to serve as a cautionary tale for progressives in Seattle: Be careful about who you select for governor in 2012.
What’s worse, a Republican governor implementing Republican policies, or a Democratic governor who implements the same ones?
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Comments:
Posted Thu, May 26, 6:36 a.m. Inappropriate
Roger - it isn't just the governor. The entire "D" leadership acts like "R's", especially when it comes to taxation.
We've got the most regressive tax structure in the country. It relies on an abusively high sales tax, one that is designed to hit the least well-off in our community the hardest. Gregoire, Constantine, Nickels, Sims, Phillips, Ed Murray, and Frank Chopp all worked hard and consistently to make the tax structure in this state - and particularly in this region - worse and worse for individuals and families over the past two decades.
Guess who advocates for high sales taxes at the Federal level? R standard-bearer Mike Huckabee. The local political leaders are soulmates of Mike Huckabee when it comes to tax policy.
Posted Thu, May 26, 7:10 a.m. Inappropriate
Why are you upset at Gregoire for protecting her union government employees from Federal Government enforcement of Drug Laws? She asked for and presented a letter from the local US Attorney who told her in no uncertain terms she would be placing her employees at risk of arrest and prosecution.
Gregoire did what any concerned boss would do, she protected her employees and pushed the liabilities down to the County and City employees and put them at risk...what could possibly go wrong?
Perhaps you should address your complaints to the President for not changing the policy and the U.S. Justice Department and DEA for enforcement issues.
As to acting like Republicans, was the author even of voting age when the last Republican Governor held office in Olympia? No, this is Democrats doing what Democrats do, deficits, lack of prioritzation, support for illegal aliens, support for government monopolies, support for public sector unions and ever higher taxes.
Posted Thu, May 26, 7:33 a.m. Inappropriate
To say that Gregoire's stance on marijuana is evidence that she "acts like a Republican" ignores the fact that The War on Drugs has always been a bipartisan abuse of government power. If anything, one could argue that this state had a much more tolerant drug enforcement policy under Dan Evans or John Spellman than under Booth Gardner, Mike Lowry, Gary Locke or Christine Gregoire. Perhaps the author should simply say that he hates Republicans so much that any government policy he opposes is ipso facto a "Republican" action.
Posted Thu, May 26, 7:52 a.m. Inappropriate
I think it's more than the Governor that's waking up to you green charlatans, Roger.
Posted Thu, May 26, 10:30 a.m. Inappropriate
Marijuana is not 'high quality medicine'. It is time for the respected traditional medical community to refute the claims of the medical marijuana crowd.
Posted Thu, May 26, 11:58 a.m. Inappropriate
Roger, there is nothing "Green" about the deep bore waterfront tunnel. It's hugely expensive in cash, and in CO2 emissions to just dig the thing. It's pure support for an auto centric transportation system.
And it wasn't a "slam dunk" lawsuit win as evidenced by the loss. You can't claim she had the facts on her side because clearly she didn't.
Posted Thu, May 26, 2:54 p.m. Inappropriate
Barack the Betrayer and Christine the Cruel; the roll-call of DemocRats in Washington D.C who killed forever any rational hope of public option/single-payer health care and signed the death warrant of organized labor by permanently obstructing Employee Free Choice; the DemocRats in Olympia who destroyed workers' comp and sandbagged employees' rights to privacy and free speech -- no matter how We the People vote, we always get a Republican.
That's because U.S. elections are nothing but exercises in mass deception.
The few candidates for whom we are allowed to vote represent only the capitalists -- the aristocrats of Big Business and Wall Street -- those who have reduced our nation to their United Estates and (increasingly) make no secret of their savage intent: absolute power and limitless profit for themselves, total subjugation and genocidal poverty for all the rest of us.
Wake up, people: U.S. bipartisanship is a Big Lie; we live in the perfected form of a one-party dictatorship. The DemocRats pretend to oppose the unabashed fascism of the Republicans, then -- under cover of the GOPorker Noise Machine -- methodically facilitate its imposition.
Adolph Hitler and Josef Goebbels must surely be laughing from their suites in Hell.
Can you say "tyranny"?
Such is the permanent end of the American Dream, the death -- forever -- of the American experiment in constitutional democracy.
Posted Thu, May 26, 5:15 p.m. Inappropriate
Which of these have anything to do with terminal diagnosis or marijuana used medicinally - Taxes, protecting union employees, (R) v (D), the War on Drugs, Gregoires deep bore legacy .. er tunnel, and whoever the heck the 'green charlatans' are of which BlueLight refers? At least animalal was talkin bout medical marijuana, although he could have been specific on which claims he'd like for someone to refute.
Which is kinda my point folks.
We realize marijuana is controversial and illicit, decadent and sexy even, unfortunately terminal and/or debilitating conditions aren't. Many things ran awry with SB 5073 and SB 5955, partly and chiefly due to much time and input allowed from persons with no real or actual involvement in the issue. Judging by their suggestions, they were just looking for an interesting committee hearing to attend. This left not nearly enough time for knowledgable input from the very folks they would affect - doctors, patient users, providers, and yes, state workers. Law enforcement was well represented, although this is really more a matter of health.
Had Senator Kohl-Welles been afforded the time to concentrate on core elements in the bills that enjoyed dedicated support like arrest protection for legally authorized users and their providers, rather than trying to please so many unrealistic unworkable and ridiculous pet peeves or amendments like state-funded pizza for frequent buyers of med mj, things may have turned out differently. She worked very hard on this issue for a very long time, it's a crying shame so much interference spoiled her efforts.
I for one had much higher expectations than what occurred, but with no one left satisfied - that's probably good politics, right?
Posted Thu, May 26, 5:56 p.m. Inappropriate
RicSm wants to know: "Which of these have anything to do with terminal diagnosis or marijuana used medicinally - Taxes, protecting union employees, (R) v (D), the War on Drugs, Gregoire's deep bore legacy..."
The answer is that every one of these outrages -- the suppression of medicinal marijuana and the persecution of its users; the War on Drugs and its methodically sadistic denial of adequate pain medication; ever-larger tax breaks for the robber-barons of Wall Street and the slave-masters of Big Business; the destruction of organized labor; Gregoire's miscellaneous treacheries and betrayals; Obama's too; the ever-more-obvious fact the DemocRats and GOPigs are to the electorate what a Three-Card Monte shark and his shills are to a con-game's victims – all these are merely separate parts of a vast syndrome of ever-increasing capitalist tyranny.
Maybe this concept will be a little easier to grasp if you think of medical marijuana users as the most recent group targeted for post-Katrina/New-Orleans-style elimination. (Elderly and disabled people – we're already on capitalism's genocidal hit list – that's what the Repu/Dem war on Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid is all about.)
Why? Because anyone dependent on Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid is, by definition, no longer exploitable as an individual profit center – which means that under the basic rules of capitalism, we're to be discarded forthwith.
Likewise users of medical marijuana: thus the most vulnerable amongst us are increasingly driven by unrelieved pain to suicide...
Yep, it's all just capitalism in action.
Posted Fri, May 27, 6:12 a.m. Inappropriate
That is certainly an interesting and entertaining interpretation of capitalism. (At least, as entertaining as trying to read a 106-word sentence can be at 6:00 in the morning.) But all the things you complain about are government actions, not the actions of free men and women in a free economy. One might more convincingly say that it's all just crony socialism in action.
Posted Fri, May 27, 12:31 p.m. Inappropriate
Or, we "might more convincingly say" it's all just proof the politicians are wholly owned subsidiaries of Wall Street and Big Business.
Thus the ultimate difference between Left and Right: we observe the same evidence -- even share the same grievances -- but how we interpret these matters is wholly determined by the content of our political educations.
Interesting though how "actions of free men and women in a free economy" sounds more anarchist than conservative.
But ain't nuttin' free till we get rid of them chains...
Posted Fri, May 27, 8:35 p.m. Inappropriate
Conservative? What makes you think I'm a conservative?
Posted Fri, May 27, 9:54 p.m. Inappropriate
Is California Green? I think Governor Gregoire
and certain legislators may have observed the
financial disaster in that state and gained wisdom.
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