Pot bills to protect med. patients, erase convictions advance
SEATTLE (AP) — Two marijuana-related bills advanced Thursday in Olympia, with legislative committees giving their OK to one measure that would block police from arresting medical marijuana patients and another that would let people have misdemeanor pot convictions erased.
The House Public Safety Committee voted 6-5 to recommend the bill on pot convictions be passed, and the Senate Health Care Committee approved the arrest-protection bill. The votes beat a deadline Friday for bills dealing with policy matters to be passed out of committee.
Democratic Rep. Joe Fitzgibbon of Burien told the House committee Wednesday that after Initiative 502 passed, allowing adults over 21 to have up to an ounce of marijuana under state law, he started thinking about the thousands of people who have criminal records for activity that is now legal — criminal records that can keep people from getting jobs, housing or loans.
Typically, people must wait three years after completing their sentence before asking to have a misdemeanor conviction vacated. The bill would eliminate that waiting period and remove other restrictions on having pot misdemeanors wiped clean.
The bill drew some objections at a hearing Thursday. The head of the Washington Association of Prosecuting Attorneys, Tom McBride, noted that the bill would allow people to have their convictions erased even if they had more marijuana than I-502 allows. Misdemeanor pot possession has historically been defined as up to 40 grams, but the new law only lets people have up to an ounce, or 28 grams.
It remains a misdemeanor to have between 28 grams and 40 grams, but under the bill anyone convicted of having that much in the future could immediately petition to have the conviction erased.
Ezra Eickmeyer, a lobbyist with the Washington Cannabis Association, said Thursday that was a pretty minor concern.
"What the people voted for was not to put people in jail and give them criminal convictions for possessing small amounts of marijuana," he said. "That's the principle that was passed. I'm appalled that the prosecutors are trying to make criminal convictions stick for people caught with small amounts of cannabis."
Eickmeyer said he was excited about the Senate committee's vote on the arrest-protection bill. State law currently allows those arrested and charged with marijuana crimes to present an "affirmative defense" to the charges in court if they're complying with the medical marijuana law; the bill would prevent them from being arrested in the first place if they present their valid medical marijuana authorization to police.
The measure doesn't do as much as he would like, Eickmeyer said, but he hopes it can be amended to include a regulatory system for medical marijuana dispensaries.
I-502 called for the creation of state-licensed growers, processors and retail stores for recreational marijuana, but no such plan exists for commercial medical marijuana dispensaries, which have been tolerated by police but operate outside the letter of state law.
Other pot-related bills pending in Olympia include one that would impose a 25-percent tax on sales at medical marijuana dispensaries.
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Johnson can be reached at https://twitter.com/GeneAPseattle
Copyright 2013 The Associated Press.
I think that it is hilarious that people want to legalize this type of stuff. Â Seriously? Â ANY drug that alters your state of awareness and mental judgment should not be used, unless there is some medical necessity for it, and for the most part, there is just not in most cases. Â This goes for MJ, alcohol, and all other opiates, barbituates, etc., etc..... The people arguing this remind me of a third grader trying to argue that they should be able to stay out past midnight on a school night. Â Irresponsible.Â
All the medical marijuana patients I've met don't really need it. It's kind of a big charade.
@GNTLwarrior You have friends that ream the system then, or you're passing judgment before you know the facts, either way, your opinion is invalid now STFU. I can't sleep without the pain relief brought to me by THC, my knee keeps me up all night throbbing. I've used painkillers at the direction of a doctor in the past but I became addicted even on the little doses and started having DT symptoms. MMJ has none of the horrible addictive side effects that painkillers have and it gets rid of my pain better than Vicodin or Percocet ever could.
@Devin Corbett@GNTLwarrior "your opinion is invalid now STFU."
If you want conservatives like me to support your (valid) arguments as activists and not just people who passively agree, you don't get to tell him to STFU.Â
GNTLwarrior: I'm dealing with people who claim I don't need to have an 11-round magazine or more than one semi-automatic pistol. Let's stop telling other people what they don't need. Thanks.
These "pot bills" should be potted with little signs attesting to their RIP (Rest In Pot). Also, allowing misdemeanors to be eliminated does have an impact on firearms issues. Presently, anyone with a misdemeanor conviction within the last four years on a records check precludes the issuance of a Concealed Hangun License in Oregon. How this will affect Federal background checks for the purchase of a firearm I don't know. Sorry I brought firearms to a pot fight, but all laws are related, and changing one is not a unilateral decision.
@jpk I am voting for liberty on all fronts.
Marijuana smokers should not be persecuted for using it if it didn't come from some drug cartel, and gun owners should not be dictated to by urban hipsters and soccer moms who tamper with the laws based on what they feel other people don't need.
"Other pot-related bills pending in Olympia include one that would impose a 25-percent tax on sales at medical marijuana dispensaries."
Sure.  Just tax Lithium, Prozac, and all other meds 25% across the board equally.
Taxing rec use? Np. Â Taxing medicine? Â Tax it all, or GTFO.
@brendan but I thought taxing marijuana would raise billions upon billions, getting states out of debt.
@GNTLwarrior @brendan Only if the Nanny Statists in DC get out of the way.
@GNTLwarrior @brendan yes. tax on those that should be taxed. but unless you tax all medications equally taxing one is discriminatory.Â
Just what the state needs, Â more pot addicts.
@sortbait I bet you don't have a problem with alcoholics every time a new microdistillery opens up.
The problem is people like you who don't know what they're talking about telling other people what they need. My friend's anti-gun wife, for example, is telling me I don't need "multi-bullet-per-second cartridges."Â See how that works?
You're no different.
@Playanekes @sortbait I have a problem with ANYONE putting drugs into their bodies that alter their state of awareness, when there is NO medical necessity for it, and so should you.  I am not going to tell you to do it, but you should, and you know that.  I think ALL recreational drug use, should be illegal, period.
AND, for the mentally challenged, no I am NOT necessarily talking about OTC medications, just narcotic, alcohol, opiates, and the like...
@sortbait it's chemically VERY difficult to become addicted to marijuana as it has very few addictive chemicals in it's composition You have to already have a huge genetic predisposition to addiction and in that case you can become addicted to anything. Do some research before you talk about something you don't know about.
@Devin Corbett @sortbait Ahem.....
"Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is the main ingredient in marijuana and is a strong mind-altering substance. It is believed to be this that causes long-term use of marijuana to lead to addiction. Is Marijuana Addictive? The answer has to be yes it is, although there would seem to be other factors involved."
http://adai.uw.edu/marijuana/factsheets/dependence.htm
http://www.dependency.net/learn/marijuana/
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2797098/
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2012/12/06/nih-marijuana-effects/1751011/
@sortbait  Since Alcohol is legal and you can legally buy your drug of choice, why do think you can ban me from buying my drug of choice?Â
@scared_citizen @sortbait One bad choice or another.  That logic sounds pretty bad to me dude.  I would say you shouldn't be using either, and you KNOW you shouldn't.
@sortbait Thank you for posting the most uneducated statement of the day. Someone's got to do it, why not you.
Pot bills to protect the massive fraud found in the "medical" pot community.
@TimBurr The "medical" pot community is Americans fighting absurd legislation with more legislation, exactly how gun owners are being forced to.
@TimBurr That's a broad brush you paint with, its appears indirectly proportional to your knowledge on the topic.
@OliverNicholasOh please. In every state before they had medi-pot there was an estimate of the number of users. After medi-pot was accepted the number of users jump 500%. Mostly males under the age of 40. What does that tell you?
One of hundreds of examples
http://www.saveoursociety.org/press/health-department-investigates-possible-medical-marijuana-fraud@TimBurr@OliverNicholas " What does that tell you?"
It tells me that you only love the liberties that benefit you, and not others.Â
@TimBurr@OliverNicholasAnd just for fun, here's an article talking about the declining use of marijuana by American youth, dating back to the early 80's: http://www.jstor.org/discover/10.2307/2137183?uid=3739856&uid=2&uid=4&uid=3739256&sid=21101847607877
@TimBurr @OliverNicholas Interesting article, too bad it does nothing to support your assumption. All the article talks about are the issues with the regulatory process in Colorado, it says nothing about any rise in pot smokers and actually states that the number of medical marijuana recipients has decreased. I would also claim that your 500% number is complete BS, as that would mean more than the entire population of the US is now smoking grass.
Give me free seeds
The last civil war in the US was rights
@BertJuly 1 will commence the 150th anniversary of the Battle of Gettysburg. Ready for something creepy?
We're on schedule.
" There has been one rebellion. That comes to one rebellion in a century and a half for each state. What country ever existed a century and a half without a rebellion? And what country can preserve it's liberties if their rulers are not warned from time to time that their people preserve the spirit of resistance? Let them take arms. The remedy is to set them right as to facts, pardon and pacify them. What signify a few lives lost in a century or two? The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants. It is it's natural manure."Â Â Â - Jefferson
Oregon screwed over medical MJ users by letting employers that random drug test,if found with pot in your system LEGAL you still can be fired,that law needs to be changed before ANY legalization in OREGON
@Nuclear-XÂ That is NEVER going to happen. Â Would you like your surgeon being high? Or perhaps the pilot flying your plane from Seattle to Chicago? Â There has to be at least random testing for certain instances, otherwise liability will go through the roof.
@Nuclear-XÂ Â
The key in that lawsuit is the "random" part. If the employer isn't actually testing randomly then the action would be illegal and violate your rights. The "random" drug testing habits of the employer would be easily discoverable in pre-trial examinations...and result in a settlement.Â
@Nuclear-X If you want to be credible, start using proper grammar.  It kills me every time when someone is on-camera supporting pot legalization, it is inevitably a fat Jerry Garcia look-a-like or some stereotypical young stoner. Â
Progress, rarely seen these days - very refreshing.
I approve 100%! Growing up I had friends who were disqualified from student financial aid because of misdemeanor marijuana possession. Hopefully Oregon is next.