Government Wise to Go Slow on Pot

The day after this paper went to press, the Columbia County Board of Commissioners was scheduled to hold a public hearing and most likely impose a one- year moratorium on the production and sale of marijuana within the county. Walla Walla County and the City of Dayton are also considering similar measures. The city of Waitsburg already passed a moratorium back in December.

The statewide initiative that passed last fall, legalizing recreational use of small amounts of pot, may well turn out to be a good thing in the long run, but it has created a pile of conflicting rules and regulations in the short run:

First of all, of course, marijuana is still illegal according to federal law. The feds have said recently that they won't interfere with state laws in Washington and Colorado legalizing the drug, as long as strict limits are enforced. However, there's still a risk of changing enforcement in the future. On top of that, many banks may be reluctant to have pot businesses as customers, since that would be techni- cally a federal crime for them.

Second, Washington passed a law legalizing medical marijuana back in 1998, but the new initiative contains a number of rules in conflict with existing medical marijuana rules. Not least is the fact that the 1998 initiative allows users with prescriptions to grow a little of their own, while initiative 502 prohibits home-grown pot.

The state allows local jurisdictions, i.e., city and county governments, "to adopt zoning requirements, business license requirements, health and safety requirements, and impose business taxes on production, processing or dis- pensing of marijuana or marijuana products." But those jurisdictions have to create all of those rules and require- ments, and they have to establish how those taxes are going to work.

According to Columbia County's draft ordinance plac- ing the moratorium, "The county intends to study the land use and other impacts of the production, processing and retail sales of marijuana, and the cultivation of marijuana, collective gardens and dispensaries associated with medi- cal marijuana, prior to developing any appropriate public health, safety and welfare requirements and land uses re- lated to marijuana activities."

To impose temporary moratoriums on marijuana busi- nesses is undoubtedly the right thing for local jurisdictions to do. The state Liquor Control Board is just now beginning to establish the state-wide rules that will govern marijuana businesses. Those rules need to be in place before our counties and cities can begin their planning processes.

Also, it's imperative that every safeguard possible be put in place to ensure that minors do not have access to marijuana that is available legally to adults. Creating those safeguards will take time.

However, we hope that our government officials will work in good faith to establish rules for marijuana busi- nesses and not just use the moratoriums as stalling tactics. The voters of Washington spoke when Initiative 502 passed. And large minorities of both Walla Walla and Columbia County voters agreed with them.

In our society we have established a system that allows adults to consume alcohol responsibly. The system doesn't work perfectly, but we found out many decades ago that outlawing alcohol created more problems than keeping it legal. We believe that similar systems can be effectively put in place for marijuana as well, and we urge our local officials to work diligently to that end.