Washington state AG's decision would allow an incremental abrogation of pot legalization law

Washington state Attorney General Bob Ferguson wants to be re-elected, to that or any other office. He knows that despite the state’s reputation for being “progressive,” it actually has an active regressive element, so he must keep that in mind when he makes decisions on “controversial” topics like the new marijuana legalization law. It seems that Ferguson has caved-in to the demands of the small, but loud  “law and order” conservative local government types either motivated by personal philosophy or unduly influenced by equally small but loud constituencies. He has somehow found an obscure “loop hole” in the marijuana law that allows vaguely-defined “communities”—not just your typical walled-off affair, but individual neighborhoods—to deny people their lawful right to enjoy a toke.

No doubt that there is a large element of fear and paranoia involved here. Some people likely have visions of stoned zombies walking the streets, pot warlords setting-up shop next door, or fear its effect on their kids’ brains. Or maybe they just oppose anything that has a “leftist” taint to it.  Police—local and state—no doubt are flummoxed by the idea that they can’t fill their arrest quotas harassing pot smokers. It is all a reaction against and fear of change; the truth of the matter is that while there might be an uptick is usage and certainly more openly, there will likely be little noticeable change in the way society functions. Back in the so-called “good old days” when opium and its byproducts were actually “legal,” society didn’t fall apart; why should it do so with such an innocuous substance like marijuana, which is less harmful than alcohol?

I’m not saying that smoking pot is a “good” thing, but “banning” it in one neighborhood when it is legal across the street is absurd; in fact the whole “war on drugs” has been nothing but a money grab for law enforcement and the prison industry, so they have cynical reasons to keep the “war” going. But it has been an abject failure from the start, costing far more lives than it saves. Fear mongering in regard to such a low-level substance like marijuana—when it could wean people off the “hard” stuff—could lead to the complete abrogation of the legalization law community-by-community, skirting privacy issues just as federal anti-drug laws do (remember that it required a constitutional amendment to legally ban alcohol use). Ferguson’s technically illegal actions should be taken to a higher court and over-turned before the law is totally invalidated.