Alison Holcomb, who has been called the architect of marijuana legalization in Washington state, and who is criminal justice director of ACLU Washington, has been named national director of the ACLU Campaign to End Mass Incarceration, according to a release from the American Civil Liberties Union.
Holcomb wrote Initiative 502, the measure that legalized recreational marijuana in Washington state, and led the successful campaign to pass it.
Holcomb had been publicly mulling a city council run against Socialist Alternative incumbent Kshama Sawant, but recent polling reveals Sawant to be in a much stronger position than the establishment types imagined. This new job is a much better fit for Holcomb, and if successful, more impactful:
“We’ve had 40 years of widening the criminal justice net too far and have relied too heavily on punishment to address social and health problems,” Holcomb said in the release. “We’ve drained coffers and cut people off from jobs, housing, and family stability – the very things they need to succeed in society.”
More than 2.2 million adults are in the nation’s jails and prisons, according to the ACLU. The organization says it hopes to cut the nation’s adult jail and prison population numbers in half by 2020.
Congratulations, Alison, and best of luck.
Good for her. This is a great job for her, and she would have had her ass handed to her in an election against our best, most effective council person.
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@2 They protect your free speech rights too, ingrate, and you should kiss the ground they walk on for doing it.
@3…The ACLU spends the majority of its time and money tilting at windmills, there is nothing admirable about them.
Uh, how about helping Washington state reduce cannabis related penalties?
@3 Just what this blog doesn’t need, another fact-deficient troll.
@4 He’s just being willfully ignorant. Nothing new to see there.
Thanks Allison for $120 1/8ths of weed.. At least it is really really good! lol.
Hoping we can try to move to the Oregon model once they get it up and running.
Thanks Alison for your part in making mind fucking substances easier to get a hold of! Yipee drugs!!!
@9
Funny, someone who thinks pot wasn’t easy to get in the first place.
Difference now, that sketchy dude who has never paid taxes, or in my case the aging hippie who lives next door to a cop who is fully aware of his livelihood isn’t the one making all the money and funneling it in large part to gangs.
Yeah, those were the good old days. We should go back to them. Have another shot of Beam.
@10, Actually that sketchy dude is probably going to be doing brisk business, seeing as he will be charging less than the “legal” weed shops.
@11
You’re hilarious.
So tell me, how long after the 21st Ammendment did bootleggers continue to exist? Are there not probably hundreds or thousands of illegal distillers to this day? Where is the army of Revenuers running around sniffing them out and shutting them down that by your logic should have continued to thrive?
Is your dude home? Is his product quality consistent? Is a legal store closer to where you currently stand than your dude’s house? How long do you have to politely and awkwardly “visit” after you made a purchase? Do you have to smoke with him? Does he have a selection of products or just one thing in different weights?
These are all factors that will come in to play as more growers get up to speed and more stores open. You know, competition, supply side Econ 101.
Is that sketchy dude suddenly finding MORE customers now that the product can be obtained legally for a higher price or is he losing some customers and holding on to the ones who only care about price. Is there a huge boom in people who thought, “I would start buying pot if it was legal but now that it’s legal it is so expensive I’m going to start buying it illegally.”? How long will the dude’s customer base sustain as getting it conveniently and legally and at a small markup becomes even easier.
One can make Vodka for pennies a pint with $300 worth of equipment and a small amount of scientific ability. But that industry died a quick death in the late 1930s as more expensive but higher quality legal product came back on the market.
But then seeing and applying actual observable history and data has never been too important to some folks.
@11. Why yes. I was thinking the same thing, and plan to take my shriveled retirement nest egg and invest it in “undercutting the price” of inexpensive legal weed. Glibertarian asshole Mark Zuckerburg will give me a medal!
You are fucking clueless.