Two weeks ago, Goldy praised reporter/blogger Niki Sullivan for “holding people in power accountable.” I think that’s central to why I do this and why motivated bloggers are slowly changing the political landscape in this country. But I also strongly believe that this applies to the politicians we support, and that’s why I’ve been very critical of Governor Gregoire recently for the way she’s handled the process for establishing “60-day-supply” medical marijuana limits for the state’s qualified patients.
Carol Ostrom from the Seattle Times writes about the meeting that took place yesterday involving a smaller group of stakeholders (it was only open to the public at the last minute due to public pressure). In Gregoire’s radio appearance on KUOW last week, she said (falsely) that doctors were not involved in the initial workshops held around the state and that they needed to be more involved. However, according to Steve Sarich from the patient assistance group CannaCare, one of the physicians who submitted testimony to the workshops wasn’t contacted about the meeting until Friday evening. On the other hand, Don Pierce, the executive director of the Washington Association of Sheriffs and Police Chiefs, is still heavily involved in the process despite not having anything valuable to contribute to what should be a medical discussion. If the Governor truly believes that the decision over the limits should be rooted in medical necessity, she’s not doing a very good job convincing anyone of her sincerity.
I’ve posted up today in response to Ostrom’s latest report and I’m hoping to get some clarification on my conclusion:
I’ve covered Don Pierce and his illogal and uninformed nonsense before, but he’s hitting upon an even more absurd argument by saying that “anybody involved in cultivation and sale could hide behind” a 10ft by 10ft growing area. Is he kidding? We’re talking about the state’s #1 cash crop. Someone with a small patch of plants in their basement isn’t even a drop in the bucket to the overall supply of illegal marijuana in this state. According to the article linked above, law enforcement seized just under 300,000 plants in this state last year, and even that didn’t put a dent in the supply anywhere in Washington.
The question here, and I brought this up in the last post, is why the Governor continues to believe that someone like Don Pierce should be involved in this process? He has no expertise in medicine, he clearly has no clue what he’s talking about, he’s intentionally being misleading, and he has a strong incentive to keep getting paid with taxpayer money to do something that the citizens of this state have repeatedly indicated (through the ballot box and from polling) that they don’t think he should be doing (arresting medical marijuana patients). The Governor is often accused of being a pawn for the state’s unions over the good of the overall public. I don’t always agree with that assessment, but in this case, there’s really no other conclusion to draw.
So now we’re gonna have a local flap about killer drugs to go along with the one about dens of sex and sin.
We’re really falling ass over teakettle into “election year syndrome”, aren’t we now?
@1
At the very least, we’re getting closer and closer to laughing the circus clowns off the stage each time.
There’s usually an economic up tick during presidential elections. To help convince people with short attention spans that things are fine. I don’t see it happening this time arround. I don’t think the clowns know how to make it happen this time arround.
With all of Ted Kennedy’s troubles, I hope he will use medical marijuana to offset any negative effects of his upcoming round of chemotherapy. Maybe if a stalwart of society such as 76-year-old Kennedy used marijuana to improve his quality of life, these raving lunatics bent on executing everyone who might promote a sane policy towards marijuana would go away and we could have some sensible drug law reform.
{A run-on sentence, but you get the idea.}
I do not think pot possession or use should be a crime any more than booze should be. Still the policy being shaped is not to make all possession and use a non crime and as such law enforcement should have a place at the table. In fact the pro pot lobby should want them there if in fact they want the med pot law to work. This is not to say that law enforcement should be free to devise a way to make it fail but that they must have a law that does what is intended and does not do what is not intended. This is not a debate about making pot legal and both sides should keep that in mind or the outcome will serve no one.
3 Nah…what’s the point? The White House could call in a few markers and get the price of gas down to maybe $3.25 for a few weeks this fall, and heaven knows Bernanke will start paying people to haul wheelbarrow loads of greenbacks out of the Federal Reserve if he’s told to. More likely, though, our lame-brained lame duck preznit and his trolls will spend the time they have left grabbing everything that ain’t nailed down, assuming they don’t have some plan afoot to create a “national emergency” and suspend the election.
These are not and never were nice people, and they no longer have any incentive to make like they are, even for a minute.
This crew is such a bunch of slimeballs, they may not even see fit to avoid clotheslining McCain’s campaign, if it means giving up more than about $1.98 in ill-gotten gain.