Dean Becker of the Drug Truth Network interviewed State Representative Roger Goodman (Kirkland).
Dean Becker: It wasn’t that long ago that there were just a handful of elected officials, willing to even talk about this drug war; to talk about regulation control or legalization. But I think, if I dare say, there are several score, perhaps even a hundred now, nationwide that are like you, willing to address this issue and if I remember right, your opponent, in this last election cycle, had a lot of similar thoughts. It’s not that rare anymore, is it?
Rep. Roger Goodman: Yeah. Let me tell you the timeline here. OK. So, three years ago I ran for office. I was the sort of renegade, grenade thrower, unpredictable, radical guy. Because if you ’Google’ Roger Goodman or Roger Goodman drugs, you’ll find all the things I talk about. ‘The fact that prohibition doesn’t work.’ ‘We need to assert regulatory control.’ People were sort of translating it to like… we’re going to legalize drugs and hand it out to kids in school yard or something.
But anyway, when my opponent, in my first election, hit me on that, my poll numbers went up. I got more votes after people found out what I’m working on to find this exit strategy for the war on drugs and so that backfired, for sure. The people get it, you know?
Now, just last year, I had an opponent who agrees with me that the war on drugs is a failure. He’s on the republican side but he’s also strongly libertarian and so he actually criticized me, in public, for not being aggressive enough… {laughter} … on drug policy reform.
So in a two year period, we had a switch all the way from one side to the other, where first of all I’m going to end civilization as we know it and then on the other side, I’m not doing enough. So again, the people get, the politicians are a little bit less afraid.
We still have a long way to go inside of the chambers of the legislature, but to a person, when I talk to them confidentially, my colleague’s in the legislature and other public officials all agree, that the policy’s broken and we need to change it.
I’ve talked to Roger about this same thing myself and I still have trouble understanding why this has so long to go inside the legislature. If being in favor of legalizing marijuana helped Roger get votes in a suburban area like Kirkland, what exactly is the political risk any more? Why is the legislature still dragging its feet on this? Don’t we have a “progressive” in the Governor’s mansion? Don’t we have “progressive majorities” in the Senate and House? Don’t we have massive budget problems that can be partially ameliorated by having a system of regulation and taxation for marijuana?
UPDATE: In the comments, Mark1 provides an excellent link demonstrating the kind of violence and gang activity that would disappear if the legislature removed its collective head from its ass and set up a legal system for producing and selling marijuana. Thanks Mark!
Don’t we have a “progressive” in the Governor’s mansion?
No.
Don’t we have “progressive majorities” in the Senate and House?
No.
Don’t we have massive budget problems that can be partially ameliorated by having a system of regulation and taxation for marijuana?
Not really. Sin taxes are a drop in the bucket compared to the state’s revenue losses. But now that a carton of cigarets costs the retail consumer over 60 bucks, cigaret sales probably will tank, and tobacco tax revenues along with them, which might get legislators interested in how much they could extort from medical marijuana patients.
Speaking of revenue losses, raising regressive taxes on those least able to pay is not an acceptable way to solve to the state’s fiscal problem. I’ve already cut back my consumption because of the high sales tax — for example, I read library books now, instead of buying books from Amazon or Powell — and I’ll buy even less stuff if they do that. At some point, I won’t buy anything at all. I say get the money from the people who aren’t paying their fair share — or do without it.
@1
Roger,
Don’t underestimate the amount of money you save by not using law enforcement and the court system to deal with pot smokers.
Cough, cough, hack, hack! Whoa! Dude!
http://www.bellinghamherald.co.....67501.html
@4
Mark,
Great link! Good reminder of why marijuana should be legal. Thanks!
(Hope you get that cough under control, I suggest a vaporizer)
‘UPDATE: In the comments, Mark1 provides an excellent link demonstrating the kind of violence and gang activity that would disappear if the legislature removed its collective head from its ass and set up a legal system for producing and selling marijuana. Thanks Mark!’
If you think that legalizing this shit would make this type of crime stop, then you are more stoned than I thought. But I guess there’s never any thefts, robberies, (with or without violence) etc. with legal drugs, alcohol, smokes, etc. is there? Sure! Do you want to legalize meth as well Lee boy? Keep dreaming and have another toke.
Mark1’s point stands on very thin ice.
Sure, there are instances where when government, in its’ greed, sets taxes too high on certain legal drugs like tobacco and alcohol, and a black market develops.
But those are usually very short-lived, as government in nearly every case backs down rather than make a bad situation worse…as the DrugWar has.
As has been pointed out countless times, it’s when the substance is made illegal to begin with you get the huge upswing in the kind of violence attendant with the black market, as illustrated by Mark1’s article. And no small part of the responsibility for that violence can be laid at the feet of those who support drug prohibition.
This is not a ‘which came first, the chicken or the egg’ matter. Theer is no doubt that before drug prohibition became national policy in 1914, addicts could get their fix cheaply at ‘drug stores’. No drive by shootings, no beheadings, no meth labs blowing up, etc.
After drug prohibition, we got the steady upswing in violence, which now threatens to turn Northern Mexico into what it was at the beginning of the last century.
There is nothing vague about this. There are very clear historically verifiable origin of the problem. There exist tried and true means of ending the problem (through the same vehicle as was done with alcohol). But just as before, we see the same politically-derived obstruction against ending the problem (supposedly based) upon moral grounds. The same kinds of groups of self-serving agents involved in maintaining prohibition are invoking that moral objection – which also serves to protect their meal tickets. And now, the same kind of economic hardships increasing that call for what amounts to social and political triage when it comes to public spending.
History does repeat itself, unfortunately. The same kind of thing happened once before, and America accepted the slight possibility of alcohol-related social ills increasing as opposed to the certainty of rampant criminality swamping legitimate government…as it threatened to do in Chicag in the 1920’s and it is doing in Mexico, today.
Once more, we are being presented with a choice…while the nation’s finances drown further in red ink. But the window of opportunity for making that choice voluntarily is closing.
A full-on economic catastrophe such as what happened in 1929 looms ever larger, and its’ effects could be arguably much worse. If such should happen, the entire matter could become moot, in a very painful way, as there won’t be money for anything. It’s our choice to make…but only for so long…
As Roger Goodman’s opponent in the last election (kind of him to mention me, even if not by name), I simply must chime in here and say that despite the fact this blog was virtually founded on the idea that initiates are bad, it’s time that this question was taken directly to the people. It is for exactly this kind of issue, in which the people have moved beyond the legislature but the legislature refuses to act, that the initiative process was created.
B-b-but, Mr. Nixon! T-the plebians, the Great Unwashed, they might become emboldened to, you know, take greater interest in determining their own fates!
That’s why you have the spectacles of the Office of National Drug Control Policy winging hither and yon – on the public’s dime and time – to lobby against State referendums and legislation that seeks to inject, I don’t know, maybe a little SANITY into the drug laws. (Of course, while they were doing it under the last Administration, it seemed that they were also helping out the local Republican office-seekers and incumbents. My, what a surprise.
These should have been clear violations of the Hatch Act against pols politicking for things that would directly benefit them at the taxpayer’s expense, but because of the undeniable politicization of the Justice Department under Bush the Lesser, these violations were excused by the Government Accounting Office with the unusual caveat that the ONDCP is required to propagandize – aka LIE – as part of its’ charter.
In any event, such moves were to make sure the poor, benighted masses didn’t vote the ‘wrong’ way on drug policy. Can’t have the Great Unwashed gettin’ all uppity, now, van we?
B-b-but, Mr. Nixon! T-the plebians, the Great Unwashed, they might become emboldened to, you know, take greater interest in determining their own fates!
That’s why you have the spectacles of the Office of National Drug Control Policy winging hither and yon – on the public’s dime and time – to lobby against State referendums and legislation that seeks to inject, I don’t know, maybe a little SANITY into the drug laws. (Of course, while they were doing it under the last Administration, it seemed that they were also helping out the local Republican office-seekers and incumbents. My, what a surprise.)
These should have been clear violations of the Hatch Act against pols politicking for things that would directly benefit them at the taxpayer’s expense, but because of the undeniable politicization of the Justice Department under Bush the Lesser, these violations were excused by the Government Accounting Office with the unusual caveat that the ONDCP is required to propagandize – aka LIE – as part of its’ charter.
In any event, such moves were to make sure the poor, benighted masses didn’t vote the ‘wrong’ way on drug policy. Can’t have the Great Unwashed gettin’ all uppity, now, can we?