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!