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In Saturday’s post on the recent DUI updates, I wrote:

And assurances from the police that they’ll only go after impaired folks requires a lot of skepticism given the history of DUI enforcement.

I wanted to elaborate on this a bit, but didn’t want to go off on any other tangents in that post. So I’ll go off on that tangent here. And a recent case from Kent is a good starting point:

Mike Simmons, 31, said Tuesday he was put in jail for 13 hours. Now with towing and lawyer fees, he said he’s out $5,000 and he’s not allowed to drive while he’s out on bail.

All for something he said he didn’t do.

“As soon as the officer came to the vehicle, he asked me to stick out my tongue,” said Simmons.

Simmons thought it was an unusual request but he soon found out he was pulled over for suspicion of driving under the influence.

Simmons said the officer told him there was a green film on his tongue. The unidentified police officer apparently felt that is a telltale sign that someone has been smoking marijuana.

Simmons admitted he had smoked pot three days earlier, but says when he was pulled over he was on a lunch break from work and was stone-cold sober.

We’ll find out more about this specific case as it unfolds, but if Simmons’ recounting of the arrest is accurate, it wouldn’t be the first time an officer has used something ridiculous or imaginary to imply impairment. In this case from Ocean Shores in November, an officer claimed an elderly medical marijuana patient was impaired because – among other things – she was unable to stand on one leg.

To clarify a point that should be obvious to most people, your tongue doesn’t turn green when you smoke pot. So if that’s the evidence that this officer used to demonstrate impairment, and Simmons doesn’t win a lawsuit against the city of Kent as a result of that, then the folks who say that impairment is required to end up in his situation aren’t correct. Because if there are no repercussions for when a police officer does something wrong, it doesn’t matter what the law actually says.

We’ve continually heard from members of law enforcement and others that impairment is required in order to end up in Simmons’ situation. But it’s not hard for an officer to just say, “your eyes are bloodshot!” and use that as a justification to demand a blood draw. These reassurances go beyond being wishful thinking that their fellow police officers won’t abuse their power. They’re close to being outright lies.

It’s Tuesday…so please join us for an evening of politics over a pint at the Seattle Chapter of Drinking Liberally.

We meet every Tuesday at the Montlake Ale House, 2307 24th Avenue E. Starting time is 8:00pm. Some people show up earlier for Dinner.

Can’t make it to Seattle tonight? Check out one of the other DL meetings over the next week. The Tri-Cities chapter also meets tonight. On Wednesday, the Burien and Bellingham chapters meet. On Thursday the Woodinville chapter meets. And on Monday, the Aberdeen, Yakima, South Bellevue and Olympia chapters meet.

With 206 chapters of Living Liberally, including fourteen in Washington state, four in Oregon, and two more in Idaho, chances are excellent there’s a chapter that meets near you.

– No, I’m sure we can freeway our way out of any problems we have.

– Awesome endorsement, WCV.

– I’m sorry, Carl Ludwig Sherburne, but you’re wrong. You’re among the most disgusting and horrible things on the internet, and a woman posting her baby photos doesn’t even come close.

– If you take people’s guns away, they’ll just use a rock or something.

– Oh Iran, women can wear clothing without sleeves and it’s fine.

– Chris Hayes won’t go to CPAC.

– The BS approach will solve any problems.

Luke 19:29-34
As he approached Bethphage and Bethany at the hill called the Mount of Olives, he sent two of his disciples, saying to them, “Go to the village ahead of you, and as you enter it, you will find a colt tied there, which no one has ever ridden. Untie it and bring it here. If anyone asks you, ‘Why are you untying it?’ say, ‘The Lord needs it.’”

Those who were sent ahead went and found it just as he had told them. As they were untying the colt, its owners asked them, “Why are you untying the colt?”

They replied, “The Lord needs it.”

Exodus 20:15
Thou shalt not steal.

Discuss.

A few weeks back, the state legislature heard some testimony regarding the new DUI provisions enacted into law with the passage of I-502. These provisions were the most controversial aspect of the initiative among traditional drug law reformers, but throughout the entire campaign, there were very few actual numbers around to convey what the actual risk was.

For instance, how easy is it to be at the 5ng/ml limit? How long do people usually stay there? Is it an accurate measure of impairment? There have been a few studies on this, but far from any kind of consensus.

Also, how many people get marijuana DUI’s already? How many more are likely to get them now that prosecutions could be easier to obtain under I-502?

From the Seattle Times, here was what we learned about the latter set of questions from the testimony:

There has been no jump in “green DUIs,” said the Washington State Patrol’s toxicologist, Dr. Fiona Couper, at the hearing in Olympia Wednesday of the House Public Safety Committee. Seattle DUI attorney Patricia Fulton reported “absolutely no effect” in her defense practice.

This runs contrary to what other DUI attorneys have been saying.

A Seattle attorney whose practice consists solely of medical marijuana cases said more people are coming to him for help fighting charges of driving under the influence of marijuana, even before the new limit took effect.

“I’m seeing one to two a month and have been for a year,” attorney Aaron Pelley said. “Prior to that, I didn’t see really any.”

Pelley believes state patrol officers had been ramping up their enforcement of “green DUIs” in anticipation of the passage of I-502, the law making possession of up to an ounce of marijuana legal. And, now that it’s on the books, he suspects there’s been a “huge spike of number of people being tested.”

What’s the truth here? My guess is that Pelley, who’s been outspoken publicly about the DUI provisions, is generating more business for himself as a result, not that there are more people getting nailed.

So there isn’t much evidence the worst case scenarios are taking root, there’s still a concern with the basic effects of the new law:

Blood testing is not new and not done casually. It’s done at a medical center, and takes money and time. Couper said 1,000 to 1,100 drivers were tested last year statewide, with the median result slightly below 5 nanograms. About one-third also tested positive for alcohol.

If those numbers stay constant in 2013, it would mean that about 500 people tested for marijuana will have a much harder time defending themselves in court against a DUI charge than before I-502 became law. It’s possible that many of these are egregious cases where the DUI is deserved. But it’s also possible that many of them involve innocent medical marijuana patients being harassed. At this point, without more specific numbers, it’s not clear how much of each case we’re dealing with. And assurances from the police that they’ll only go after impaired folks requires a lot of skepticism given the history of DUI enforcement. What’s promising is that this issue has been generating a lot of media attention and that we’ll hopefully be able to highlight any cases where people get trapped in a truly unfair prosecution.

——————————————————

Going back to the first set of questions above, how much is 5ng/ml, and what level of impairment does that really imply? Kiro7 recently aired an investigative report where they took 3 volunteers, had them smoke a popular and potent strain of marijuana, and let them drive around on a closed course. The video is here:

There are a couple of takeaways from this, but the main one is that even at 4, 5, and 7 times the new 5ng/ml legal limit, these volunteers drove fine. This was after consuming .3g. Of course, once they started smoking more than what people normally smoke in a sitting, their abilities tailed off.

Another key point is that even after these volunteers smoked themselves silly on nearly a gram of high quality marijuana and were driving like complete idiots, they all knew full well they were too stoned to drive (even the medical marijuana patient who was a heavy user). This is one of the main differences between alcohol and pot. People who drink too much alcohol become uninhibited along with their impairment, while marijuana users often become timid and cautious (although it was interesting to see that the medical marijuana user was a bit of an exception once they let her get behind the wheel). This is why alcohol-related reckless driving deaths are a frequent occurrence while it’s difficult to find too many instances of them with stoned drivers, even though impairment can occur from the over-consumption of each drug. People who are too stoned to drive often become reluctant to do it, and even if they do, they tend to drive really slow. People who are too drunk to drive often disregard the risks and drive very aggressively.

I’ve written in the past (sadly, the old Reload site is retired) about my own history with marijuana and driving, but didn’t discuss it much during the DUI debates of the I-502 campaign. My main reluctance has always been that it’s a difficult subject that generates mostly gut-level responses that don’t get us anywhere. This exercise provides enough data and visual evidence to at least begin discussing it rationally.

To recap, in my mid-20s for about 2 years, I smoked a small amount of pot at the beginning of nearly every drive I took (except for morning commutes, of course). There were two reasons for this. One, I was doing the hellish 520 commute from Seattle to my job at Microsoft and basically inched home at 2mph every day. And two, I’m a naturally fast driver and I found that pot would make me calmer and more relaxed as I drove. By that point, I’d already gotten somewhere around 7 or 8 speeding tickets in my life and was sick and tired of getting pulled over. Taking a hit off of a one-hitter made it far easier for me to obey the speed limits. In those two years, I was never pulled over for speeding – or for anything else – while stoned.

A one-hitter is a small smoking pipe, often made to look like a cigarette. Compared to what the volunteers in the Kiro7 experiment initially consumed, it probably only held about 1/3 of that, maybe .1g. I’d been wondering if the small amounts I was consuming in those days would even put me over the 5ng/ml limit. Looking at the data shown in the video, it probably was, but maybe not by a lot and probably for not very long.

From a safety standpoint, how safe this was is a matter of perspective and an interesting paradox. I always recognized two drawbacks to this. One, my navigational skills declined somewhat, so in the rare case where I was going somewhere new and was concerned I might get lost, I wouldn’t smoke. Two, my ability to react quickly and intelligently in the face of an emergency was also lessened. Thankfully, this never happened.

But to the outside observer, I was clearly a safer driver when I was stoned. Instead of being the guy weaving through traffic at 80 on I-5, I became the guy driving 55-60 in the right lane listening to some Percy Hill with a big fucking smile on my face. In my normal sober driving mode, I know I can drive safely at those high speeds, but to other drivers, I probably scare the shit out of some of them. And I draw the attention of the police, who like to give me very expensive speeding tickets.

After two years of this, I finally said “fuck it”, sold my car, and started taking public transportation for a little over 7 years. In 2010, after moving out to the suburbs, I once again have a car, but no longer smoke pot, so I have a radar detector in my Prius as I once again weave through rush hour traffic on I-5.

——————————————————

The rationale behind the inclusion of DUI language in I-502 was always clear, even if the result in Colorado showed that it probably wasn’t necessary to win at the ballot box. But the political implications of having drug law reformers concede too much on this point continue to worry me. Other states are considering and even implementing proposals far worse than what we ended up with here. And when there’s an unchallenged notion that stoned driving and drunk driving are the same, it’s difficult to avoid any of these outcomes.

The point of my story wasn’t to argue that stoned driving is good or bad, but to recognize that the issue is a lot more complicated than many people initially assume. From a regulatory standpoint, doing things that have worked or been accepted for drunk driving may not be the correct approach at all for stoned driving.

I’m not thrilled with Publicola’s “Isn’t It Weird That…” segment as a segment. I’d prefer they do straight reporting rather than shoehorn some (often supposed) hypocrisy into a post that doesn’t need it. But the actual reporting in this piece is worthwhile.

No statewide tax measure can pass without Seattle’s support, yet the proposal state house transportation director Judy Clibborn announced yesterday included zero dollars for the new 520 bridge (whose west side remains unfunded) and zero dollars for the new Alaskan Way tunnel (whose estimated revenue from tolls has been slashed from $400 million to just $165 million)?

It’s disgraceful that we’re having this conversation while even the barest discussion of raising revenue for education or social services is verboten, but it is the conversation we’re having. And I want to support this, I do. A car tab would probably be the most progressive piece of taxation in the state, the backlog is real, and the need to invest in our infrastructure is real.

But the need is real in Seattle too. At a certain point, Seattle isn’t going to be a piggy bank for the rest of the state unless they throw us a bone every once in a while.

Via The Spokesman–Review:

Spokane City Councilman Mike Fagan, in a fundraising letter for his anti-tax efforts, called Washington Gov. Jay Inslee “a lying whore.”

Fagan, and his co-lying whores, accused Gov. Jay Inslee (D) of lying about vetoing “any tax increase”:

“Candidate Inslee repeatedly promised to veto any tax increase. He said no way to higher transportation taxes in 2013….What a lying whore he turned out to be. In recent weeks, he’s made it clear he’ll sign any tax increase the Legislature unilaterally imposes.”

Holy shit…there are a couple of lies in this brief excerpt alone!

Prior to accusing someone of lying about some action (like not vetoing a tax increase) one really ought to wait until they take the action that contradicts their words. Inslee has not signed any tax increases into law. It is possible that Fagan is a victim of childhood lead consumption and, therefore, doesn’t have the IQ to really understand this distinction (if so, I’d blame his father). However given that two other people signed the letter—his father, Jack Fagan, and admitted liar and initiative whore, Tim “Biggest Lie of My Life” Eyman, it seems more likely at least one of them was aware that Inslee has taken no such contrary action.

Fucking liars!

Secondly, Inslee did not promise to veto “any tax increase.” This is so easily debunked, that even The Seattle Times gets a piece of the action of making liars out of the Fagans and Eyman:

While running against GOP gubernatorial candidate Rob McKenna last year, Inslee said, “I would veto anything that heads the wrong direction and the wrong direction is new taxes in the state of Washington.”

However, Inslee never ruled out increasing taxes for transportation and did say he supports sending a tax measure to the ballot to raise money for transportation.

He also has opposed new taxes, although he’s been open to extending existing taxes.

Man…what a bunch of Fucking Liars!

And given that Fagan was lying in order to raise money…that pretty much makes him and is co-liars LYING WHORES.

Fagan and his co-lying whores have even embarrassed the state Republican party:

“There is no question that’s beyond the pale and is uncalled for. No matter what the issue is, it’s uncalled for, and I would condemn such a thing,” GOP Chairman Kirby Wilbur said.

Eyman promises no apologies:

“Kirby Wilbur, thanks for the advice, but no he (Inslee) doesn’t deserve an apology,” Eyman said.

Queue the tearful, “Second biggest lie of my life” apology from the lying whore in three, two….

A bill to let people apply to clear their records of a nonviolent, misdemeanor marijuana offenses has passed the House Public Safety Committee.

As expected, Washington State’s House Committee on Public Safety voted this morning to approve House Bill 1661, moving it towards a full House vote. The bill would allow those convicted of a cannabis possession misdemeanor – up to 40 grams for those 18 and older – to have it removed from their record. The committee voted 6-5 in favor of the bill.

The primary sponsor of the measure, Rep. Fitzgibbon, says the chances are “really good” that it will pass the House. Newly elected Governor Jay Inslee hasn’t stated his position on the bill, but it would be unlikely for him to veto such legislation. Its fate in the Republican-controlled Senate is less than certain, but its passage isn’t an impossibility, especially considering that the measure has several Republican sponsors.

Sounds like a good idea in the wake of our passing I-502. It was illegal then, but it was also unjust. Since the people of Washington recognized that, it’s time to fix the problem for people who got caught up in the system before it got fixed.

So if you’d like to contact your legislators, you can find them here. If you want to ask the members of the Senate Law and Justice Committee to pass this, you can find them here. Something tells me that Pam Roach* will be tough to get but you can at least try with her and the rest of the GOP members.

If Inslee isn’t sure you can contact his office here. Or, I guess you could just ask him to pardon those people. It’s probably better for the bill to pass because it sets up a system, but if it doesn’t pass, that would be better than nothing.

[Read more…]

I’ve already had my piece on Pam Roach’s state workers can’t lie bill. I haven’t been following it, and I have no idea if it’s going anywhere. But the Daily O gives her the quote of the day when discussing it.

“It’s good enough for God. He gave us a commandment that said, ‘Thou shalt not bear false witness.'”

-Sen. Pam Roach, R-Auburn, arguing for her bill that calls for discipline against state employees deemed to have lied.

I, for one, can’t wait for the no coveting by state employees law next. And for that matter why only apply it to state employees if you think you’re doing God’s work? Why not have a Deuteronomy 23:19 law and outlaw interest?

“You shall not charge interest to your countrymen: interest on money, food, or anything that may be loaned at interest.

I mean that might be kind of tough for Pam Roach who just today voted (with I think all the R’s and several D’s, but that’s just a quick tally in my head since the website doesn’t break it down by party) to make it easier for payday lenders. As Senator Nelson explains in a press release:

In 2009, we passed payday lending reform. It put safeguards on a predatory lending product, allowing borrowers to make reasonable payments and not end up buried in high-interest loans.

But the payday industry is back, marketing this new consumer installment loan as having a ‘36 percent interest rate.’ In reality these loans include massive fees and penalties that take the rate as high as 220 percent. As a former banker, I’m confident that if a money lender can’t make a profit at 45 percent interest, as allowed in existing law, they have a failed business model.

As a legislator, I am shocked that a majority of my colleagues in the Senate voted to sidestep effective protections for Washington families and instead put high-interest lenders back in charge of people’s lives.

You know, like God intended.

Look, I don’t think the Bible, or any other holy text, is a particularly good guide for legislating. We’re a secular democracy. To say nothing of what version to use, or what interpretation? But if Pam Roach thinks her lashing out at state workers is God’s work instead of the business of a diverse group of people who swore an oath to two inherently secular documents (the US and state constitutions) then we can judge her by her own standards on the rest of her actions in the legislature.

I don’t know why I didn’t get this fundraising appeal from the state party.

On the eve of Washington State Democrats’ annual crab feed in Olympia, the Dems have set out to feed State Sen. Rodney Tom, D-Medina, to the wolves.

Tom is Senate majority leader, head of a coalition of 23 Republicans and two dissident Democrats (including himself) that has taken tenuous control of the Legislature’s upper chamber and started to move a conservative agenda of GOP-backed bills.

“We’ve shown State Senator Rodney Tom the door. Now, it’s time to send him packing,” Democratic State Chairman Dwight Pelz said in a fundraising letter sent out Friday. It asks Democrats across the state to give $5 (or more) to a “Rodney Tom Retirement Project.”

Feed to the wolves is a pretty harsh of a way to describe fundraising to help recruit someone who will caucus with the Democrats. I mean compared to the people who will probably be kicked off social services in Tom’s budget, having to retire to his Medina home with more chances to make money doesn’t seem too bad.

But more to the point, it sounds like a good use of money for the Dems. If you’d like to contribute to the Rodney Tom Retirement Project, you can. It’s a Democratic seat, it ought to be held by a Democrat.

Oh hey! Remember last week when I was called an elitist in the comments of a post where I said that Seattle isn’t the overspending hellhole that many in the state legislature imagine, because I turned the arguments against Seattle on one of those legislators? It turns out what elitist means now is that Seattle has a paid sick leave and safe leave law. Because that’s the I-Hate-Seattle group’s latest target in the legislature.

Senate Bill 5728 would take Seattle’s law off the books by declaring that the Legislature has the sole responsibility for sick-leave requirements. Senate Bill 5726 would scale back Seattle’s law by prohibiting cities from requiring sick leave for employers based outside the city.

Both bills were introduced Tuesday by Centralia Republican John Braun and are supported by Senate Majority [sic] Leader [sic] Rodney Tom, D [sic]-Medina.

No Seattle senators have signed on.

FYI, the Seattle law applies to people who work in Seattle. So if a Bellevue (or out of state???) company has a Seattle branch, they won’t count under the first bill. Both bills are clearly just to punish Seattle for being decent to people who work here. When this — or the parking rate hikes or the head tax or, or, or — pass, local governments in the rest of the state say how they’re going to poach jobs. Now Senators from the rest of the state are putting the lie to that.

But buried in the hatred of Seattle there is a good idea. I’m all for the state getting into the sick leave and safe leave business. If there was a companion bill to make the Seattle requirements statewide, then that would be awesome! But now they’re saying people working in Medina or Centralia who have to work sick or after an case of domestic violence won’t even be able to petition their local governments.

To be clear, while the Seattle Times piece doesn’t mention it, the bill also preempts Seattle’s paid safe leave. According to Seattle’s FAQ on the law (bold in the text):

An employee can use safe leave for the following reasons:

• An employee’s place of business has been closed by order of a public official to limit exposure to an infectious agent, biological toxin or hazardous material.
• An employee needs to care for a child whose school or place of care has been closed by order of a public health official to limit exposure to an infectious agent, biological toxin or hazardous material.
• For reasons related to domestic violence, sexual assault or stalking that affect the employee or the employee’s family member.

Rodney Tom, John Braun, and the rest of the GOP Senate should be demanding those employee protections for the whole state. Instead they’re trying to take it away from people who have been sexual assaulted or stalked who work in Seattle. I get that they hate Seattle, but this is too far.

You can find Tom and Braun at the link (if you want to contact them, the form is kind of a hassle, and you have to make up an address if they don’t represent you so FYI, it’s firstname.lastname@leg.wa.gov). And you can find your legislator here.

– Happy Valentines Day. The only saint’s day where you don’t say “saint” in front of their name, I think. I blame the massacre for that.

– Can we enact mild signature gathering reforms now that there’s evidence of signature gathering fraud?

– Rubio has fallen victim to one of the classic economic blunders. It’s called Say’s Law, and it’s not, in fact, a law. It’s more like a guideline. The idea is that supply creates its own demand, which is true enough during booms, but not so during busts.

– Seattle’s failure to embrace transit-oriented development, even when bribed to do so by a corporate entity to whom they pretty much never say “no,” continues to be maddeningly counterproductive.

– Currently, Washington sends approximately $15 billion each year to out of state oil and gas companies. With a booming clean energy economy, those dollars could be invested with Washington companies to create Washington jobs. States and regions with climate policies in place have seen strong growth in their clean energy economies, including California and New England.

– Loved reading about these Negro Leagues players, especially Hilton Smith.

I’m glad for the policies that Obama embraces when he uses the phrase Wives, Mothers, & Daughters. The Violence Against Women Act and Paycheck Fairness are crucial steps forward.

But we can’t stop there. We know our economy is stronger when our wives, our mothers, our daughters can live their lives free from discrimination in the workplace, and free from the fear of domestic violence. Today, the Senate passed the Violence Against Women Act that Joe Biden originally wrote almost 20 years ago. And I now urge the House to do the same. (Applause.) Good job, Joe. And I ask this Congress to declare that women should earn a living equal to their efforts, and finally pass the Paycheck Fairness Act this year. (Applause.)

Yay for those policies! Still, when we watched that part of the State of the Union at Drinking Liberally, I asked Darryl if Obama realized that women were watching the speech too. That phrasing makes it sounds like the women who’ll benefit from the VAWA and the Paycheck Fairness Act aren’t listening.

I’m sure it polls and focus groups well, but it’s not as inclusive as it ought to be. So I’m glad to see that Melissa McEwan has started a petition to ask the president not to use that particular phrase.

Defining women by their relationships to other people is reductive, misogynist, and alienating to women who do not define ourselves exclusively by our relationships to others. Further, by referring to “our” wives et al, the President appears to be talking to The Men of America about Their Women, rather than talking to men AND women.

Please embrace inclusive language, Mr. President.

– Everybody with a special election ballot, get it postmarked or dropped off by today.

– Cheney is a jobless former vice president who’s been wrong about everything, and who has criticized Obama since before he became president. That he’s still hailed as a newsmaker tells us only bad things about the news industry.

– Is Tim Sheldon’s wife really upset that the Democrats aren’t going to fundraise for him anymore? I don’t know what’s awesomer that she wants to defend her being a Democrat in the same paragraph as she quotes Sarah Palin, or the obnoxious sexism.

– We have a new King County Council member.

– More Biblical families.

– I feel like it says something about our conversation at the moment that lower costs of health care aren’t in and of themselves as important a story (and headline writer in particular) as the deficit.

– Yum

It’s strangely sectional, but I love it when the national media notice Washington people in Congress (for good things; it’s the worst when it’s for something awful). So I’m glad to see The Raw Story notice how ably Maria Cantwell handled the stupid arguments against the tribal portions of Violence Against Women Act (h/t).

Cantwell noted that Native American women experience domestic violence and sexual assault at a rate far above the national average.

“However, less than 50 percent of the domestic violence cases in Indian country are prosecuted because of a gap in our legal system,” she explained on the Senate floor. “This isn’t about politics. This isn’t about a debate on what is a good way to win votes somewhere in America. This is about the life or death of women who need a better system to help prosecute those who are committing serious crimes against them.”

[…]

Cantwell denied the tribal provisions would violate the constitutional rights of U.S. citizens. She noted the U.S. Department of Justice would partner with tribal courts and non-tribal Americans would have the ability to appeal their case to a federal court. The legislation also specifically prohibits tribal courts from violating Americans’ rights.