Legalization

Voters approved the marijuana legalization initiative I-502 in Washington state last November, and it is now legal to possess up to an ounce of marijuana, but a full-blown marijuana commerce industry doesn't just happen overnight. The state is still months away from having a functioning system of state-taxed and -regulated marijuana cultivators, processors, and retailers, but the process is well underway, and by most accounts, it is going relatively smoothly.

Last month, the Washington Liquor Control Board (LCB), the state agency charged with setting up the state's marijuana industry, issued its initial draft rules. It took written comments on the initial draft rules through Monday and will issue revised draft rules later this month. The LCB will hold public hearings on the rules for all three envisaged licenses -- grower, processor, and retailer -- in late July, promulgate final rules in August, begin accepting license applications in September, and begin issuing licenses in December.

From then, it is still likely to be months before the first legal marijuana is sold in Washington because only once growers are licensed will legal marijuana destined for retail sale be in the pipeline. It takes a minimum of three months to bring an indoor crop to harvest. But by sometime next spring, consumers should be able to go to their local pot shop and make their selections.

"These initial rules balance our goal of developing a tightly regulated system with reasonable access for small and large business models to participate within the system," said Board Chair Sharon Foster. "They are based upon hundreds of hours of internal research and deliberation, consultation with multiple industry experts and input from the over 3,000 individuals who attended our forums statewide."

The initial draft rules reflect the Board's stated goal of developing a tightly regulated and controlled recreational marijuana market. Included in the rules are elements that address out-of-state diversion of product, traceability of product from start to sale, youth access and other public and consumer safety concerns.

Here are some of the key elements in the initial draft rules: 

License Requirements

• Application Window -- The application window would open for 30 days for all license types and be extended or reopened at the Board's discretion. This approach was similar to how Colorado opened its medical marijuana system.
• Background Checks -- License applicants and financiers would be required to submit a form attesting to their criminal history, provide fingerprints, and allow criminal background checks. 
• Point System -- The WSLCB would employ a disqualifying criminal history point system similar to liquor. An exception would be allowed for two misdemeanor convictions of possession within three years.

Public Safety

• Producer Structures -- Producer operations would be allowed in both secure indoor grows or greenhouses.
• Traceability -- A robust and comprehensive traceability software system will trace product from start to sale.
• Violation Guidelines -- In addition to the $1,000 fine for certain violations established by I-502, the initial draft rules also include a strict tiered system of violation penalties over a three year period (similar to the current standard penalty guidelines for liquor).
• Security -- The rules direct strict on-site surveillance systems similar to Colorado's current system.  
• Advertising Restrictions -- I-502 restricts advertising within 1,000 feet of schools, public parks, transit centers, arcades, and other areas where children are present. The draft rules further restrict advertising as they pertain to children.

Consumer Safety

• Behind the Counter Storage -- No open containers allowed.  
• Package and Label Requirements -- Consumers will know contents and potency of products they purchase.
• Defined Serving Size -- Serving sizes equal 10 mg of THC. Products are limited to 100 mg.
• Lab Tested -- Uniform testing standards by independent accredited labs.

With the release of the initial draft rules, the period for written comment opened up. One of the first analyses -- not a formal comment -- came from the Henry Wykowski law firm, a San Francisco marijuana law practice that recently opened a Seattle office. Drafted by Wykowski attorney Rachel Kurtz, a longtime player in the Seattle marijuana reform scene, the analysis shined a light on some of what could be described as the rules' downsides.

"Hash will not be allowed for sale at the retail stores," the analysis noted. "According to the draft rules WAC 314-55-079, 'marijuana extracts,' such as, hash, hash oil, shatter, and wax can be infused in products sold in a marijuana retail store, but RCW 69.50.354 does not allow the sale of extracts that are not infused in products. A marijuana extract does not meet the definition of a marijuana-infused product per RCW 69.50.101."

The Wykowski analysis also warned that "fingerprinting will be required and sent to the FBI for anyone with an interest in the business being licensed, including financiers." That means anyone seeking a marijuana license is potentially incriminating oneself to the federal government, which continues to consider marijuana an illegal substance, even in states that have legalized it.

After Monday's deadline for comments passed, the LCB reported that while initial comments on the rules were relatively light, the agency received extensive written comment over the final weekend and throughout Monday from public and private organizations.

"In keeping with our goal of an open and transparent process for drafting the rules, we’re going to take an additional two weeks to consider the last-minute input we’ve received," said LCB Director Rick Garza. "The Board was prepared to issue the rules on June 19. However, it's our responsibility to carefully review and consider the comments we received."

Among those commenting were Washington NORML, the Washington Cannabis Association, Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes, organizations with concerns about impacts on minorities, and organizations with concerns about prevention, treatment, and public health, both led by the ACLU of Washington, whose Alison Holcomb took a leave of absence to lead the I-502 campaign to victory. The comments revealed a variety of interests -- some conflicting -- and concerns from various stakeholders in the issue.

The prevention, treatment, and public health groups called for tighter restrictions on packaging, labeling, and advertising, shorter hours for retail outlets, and getting rid of the logo that features a marijuana leaf centered over an outline of the state, while the minority groups called on the LCB to ensure that their communities did not become dumping grounds for marijuana retail outlets.

"Initiative 502 was designed to achieve better health and safety outcomes for our families and communities than marijuana prohibition has," said Holcomb. "It was not intended to 'mint marijuana millionaires' who prioritize profits over public health. The goal is to improve upon our experiences with alcohol and tobacco, not repeat them."

"We supported I-502 because we were very concerned about the disproportionate enforcement of marijuana possession on African-Americans and communities of color," said Jon Gould, deputy director of the Children's Alliance, which signed onto the public health comments. "Prohibition hasn't worked, and it has had damaging effects on children and families. We think regulation would be better."

"The Board needs to remember that it is setting a standard for marijuana regulation," said University of Washington professor Roger Roffman, who also signed on to the public health comments. "We have a unique opportunity to create a system that discourages glamorization of marijuana use and encourages respect for the public's health and wellbeing. Let's not waste it."

While the public health and minority communities were concerned with restraining the marijuana marketplace, other constituencies had other concerns.

"Most of our constituents are small growers with a hundred plants or less. We argued that when it comes to growing, priority should be given to individuals who are willing to have a garden of 99 plants or less," said Kevin Oliver, executive director of Washington NORML.

"Our constituency includes two separate US Attorney districts that have disparate levels of enforcement activity. If the US Attorney's Office in the Eastern District gets wind of any marijuana operations, they shut them down. They're discussing zoning for grows the size of a football field in Seattle, and good for them, but that won't fly in eastern Washington. If they ignore the little guy, that's going to cut out anybody in eastern Washington, that's why we want them to prioritize for small growers under 99 plants."

The 99 plants number is based on federal mandatory minimum sentences that kick in at 100 plants, but is also based on the observation that federal prosecutors are unlikely to go after grows that small when there are bigger fish to fry -- and bigger punishments to hand out.

"Our concerns were very similar to most everyone else who was frustrated with the board's definition of what can be sold at retail and it's not allowing extracts like hash oil," said Kurtz, who worked with the Washington Cannabis Association in crafting its comments. "Nobody is happy about that. There are a lot of business people who were counting on that for their business model. The whole purpose of the initiative was to get rid of a black market, but by not allowing that retail, a black market will remain. We might as well actually regulate because it's going to happen regardless, but they don't seem very keen to change," she said.

"The draft regs also don't allow for outdoor grows, but I have some hope they will change that," Kurtz added . "They've heard back from a lot of people about the need for outdoor grows, including Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes. Forcing everyone indoors increases energy consumption, and growing outdoors is less expensive."

On the upside, the LCB seems to be crafting reasonable regulations for out of state visitors and for preventing diversion, although diversion probably won't be a big issue, Kurtz said.

"This doesn't limit out of state people at all," Kurtz explained. "You can buy an ounce at a time, which is the limit of what you can legally possess."

There is no integrated system to track purchasers, so out-of-staters could theoretically go from retail outlet to retail outlet, building their stashes an ounce at a time, but that doesn't mean there will be an issue with diversion to other states, Kurtz argued.

"Economically, it just doesn't make sense," she said. "If someone from North Dakota wants to sell pot there, they could come here, but they would be paying full retail and having to go to a bunch of stores, and they wouldn't have much of a profit margin paying retail. Or they could just grow some in their basement in North Dakota."

A larger issue is diversion from cultivation sites, but Kurtz argued that a combination of security and grower self-interest should limit that.

"There is going to be a lot of recordkeeping, an electronic system where growers will have to input data daily," she said. "There are product quarantines, there are security cameras. But more importantly, people are preparing to invest a lot of money in this to have a legitimate business, not to divert pot to the black market. I've been meeting a lot of people who I don't think would risk their licenses to sell to the black market."

Washington's legal, regulated marijuana commerce is still a work in progress, but stakeholders pronounced themselves generally satisfied with the process so far.

"We are in completely new territory in terms of creating a legal marketplace and we're being very vigilant. It's too soon to tell whether this new environment is going to adequately protect youth and be an effective public health approach," said the Children Alliance's Gould.

"This has been a good public process, with lots of transparency and broad engagement. They are doing a good job in terms of being open and transparent," he continued. "What is also really apparent is the enormous amount of competition this has created, with industries and individuals looking at this as an opportunity for profit. There are choices that need to be made, and we and others are speaking up, saying we need to choose public health and kids over profiteering. If the WSLCB creates an environment based on policies designed to make this more profitable, that could have a detrimental impact on children, youth, and the public health."

"We're getting there," said Kurtz. "Eventually we will have a good system, but it may take a few years to figure itself out."

And so marijuana begins the transition from illegal drug to legal commodity in Washington state. That is, if the federal government allows it to happen. So far, the federal government has given little indication it's going to do much of anything about it, but that could change. Stay tuned.

Black Americans are nearly four times more likely to get busted for marijuana possession than white ones, even though both groups smoke pot at roughly comparable rates, the ACLU said in a report released Tuesday. The report, "The War on Marijuana in Black and White: Billions of Dollars Wasted on Racially Biased Arrests," is based on the annual FBI Uniform Crime Report and US Census Bureau Data.

The disparity in arrest rates is startlingly consistent, the report found. In more than 96% of the counties covered in the report, blacks were arrested at higher rates than whites. Racial disparities in pot busts came in large counties and small, urban and rural, wealthy and poor, with large black populations and with small ones.

In some counties, the disparity rose to 15 times more likely, and in the Upper Midwest states of Illinois, Iowa, and Minnesota, blacks were eight times more likely to be arrested for pot possession than whites. Nationwide, blacks were 3.73 times more likely to get arrested for marijuana than whites.

And it's getting worse, not better. The report found that even though the racial disparities in marijuana arrests existed 10 years ago, they have increased in 38 states and the District of Columbia.

"The war on marijuana has disproportionately been a war on people of color," said Ezekiel Edwards, director of the ACLU Criminal Law Reform Project and one of the primary authors of the report. "State and local governments have aggressively enforced marijuana laws selectively against black people and communities, needlessly ensnaring hundreds of thousands of people in the criminal justice system at tremendous human and financial cost."

In budgetary terms, that cost to the states was $3.61 billion in 2010 alone, the report found. During the decade the report studied, despite aggressive enforcement and rising marijuana arrest rates, all those arrests failed to stop or even diminish the use of marijuana, and support for its legalization only increased.

"The aggressive policing of marijuana is time-consuming, costly, racially biased, and doesn't work," said Edwards. "These arrests have a significant detrimental impact on people's lives, as well as on the communities in which they live. When people are arrested for possessing even tiny amounts of marijuana, they can be disqualified from public housing or student financial aid, lose or find it more difficult to obtain employment, lose custody of their child, or be deported."

The report recommends legalizing, taxing, and regulating marijuana, which it said would eliminate racially-targeted selective enforcement of marijuana laws, save the billions of dollars spent on enforcing pot prohibition, and raise badly needed revenues by taxation. If legalization is not doable, then decriminalization, and if not decriminalization, then lowest prioritization.

The ACLU also calls in the report for reforms in policing practices, including not only ending racial profiling, but also constitutionally-suspect stop-and-frisk searches, such as those embraced with such gusto by the NYPD in New York City. It also crucially recommends reforming federal law enforcement funding streams, such as the Edward Byrne Justice Assistance Grant Program, that encourage police to make low-level drug busts by using performance measures that reward such arrests at the expense of other measures.

The Organization of American States (OAS) Friday released a ground-breaking report on hemispheric drug control that includes not only an assessment of the current state of affairs, but also looks at a number of alternate scenarios for future directions in drug policy, including explicit analysis of possible regulation and legalization regimes.

The report comes even as the US military is expanding its drug war in Latin America.The military is deploying assets to Central and South America, and US military assistance in Latin America has quadrupled in the last decade -- even as the region faces no external and diminishing internal threats.

The report, The Drug Problem in the Americas, was commissioned at last year's Cartagena Summit of the Americas, where a number of Latin American leaders led by Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos criticized existing drug policies and called for a discussion of alternatives. On Friday, OAS head Jose Miguel Insulza hand-delivered the report to Santos in Bogota.

Prepared by researcher and analysts at the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD) under the supervision of the OAS, the report is divided into two discrete sections, an analytical report and a scenarios report. It is the scenarios report that addresses possible directions in drug policy, including the formal consideration of legalization and regulation regimes.

The scenarios report envisions four possible (and not necessarily mutually exclusive) policy directions and how each scenario "understands" the drug problem, what the attempted response would be under that scenario, and the opportunities and challenges involved in acting on those scenarios.

Two scenarios, "Together" and "Resilience," represent largely traditional responses to drug use and the drug trade, with calls for the strengthening of weak states and their judicial institutions or addressing underlying social problems and strengthening communities to fight violence and addiction, respectively.

It is the other two scenarios, "Pathways" and "Disruption," that represent innovations in thinking at the policy-making level. In the "Disruption" scenario, the violence and instability created by the drug trade under prohibition is so severe that authorities "cut a deal" with traffickers in a bid to achieve social peace. This might, more or less fairly, be called "the Mexican scenario," given that previous Mexican PRI governments are almost universally assumed to have made such bargains with trafficking organizations, and given widespread speculation these days that the current PRI government may be considering something similar.

In the "Pathways" scenario, CICAD "understands" the problem as "the current regime for controlling drugs through criminal sanctions (especially arrests and incarceration of users and low-level dealers) is causing too much harm." The response is "trying out and learning from alternative legal and regulatory regimes, starting with cannabis."

The opportunities presented under the "Pathways" scenario include "development of better drug policies through experimentation, reallocation of resources from controlling drugs and drug users to preventing and treating problematic use, and shrinkage of some criminal markets and profits through regulation," while potential problems include "managing the risks of experimentation, especially with transitioning from criminal to regulated markets (including possible increases in problematic use), dealing with contraband, and new inter-governmental tensions that result from differences in regimes between jurisdictions."

The report is being welcomed as marking a true advance in the drug policy dialog at the hemispheric and international levels.

"The review explores what can be done in a post-drug war world," said Kasia Malinowska-Sempruch, director of the Open Society Global Drug Policy Program. "This report envisions a number of possibilities that will broaden the current debate on drug policy reform."

"As part of the scenarios team, we worked to make it clear that another reality is indeed possible, that our countries can move orderly toward regulated drugs markets, and that there are possibilities to achieve better results," said Lisa Sanchez, coordinator of drug policies at the Transform Drug Policy Foundation and Mexico Unido Contra la Delinquencia, who worked on the report. "It is clear that the state should no longer ignore its responsibility to guarantee the health and security of all its citizens, and to do this, it needs to regain control over the drug markets which are currently illegal."

"While leaders have talked about moving from 'criminalization' to 'public health' in drug policy, punitive, abstinence-only approaches have still predominated, even in the health sphere," said Daniel Wolfe, director of the Open Society International Harm Reduction Program. "These scenarios offer a chance for leaders to replace indiscriminate detention and rights abuses with approaches that distinguish between users and traffickers and offer the community-based health services that work best for those in need."

"This is the beginning of an international conversation on a new approach to drugs," said David Holiday, senior regional advocacy officer for the Open Society Latin America Program. "We can hope this will move policies from those currently based in repression to strategies rooted in public health and human rights."

That international conversation on drug policy will get going next week, when the OAS report will be presented and discussed at the bi-annual CICAD meeting in Washington, DC. Two weeks after that, the report and discussions over drug policy in the Americas will be the main agenda item -- "Toward a comprehensive anti-drug policy in the Americas" -- at  the annual session of the OAS General Assembly, which is attended by foreign ministers in the region. Advocates are hoping that these regional discussions will also be taken up at the 2016 United Nations General Assembly Special Session on Drugs.

"Never before has a multilateral organization engaged in such an inclusive and intellectually legitimate analysis of drug policy options," said Ethan Nadelmann, executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance. "Indeed, it would have been inconceivable just two years ago that the OAS -- or any multilateral organization -- would publish a document that considers legalization, decriminalization and other alternatives to prohibitionist policies on an equal footing with status quo policies. Political pressures by the US and other governments would have made that impossible."

But much has changed in just the past few years, Nadelmann noted. In 2009, former presidents Fernando Henrique Cardoso (Brazil), César Gaviria (Colombia) and Ernesto Zedillo (Mexico) joined with other members of the Latin American Commission on Drugs and Democracy in saying the time had come to "break the taboo" on exploring alternatives to the failed war on drugs.

In 2011, those presidents joined with former UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, former U.S. Secretary of State George Shultz, former Federal Reserve Board chairman Paul Volcker, former Swiss President Ruth Dreifuss and other members of the  Global Commission on Drug Policy in calling for fundamental reforms to national and global drug policies.  Former presidents Jimmy Carter, Ricardo Lagos (Chile), Vicente Fox (Mexico) and Aleksander Kwasniewski (Poland) were among those who seconded their recommendations.

Late that year, sitting presidents began to join the calls of their predecessors.  These included President Santos in Colombia, Otto Perez Molina in Guatemala, José Mujica in Uruguay and then-President Felipe Calderonof Mexico. Simultaneously, the victorious marijuana legalization ballot initiatives in Washington State and Colorado transformed a previously hypothetical debate into real political reform.  Other states will almost certainly follow their lead in coming years.

"The OAS scenarios report thus represents the important next step in elevating and legitimizing a discussion that until a few years ago was effectively banned from official government circles," Nadelmann said. "It is sure to have legs in a way that few reports by multilateral institutions ever do."