LYNNWOOD LEGISLATOR AIMS TO EASE MARIJUANA LAWS

OLYMPIA -- Rep. Mary Helen Roberts wants to get the state tuned in
and turned on about the need for new dope laws.

Possessing a little marijuana should be decriminalized for sure and
maybe even legalized, contends the Lynnwood Democrat.

"What harm would it do anybody if I grew a plant in a pot on my back
deck," Roberts said this week.

Today, the woman some lawmakers teasingly call the Pot Queen will
share her views in a podcast -- or is that a potcast? -- hoping to
ignite a dialogue on changing how the state deals with marijuana users.

"We are not even having the conversation," she said. "It is going on
but not everyone is engaged. This budget crisis is engaging more of us."

She calculates millions of dollars can be saved and communities made
safer if cops spend less time cracking down on marijuana smokers and
more on capturing violent offenders.

And cash-depleted coffers of the state and counties might get a
little boost from "Mary Jane" with properly crafted policies.

Legislation introduced in the House and the Senate in January sought
to do that.

The bills made possession by adults of up to 40 grams -- less than
1.5 ounces -- of marijuana an infraction rather than a misdemeanor.
Those cited would face a $100 fine with the money going into health care funds.

The House bill never got a hearing, while the Senate version didn't get a vote.

Sen. Joe McDermott, D-Seattle, a sponsor of the Senate measure, said
the state could save up to $7 million a year by not investigating and
prosecuting thousands of possession cases.

"We need to be smart about how we spend those resources and recognize
what pot is and what it isn't," he said, applauding Roberts for her
planned podcast.

Roberts, 61, said she inhaled while working in Olympia with a state
commission dealing with women's issues in the 1970s. So, too, did
many of the staffers from the legislative and executive branches of
government she hung out with.

"It was a weekend, casual drug. None of us moved on to harder things
and none of us wound up in jail," she said, noting she stopped
smoking long before becoming a mother.

She picked up the Pot Queen nickname in January when an e-mail she
wrote to the author of the House bill became public. Today, some
colleagues pass by her desk mimicking the enjoyment of a joint.

"Why aren't we making possession of a small amount legal," she wrote
to Rep. Dave Upthegrove, D-Des Moines. "I think the public is ready
for this. I know I am."

Rick Steves of Edmonds is past ready.

For a decade, the travel writer, whose work appears in The Herald,
has talked of the need for marijuana law reforms. Thursday he sent a
letter to lawmakers iterating support for the ideas behind the legislation.

Part of his message was that backing decriminalization does not make
one pro-drugs.

"It's not an issue of being soft on drugs or hard on drugs. It's a
smart on drugs on policy," he said in an interview.

"Eighty million Americans have tried it, including a president who
enjoyed it," he said.