REWORK THE VETOED MEDICAL-MARIJUANA LAW

GOV. Chris Gregoire needs to be reminded why Washington voters
overwhelmingly approved a 1998 law to allow the regulated use of
marijuana. People wanted relief from grievous medical conditions and
treatments.

Her artful veto Friday of the Medical Use of Cannabis Act stranded
those citizens, and their loved ones, who sought to play by the rules.

First and foremost, the governor is an elected advocate for the
people, not a law-school pedant or supplicant for a federal job.

A much debated and modified Senate Bill 5073, passed by the
Legislature with broad bipartisan support, spoke to gaps in the
13-year-old initiative that allowed medical use of marijuana, but
provided no practical way to get it.

State Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles, D-Seattle, crafted legislation that
offered arrest protection and provided a state administrative
structure for growers, processors and dispensers.

The state Department of Agriculture would oversee, and could contract
out, oversight of drug strength, packaging, labeling and inspections.
The state Department of Health would have authority over distributors
and security.

Both agencies would require record-keeping and accountability. The
state would even collect business and sales taxes, as would local
governments.

Instead of focusing on a framework for helping people with terminal
and debilitating diseases and treatment regimes, the governor took
shelter in narrow legal language. She chose to calibrate the intent of
federal officials to prosecute state employees for administering the
proposed law.

As a result of the governor's pick-and-choose veto, bureaucratic
anxiety about the legality of marijuana dispensaries, which could have
been resolved by the legislation, will continue to linger and perplex
local government.

Kohl-Welles is strongly encouraged to revise her bill for the
Legislature's special session. Work with the governor to assure
medical-cannabis users that their legal status and access to relief is
enhanced.

Medically incapacitated people do not grow their own marijuana. A
responsible attempt to address that fiction with a regulated
alternative was stymied by the governor.