MEDICAL-MARIJUANA PROPOSAL ABANDONED; DISPENSARIES NOW 'CLEARLY ILLEGAL'

An intensive effort to overhaul Washington's medical-marijuana law
died Tuesday in Olympia, leaving cities and law enforcement to muddle
through changes that will clip short the boom in dispensaries.

Medical-marijuana champion Sen. Jeanne Kohl-Welles said lawmakers were
too focused on the state budget to fix confusing provisions left over
from Gov. Chris Gregoire's partial veto of an earlier bill.

"By far, this represents the greatest disappointment of my legislative
career," she said in a statement. She plans to take up the issue again
next year.

As a result, a law will take effect in July that allows 45-plant
collective gardens for the first time while undercutting dispensaries'
best legal defense. Cities around the state will have to choose
between tolerating dispensaries or cracking down.

King County Prosecutor Dan Satterberg said that as a result of
Gregoire's veto, the law took "a significant step backward."

"The commercial dispensaries jumped the gun, and are out aggressively
marketing their services. Whatever gray area used to exist to allow
that is gone now. They are clearly illegal as of July," he said.

The new law "puts cops and prosecutors back in the business of making
the medical-marijuana law work. I don't think that's fundamentally the
law that cops and prosecutors should be in. It should be a medical
issue, not a law-enforcement issue," Satterberg said.

Dispensaries popped up over the past year by seizing on vague
patient-provider definitions in the 1998 voter-approved law.

Responding to concerns from police and cities about the uncontrolled
dispensary boom, the Legislature passed a landmark law to legalize and
regulate dispensaries and growers, create a central patient registry
and provide arrest protection.

Gregoire vetoed most of the bill, citing a harsher tone from federal
prosecutors that could potentially expose state regulators to arrest,
even though that has not been seen in other states with legal
dispensaries.

In Seattle, City Attorney Pete Holmes said the new collective gardens
will be a headache for police and could lead to more arrests of
patients. He has asked the Seattle Police Department for an inventory
of operating dispensaries - estimated to be at least 50 - with the
idea that the city could try to "grandfather" them in.

But enacting a city-based regulatory scheme could run Seattle afoul of
federal prosecutors, he said, and it could make Seattle a magnet.

"We're back to the worst-case scenario," said Holmes, an advocate of
legalization. "We've only had a few hours to get used to that again."

Cities, including Shoreline, Lake Forest Park and Federal Way, have
already begun trying to shut down dispensaries through civil actions.
Satterberg said that is his preferred way to respond, instead of
criminal charges.

Tacoma had put on hold cease-and-desist letters to 42 dispensaries
pending the outcome in Olympia, but now must decide what to do, said
spokesman Rob McNair-Huff.

In Kent, City Attorney Tom Brubaker said the city would decide how to
deal with its four or five dispensaries soon.

"We've told these dispensaries that they're illegal, but haven't taken
any stiff enforcement action," he said. "I'd just as soon they weren't
in my town."

Scott Snyder, an attorney who advises a dozen suburban cities,
including Issaquah and Redmond, said cities could take a mixed
approach: denying business licenses while requiring dispensaries to
pass fire and safety codes. "I think it's something most communities
will get into gingerly within the vacuum we're in now," he said.

As cities sort it out, entrepreneurs still have ads on Craigslist
seeking real estate to open dispensaries. Ben Livingston of the
Cannabis Defense Coalition, a patient-advocacy group, said reality
doesn't seem to be sinking in.

"What's next? Raids," he said. "The question, is who is going to be
first. My money is the people who were bolder, more out there."

David Ahl helped open a nonprofit dispensary, Greenside Medical, on
Seattle's Lake City Way Northeast on April 20, investing in a security
system that includes a concrete-walled check-in booth and
sophisticated alarm system.

He said shady dispensaries, or those opened purely for profit, already
are shutting down. He sounded rattled. "I definitely know there's a
big ax above my head," said Ahl, 26.

Another dispensary owner, Steve Saarich, filed a referendum Tuesday to
roll back the law to its pre-session status, which would restore a
legal defense for dispensaries. Sponsors must gather 120,577 voter
signatures by late July for it to qualify for the November ballot,
according to the Secretary of State's office.