LAWSUIT FILED OVER SEATTLE'S MEDICAL-MARIJUANA ORDINANCE

Seattle's Effort to Bring Medical-Marijuana Dispensaries Under the
Wing of City Ordinance Was Challenged As Unconstitutional Wednesday
on Grounds It Would Require an Admission of Illegal Activity.

A lawsuit, filed by longtime marijuana defense attorney Douglas
Hiatt, accuses the city of legal hypocrisy by requiring dispensary
owners to get licenses, pay taxes and abide by zoning laws while the
city is also enforcing drug-nuisance laws.

The lawsuit exposes intrafamily fighting among marijuana-legalization
advocates Seattle City attorney Pete Holmes, whose office championed
the ordinance, and Hiatt, who views most regulation as de-facto
admission that operating a marijuana dispensary is a federal crime.

"I think a lot of people are being misled" into thinking the city's
ordinance protects dispensary owners, Hiatt said. "Those are all
admissions of guilt in federal prosecution, and even in state prosecution."

Seattle's ordinance, passed in July, was the first municipal attempt
in the state to regulate the medical-marijuana dispensaries that have
blossomed - with an estimated 80 in Seattle alone - over the past
several years.

Among the 16 states allowing medical marijuana, Washington has one of
the most chaotic regulatory schemes because a bill in the 2010
Legislature to legalize and regulate dispensaries was mostly vetoed
by Gov. Chris Gregoire.

She allowed municipalities to go their own way, resulting in
patchwork local regulation, which funneled so-called "pot shops" into
the most progressive cities.

Philip Dawdy, spokesman for medical-marijuana trade group Washington
Alternative Medicine Alliance, said the lawsuit undermines efforts by
Holmes and Seattle Mayor Mike McGinn, who is also an advocate of
marijuana legalization.