King County Sheriff backs pot legalization
Oct 2, 2012, 5:56 AM | Updated: 7:12 am
The campaign to legalize marijuana in Washington has gotten a couple of big boosts including the support of KC Sheriff Steve Strachan.
The effort to legalize marijuana in Washington is getting another high profile supporter and another big infusion of cash.
King County Sheriff Steve Strachan is the latest to come out in favor of I-502. He tells The Seattle Times the measure would “bring clarity” to conflicting state and federal laws. “I think the current situation is bad for the rule of law, bad for the criminal justice system and it sends a bad message to our kids,” he says.
Strachan says as a former school resource officer, he know it’s easier for kids to score pot than alcohol.
“With alcohol being highly regulated, we’re able to have a more reasonable discussion about it, in societies and in our families. If we treat marijuana like people are already informally treating it, you can make choices based on boundaries set by parents,” he tells the Times.
The campaign just got a big infusion of money as well. Progressive Insurance founder Peter Lewis kicked in another $670,000 last week, bringing his total contribution to $1.55 million. Campaign manager Alison Holcomb says the money was used to buy about $700,000 in TV airtime to run a new round of ads.
While I-502 has drawn widespread support and nearly $4 million in donations, the only organized opposition is coming from a group of medical marijuana patients and sellers opposed to the way the initiative is written.
Under I-502, it would be legal to possess up to one ounce of marijuana and the state would create a closed, state-licensed monopoly of pot growers and retailers.
