By Paul Wachter, Esquire Magazine, 01/31/2013
Last fall, Washington state became one of the first two states (along with Colorado) to legalize the recreational use of marijuana. Now, Washington’s Liquor Control Board, tasked with implementing the policy, is hiring consultants to advise government officials on every aspect of the process, including cultivation, transportation, sales, and quality control. The state is expected to begin sales in December, when anyone over twenty-one will be able purchase up to an ounce of marijuana.
“The Liquor Control Board has a long and a very good history with licensing and regulation. We know it and know how to do it well,” spokesman Mikhail Carpenter told the Associated Press. “But there are some technical aspects with marijuana we could use a consultant to help us with.”
Washington and Colorado policy makers can also look at other states — eighteen, plus Washington, D.C. — that have legalized the medical use of marijuana. Esquire spoke with Jason Browne, a California-based consultant who has worked in many aspects of the cannabis movement, including serving on the Humboldt County Medical Implementation Committee and operating a medical-marijuana clinic.
ESQUIRE.COM: What can Washington state learn from California?
JASON BROWNE: Well, I think the first thing is to involve, from the beginning, all the players. For instance, while it might make sense for the Liquor Control Board to oversee the buying and selling of cannabis, it probably makes more sense for the state’s agricultural department to oversee growing.
ESQ: How will the state go about deciding how much pot it needs to grow?
JB: It’s not that hard a process. You start with surveys, and then after a year or so, you’ll have a good idea by tracking sales. I think people will be surprised how much marijuana they’ll need to grow. Here in California, we’ve found that the average medical user consumes three pounds a year if they’re smoking it. And it can be four to ten times more if they’re consuming it through edibles or other concentrations that use a lot more raw cannabis.
ESQ: Will there still be a black market?
JB: That’s why it’s so important to monitor the entire network, not just growers and sellers, but transportation and labeling companies. California hasn’t been very good about this. I think this has to do with the inherent problem of competing interests. There are cartels that stand to lose a lot of money, as, for that matter, law enforcement, including prisons, which earn a lot for prosecuting marijuana laws. And then you have farmers, too. In many cases here in California, growers that have come clean have been targeted by the feds, so there’s an incentive to stay in the shadows and take your chances.
ESQ: So how do you think the federal government is going to respond? Jenny Durkan, the U.S. attorney for the District of Washington, has said, “Regardless of any changes in state law, including the change that will go into effect on December 6 in Washington State, growing, selling or possessing any amount of marijuana remains illegal under federal law.”
JB: That’s the ultimate question. In California, we’ve seen both sides of it. In some instances, they’ve been hands-off, and in others they’ve been quite prosecutorial, raiding dispensaries and other operations. So is the state willing to stand up to the federal government and risk federal funds? It’s likely that you’ll see some high-profile raids, like you have in California and elsewhere, but they won’t really shut down what Washington state is doing.
ESQ: Is there any part of the Washington law that you don’t like?
JB: They have a provision for testing drivers to see if they’re under the influence of cannabis. But there’s really no medical test for that. If you smoke pot, especially if you’re a regular user, then it stays in your system for a long time, about a month. But there’s no test for the level of intoxication at a given moment. Besides, even if you take a big bong hit and decide to drive, studies in Canada and Britain have shown that drivers on pot are actually safer drivers than not only drunk drivers but sober drivers, too.
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