SEATTLE — Most efforts to
legalize marijuana possession have generally run aground in
the face of unified opposition.
Mothers Against Drunk Driving
led the charge in helping to defeat a ballot measure in
California in 2010. Law enforcement groups, not too
surprisingly, have also been
largely opposed in the past. But in Washington State, as a
measure that would legalize
possession of small amounts of
marijuana heads toward a vote
next month, the opposition
forces have been divided, raising hopes by marijuana
advocates of a breakthrough. A
poll conducted last month by Elway Research showed that 50 percent of voters either
definitely or probably were in
favor of legalizing the
possession of an ounce of
marijuana or less. Some former law enforcement
officials have appeared in television ads in favor of the legalization. Safety concerns
about drugged driving have
been muted by a provision of
the measure, called Initiative 502, that would create a standard to measure
impairment. A promised flood
of tax money to drug and
alcohol treatment programs
from legal marijuana sales has
also kept some antidrug groups on the sidelines. But if opponents are in disarray
or disagreement, supporters of
legalization are as well. And
that is making the outcome
hard to predict, both sides say. In fact, some of the most
vehement opposition to the
initiative is coming from what
might seem the least likely
corner of all: medical
marijuana users. Organized through a group called No on I-502, they say the plan, especially the new legal
standard of impairment while
driving, creates a new legal
risk for regular users because
THC, marijuana’s primary
psychoactive ingredient, can stay in the bloodstream for
days after consumption, and
thus be measurable by a blood
test whether a person is
impaired or not. At a recent debate at the
University of Washington here
in Seattle, a medical marijuana
provider and the leader of the
No on I-501, group, Steve
Sarich, brought out a marijuana plant as a prop, but
spoke to the mostly student
crowd as if he were trying to
scare them straight. “They can take you to the
hospital, they can take your
blood,” Mr. Sarich said about
the driving provisions. “And if
they find any trace of THC in
your system, there goes your Pell grant, there goes your
college.” On the opposite side of the
debate, speaking on behalf of
the measure, sat the Seattle
city attorney, Pete Holmes,
whose office prosecutes
misdemeanor cases. Asked by an audience member why the
initiative’s authors had seen
the need for a crackdown on
drugged driving after years of
marijuana use in society, Mr.
Holmes said the language was at least, in part, a political
calculation. Skeptics in California, he said,
united around the lack of a
provision about driving under
the influence, and a ballot
measure in Colorado this year
appears to be facing the same headwinds. “An initiative that doesn’t pass
is a worthless initiative,” Mr.
Holmes said. Part of the complication in
Washington’s debate is that
although at least 23 states
have laws that address driving
under the influence of drugs,
they were all passed by legislatures rather than voters,
according to the National Organization for Reform of
Marijuana Laws, or Norml, a nonprofit advocacy group. That
has introduced in Washington,
supporters and opponents say,
a complexity into the
discussion that goes beyond
the general question of whether marijuana should be
regulated rather than being
banned entirely. But the infighting itself is
proving to be its own political
circus. Last month, for example, Mr.
Sarich and his allies lodged a
complaint with the state
attorney general’s office of
illegal campaign activities by
Norml and “scurrilous smear campaigns against those that
oppose the Norml party line.” The executive director of
Norml, Allen St. Pierre, called
the complaint “goofy.” “They seem so half-witted that
maybe they have filed the
lawsuit against the wrong
entity,” Mr. St. Pierre said. “We
haven’t sent any money, we
haven’t raised any money. All we’ve done is the board voted
unanimously to endorse an
initiative.” As for the concerns about
drugged-driving provisions, Mr.
St. Pierre agreed that the
language was not ideal. But
there will be a blizzard of
details to address in the Legislature once the voters
have spoken, he said. “Everybody anticipates if this
passes, within a year or so
afterwards it will be fixed,” he
said. Drug treatment centers are
also caught in uncertainty.
Under the proposal’s language,
they would get additional
money from marijuana taxes.
But at the Recovery Centers of King County, a spokesman said
he thought it would probably
be a wash in the end. Greater
availability of any drug — the
end of alcohol prohibition in
the 1930s being a case in point, he said — leads to more
abuse of it. “Legalization will increase the
rate of addiction to that
substance,” said Rome Doherty,
an outpatient coordinator. He
said the organization as a
whole had taken no position on Initiative 502. “But as a person, as long as
there’s a limit and a roadside
test for marijuana, I’m O.K.
with it,” he said.