Pubdate: Sun, 13 Jul 2014 Source: Los Angeles Times (CA) Copyright: 2014 Los Angeles Times Contact: http://www.latimes.com/ Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/248 Author: Maria L. La Ganga Page: 16 'MOVING MARIJUANA OUT OF THE SHADOWS' SEATTLE - Alison Holcomb, criminal justice director for the American Civil Liberties Union of Washington state, is known in these parts as the mother of marijuana legalization. She drafted Initiative 502, which voters passed overwhelmingly in 2012; the measure struck down prohibitions on recreational pot use and led to the creation of Washington's marijuana market. On Tuesday, she helped inaugurate Seattle's first legal pot retailer, buying 4 grams at Cannabis City in Seattle's SoDo neighborhood after giving a rousing speech about the evils of prohibition and the benefits of decriminalization: "We're moving marijuana out of the shadows, regulating it for consumer and community safety, dedicating new tax revenues to keeping kids healthy and keeping them in school. We're finally taking marijuana out of the criminal justice system and treating it as a public health issue." The day before the doors opened, Holcomb talked to The Times about how the new market would work, worries about shortages and what the Evergreen State has learned from Colorado, which began selling legal recreational marijuana on Jan. 1. The first marijuana retail stores are about to open. How has the process been and how are you feeling about it all? I'm excited. The Washington State Liquor Control Board had until Dec. 1, 2013, to finalize the rules. They started taking applications for licenses before the deadline. It's pretty consistent with the timeline we envisioned. The one caveat I would add is that the licensing of the producers is going a bit slower than we had hoped. How slowly is it going? There is not a lot of marijuana under production yet. Roughly 25% of the 2 million square feet [that the state will allow] has been licensed, let alone grown. Edible marijuana products won't make it to store shelves for a while because the Liquor Control Board passed some new emergency restrictions. What were the concerns? They wanted to provide a greater protection from accidental ingesting and put some tighter restrictions on the appeal to youth. Also, they had some significant concerns about consumer safety in terms of two things: first, having the edibles be sold in obvious doses. [And] they wanted to ensure a consistent distribution of the THC throughout the product. They were hearing stories from Colorado suggesting that, for example, in some instances one half of the cookie might be more potent than the other. A lot of consumer education needs to happen, especially when it comes to edibles, which we know even less about than we do about the flower form of marijuana. Doesn't Colorado have different regulations regarding who can sell recreational marijuana? With Colorado, the only people who could obtain one of the Amendment 64 licenses were people previously licensed as medical marijuana dispensaries. July 1 was the first day that Colorado began accepting license applications from people not previously licensed as a medical marijuana dispensary. In Washington, we started from scratch [building the recreational pot industry] because we didn't have a highly regulated medical marijuana industry. How much marijuana can you buy in the retail stores licensed by the state? Legally, you can buy an ounce, or up to 16 ounces of infused solids - your baked goods - and up to 72 ounces of infused liquids, like juices, teas, sodas. Also added in the most recent legislative session is a new product, marijuana concentrate. And you can only purchase 7 grams of that - products such as tinctures, hash oil. Residents can smoke pot in their homes. But what can tourists do? Federal law and other state laws don't let you take marijuana out of state. If you're from Texas and come to Washington and buy marijuana, you can consume it while you're in Washington. There's an infraction, a civil infraction, on public display, similar to the ban on drinking in public. And all the places you can't smoke tobacco, you can't smoke marijuana. What do you want people to take away from Washington's efforts? Remember that creating this legal and regulated marketplace is intended to establish an example of taking a public-health oriented approach to marijuana instead of continuing to leave marijuana in the black market. We want to encourage responsible use. We want to encourage parents to talk to their children about the increased risks to young people. And most of all we want to demonstrate that states do have the ability to create well-regulated systems for controlling the marijuana market. This interview has been edited for length and clarity. - --- MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom