Tagged: Legalization

Seattle Center hosted an unofficial mini-Hempfest Thursday as marijuana smokers turned out to celebrate their new freedoms. A hundred or so people gathered around the International Fountain, smoking pot. A few of them spoke to KPLU’s Keith Seinfeld.

At the stroke of midnight, adult marijuana users will no longer be lawbreakers in Washington. But lots of legal questions remain about how marijuana commerce will work, where it’s legal to use and how the federal government will respond.

This fall Washington voters will consider an initiative that would allow the growth and sale of marijuana. Friday, the Washington State Office of Financial Management issued its report on how Initiative 502 would affect the finances of state and local governments. KUOW’s Phyllis Fletcher has more.

The gist of the report is “we don’t know.”

The Office of Financial Management uses the phrase “indeterminate, but non-zero” several times in the report. That’s because of what could be called “known unknowns.”

It looks like voters in both Oregon and Washington will decide this fall whether to legalize recreational marijuana. Backers of an Oregon ballot measure submitted a final batch of petitions Friday to the Secretary of State. In Washington, a pot legalization initiative has already qualified for the ballot. The question now: are Northwest voters ready to say ‘okay’ to getting high? Olympia Correspondent Austin Jenkins reports.