The road to hell..

is paved with good intentions. And state senator Jeanne Kohl-Welles's medical-marijuana bill—pulled together after years of work with law enforcement and activists—was 24 karat goodwill. But the result is more of a catastrophe than I'd realized.

While reporting for the paper that hits streets tomorrow, sources explained the ramifications of Governor Gregoire's partial veto last Friday. This wasn't simply a missed opportunity to improve conditions for sick people, it turns out, but actually a step backward. Because some parts of the bill weren't vetoed, a practically random set of other parts will become law. They get overlaid—with little context from the bill—onto the medical marijuana law voters passed in 1998. As a result, new restrictions for patients (what's left after the veto) without added protections (what was vetoed) will expose more sick people and caretakers to prosecution.
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"We have had the single largest setback to medical cannabis in 15 years," says Cannabis Defense Coalition director Ben Livingston. "We have lost faith in the process and we want to run home with our tails between our legs and salvage what we can."

Defense attorney Douglas Hiatt puts it this way: “This thing is a disaster. Pushing the goddamn bill through, putting it on the governor’s desk, and then daring her to sign it—someone who is not running and has got nothing to lose—was just an idiotic idea.”

http://slog.thestranger.com/slog/archives/2011/05/03/the-road-to-hell