Letter: Allow marijuana sales in legal, safe, regulated stores

While Tri-City leaders continue to block sales of cannabis as allowed by state law, we have a great story in the TCH (Oct. 22) from the Washington Post. It states that 58 percent of Americans now support decriminalization of pot and its use is up considerably. It points out that since our state and Colorado have made recreational use legal “life … has gone on as usual” (crime down, economy up, tax revenue up).

I didn’t vote for legalization because I wanted to get blasted on pot. At the time I rarely used it. I voted in favor of the measure first because the law is wrong — pot is simply not a narcotic.

Second, our law enforcement is wasting countless resources to fight a battle that can’t be won. From the feds on down we’ve tried to stamp out cannabis use for 78 years and pot is more available now than when it was deemed “narcotic” in 1937.

Allow the sale in regulated stores with the benefit of allowing police to address real crime while creating jobs and increasing tax revenue. At the same time it potentially can eliminate the black market, which is far more dangerous than safe, legal distribution of the innocuous weed.

Kennewick

This story was originally published November 4, 2015 at 5:22 PM with the headline "Letter: Allow marijuana sales in legal, safe, regulated stores."