DrugSense

The Stranger, 27 Mar 2013 – State and Federal Law May Require Poison-Free Pot State regulators want to know what sort of chemicals marijuana growers apply to their crops. Scheduled to issue growing licenses in mid-August-less than five months away-the Washington State Liquor Control Board has reached out to industry professionals for real-world advice on what biocides local growers dust on their dope. In an e-mail sent last Friday, comptroller Mike Steenhout asked recipients to "provide a list of all pesticides or any other compounds that you would ever apply to a marijuana plant."

The Stranger, 27 Mar 2013 – Catholic Hospital Calls Cops on a Patient for Smelling of (Legal) Marijuana Matthew Zimmerman wasn’t thinking about the small bag of pot in his pocket when he went in for a routine exam at a Gig Harbor medical center on March 18, because Washington State voters legalized marijuana possession last fall. Plus, he explains, "I forgot it was there." But shortly after a nurse smelled the marijuana and confronted Zimmerman, a police officer arrived to question him.

DrugSense

The Stranger, 20 Mar 2013 – Don’t Call Them "Okies," Call Them "Tokies" Some cannabis believers are so devout that they’re packing for a pilgrimage to one of two new legal-pot meccas: Colorado and Washington States. Similar to (though better-heeled than) the dust-bowl desperates of the 1930s, these legal-pot Okies-marijuana Tokies-long to eke out new lives in the land of legal cannabis, the land of their dreams.

Seattle Times, 20 Mar 2013 – Mark Kleiman’s Options Go From Current Policy on Pot to a Model Mirroring the Alcohol Industry The state’s chief pot consultant remains a bit mysterious, as Mark Kleiman’s duties as a UCLA professor didn’t allow him to join his team in Olympia as state officials announced they had been chosen to help implement a legal pot law.

Boston Globe, 18 Mar 2013 – Seattle, Wash. (AP) – Washington state has tentatively chosen a Massachusetts-based firm led by a University of California, Los Angeles, professor to be its official marijuana consultant. Botec Analysis Corp. is based in Cambridge, Mass., and has evaluated government programs and provided consulting relating to drug abuse, crime, and public health.

Seattle Times, 19 Mar 2013 – Canadians Are Finding That Before They Can Enter Pot-Friendly Washington, Where Marijuana Is Now Legal for Recreational Use, They Must First Be Admitted into the Country by the U.S. Government, Which Still Outlaws the Drug. Perhaps nowhere is the disconnect between state and federal marijuana laws more evident than on the nation’s northern border.

Seattle Times, 19 Mar 2013 – Marijuana Law the Firm Will Advise the State on Growers, Stores, Production, Packaging and Testing for the New Legal Pot Industry. Washington has tentatively chosen a Massachusetts-based firm led by a professor at the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), to be its official marijuana consultant.

The Stranger, 20 Mar 2013 – Is Legalization Actually Driving More Kids to Use Pot? A news article that went national last week sensationally spun the results of a drug-use survey to imply that Washington State students may be smoking more pot due to the state’s new legalization law. But it turns out that pot use isn’t up. It’s steady, even down a little bit.