News Nuggets (Washington)

Proposed garden ban riles Kent residents

Dozens of residents and medical cannabis activists jammed Kent City Hall last month to register their anger over a proposed ban on marijuana gardens.

Backyard medical marijuana gardens are legal in Washington under state law, but the Kent City Council is considering an ordinance that would prohibit them anyway. That prompted about 30 people, many of them medical cannabis patients, to speak out against the measure at a meeting of the city’s Economic and Community Development Committee, where the matter was being considered. Several patients told committee members the ban would threaten their health and force them to seek their medicine on the black market.

Not persuaded, the committee voted 3-2 to pass the proposal on to the City Council, which is expected to decide the issue as early as later this month.

16 state lawmakers endorse legalization initiative

Sixteen legislators—all Democrats—from across Washington State have declared their support of Initiative 502, the ballot measure that would legalize, tax and regulate cannabis for recreational use.

If approved in November, I-502 would lift state sanctions on cannabis possession and use by adults, and would direct the state to set up a licensing and regulatory system for pot cultivation and sales. State analysts have said the move could generate as much as $560 million a year in new revenue annually.

The proposed law has stirred divisions among cannabis activists, some of who are turned off by a provision in I-502 that would impose stiff penalties on anyone found driving with cannabis in their system.

Walmart apologizes for snake in the grass grower

Walmart has apologized to a medical cannabis grower who was bitten by a rattlesnake while in the garden section of the retail giant’s Clarkston store.

According to press reports, Mike Craig, who has a state-issued license to grow medical pot, was reaching through bags of mulch when the snake reared up and sunk its fangs in his right hand, according to press reports. Craig, who told reporters he killed the reptile by doing “a tap dance on it,” was treated with anti-venom at a local hospital and released.

A Walmart spokesperson told Reuters the attack apparently was an isolated incident.